Essential oils

Essential oils can highly contribute to life quality

The quest for enhanced wellness by using flavoursome plants is as old as mankind. Also, the application of aromatic plant compounds in medicine has a 5,000 years old history. Our knowledge today has been passed on from Arabs and Greek healers over the centuries. Today, essential oils go through a true renaissance. They are used in fragrance lamps and in medicine; also they are part of certain therapies.

The sense of smell is one of the six human senses and equals hearing and seeing. While the medical effects of scents have not been founded scientifically to a large extend yet, their impact on human beings is undoubted. Just think about how you associate positive feelings with certain smells: the scent of coffee in the morning that guides you to the kitchen, a fresh spring breeze that comes through the window or the resinous smell of burning softwood. Smells can definitely enhance wellness.

Essential oils are the plant's soul

Essential oils can be found in any life situation. Everyone knows the effect of a freshly cut onion. The cause of the flow of tears are essential oils of the onion, which were used in traditional medicine to treat common cold.

For centuries essential oils have been used to generate certain effects like relaxation, cheering up, refreshment, calming, excitement, spoiling - nearly every need finds its suitable plant and so its suitable essential oil. Essential oils are the plant's personality, its energy and its soul. Knowledge of plants and their effects can be used to generate the required effects.

Essential oil - all-natural, natural or nature identical?

The most crucial foundations of essential oil's effectiveness are quality and purity. The production of high quality, all-natural oils is most demanding, which explains also why a very small quantum of these valuable substances may be quite expensive. Adding of other substances can therefore become a profitable source of income. The word „essence“ originates from the Greek word „ousia“ which means „basic element of anything“, which unfortunately does not imply any grades of quality. This means in practice that a fluid sold under the label „essential oil“ can either be a completely all-natural one or a synthetic product. Furthermore, it is nearly impossible to distinguish an all-natural oil from a synthetic one just by their smells.

• All-natural oils are made from the origin plant or its parts. All ingredients and their natural ratio remain therefore unchanged. All-natural oils are exclusively made from its namesake plant.
• 100% natural oils are mixtures of different all-natural oils. A high quality all-natural oil can be mixed with one or more others. These mixtures do not contain any synthetic additives. These oils are called natural oils.
• Nature identical oils are synthetic oils, having the identical chemical build-up as the ones from the plant. Nature identical oils smell like their natural equivalents, but contain on average noticeably less ingredients.
• Synthetic oils do not have a direct counterpart in nature in terms of ingredients, but are chemically purpose-built and mixed. Often they are called „fragrance oils“, „scented oils“ or „scent oils“ and are typically less expensive. Scents like „lilac“ or „green apple“ are always synthetic.

Abbreviations related to essential oils

Often one comes across abbreviations like g&a, N/NI, DAB or EuAB. In general, nothing is camouflaged by these codes. The labels on the flasks are just too small to carry more information. But still one should know what exactly is being bought. The code g&a means genuine and authentic. Authentic again means that the essential oil was exclusively made from the stated source plant. Genuine means that the essential oil is kept in its natural state and was not altered after extraction. N/NI again labels a mixture of a pure-natural oil with synthetic additives - or natural/nature identical (N/NI). The label DAB (or „nach DAB“, meaning Deutsches Arzneimittelbuch) or EuAB (or „nach EuAB“, meaning „Europäisches Arzneimittelbuch“) again is not very significant in terms of vegetable pureness, as synthetic oils can be mixed in without difficulties.

What one should known when buying essential oils

When in the selection process for a essential oil, one can come across quite imaginative labelling, which make it difficult to distinguish high quality from lesser quality. One should therefore spend some time for reading the label. A high amount of information raises the probability that the quality of the oil is high in fact. The product description „real essential oil“ does not tell anything about pureness, contents or quality. In contrast, „100 percent pure essential oil“ ensures you to receive the highest quality. The following information is important for judging essential oil's quality:

The cultivation of the plants

The cultivation method of the plants has a significant influence on the quality of them and therefore on the quality of the essential oil. There are three possibilities: conventional (konv.) from German „konventionell“, controlled organic farming (kbA), from German „kontrolliert biologischer Anbau“ or collection in the wild (WS) from German „Wildsammlung“. In conventional farming fertilisers and pesticides are systematically used to increase earnings. Residues are here unavoidable. The usage of chemical aids is just forbidden in controlled organic farming. Even stricter than the regulations of EC's organic farming law are the requirements of organic farming organisations like Demeter, bioland or Naturland. Therefore, products of these organisations are marketed separately with their respective logos.

Very good choices of essential oils are the ones whose plants were collected in the wild. This is especially true for plants that can not be cultivated as they crow very slowly or only in a very special habitat. These plants are collected in their naturally wild environment. Plants collected in the wild are free from contamination from conscious use of fertilisers, insecticides and others. But above all, they grow in a natural environment amongst other plants. In such an environment the plants are able to build up an optimal and effective essential oil.

Origin of the plant

The regional origin is one more significant indicator for the quality of ingredients and agents of the processed plants. Therefore, the price of essential oils fro the same plant can vary just with different origins. Most contributing to this are not costs of labour during harvest and processing, but the quality of the essential oil. In the best case, the plant is cultivated in an area where it can be naturally found growing wildly. These growing areas show the best prerequisites for the development of the plant. The result of the perfect combination of best soil conditions, ideal climatic conditions and diverse flora and fauna in the habitat are essential oils of the highest quality.

The extraction of the essential oil

Also the information about the extraction and processing of an essential oil is coming in abbreviations: WD stands for the German „Wasserdampfdestillation“ or steam distillation, KP for „Kaltpressung“ or cold pressing and EX for „Extraktion“ or extraction. During steam distillation the plants are put in layers into boilers in which hot steam is streaming. The steam dissolves the essential oil from the plants and carries it along. By condensation in a cold tube and a following cool-down, oil and water are separated. Citrus oils are extracted by cold pressing. The peels of the fruits are just pressed. It is possible, that minimal parts of the peel will make it into the distilled product. These particles will sediment to the bottom of the flask. This is not a flaw, but an indicator for cold pressing, or in other words the high quality of extraction. Flower oils are mostly won by extraction. The plants are put into a solvent, which washes out all soluble aromatics. Afterwards, the solvent is distilled away. The generated wax-like mass is then extracted or distilled again. There are solvents that can be removed residue free, while this is not possible with others. Therefore, the used solvent should be stated on the label in any case.

Processed part of the plant

The different parts of a plant can show completely different substances of content and can therefore act completely different. So there are, for example, big differences between cinnamon rind and cinnamon leafs. Therefore, one should know prior to purchasing whether it is root, flower, bole or leaf.