EO Series: What is an essential oil?

EOs come from plants!

If you read anything at all about living "naturally" whether it's cleaning, medicinal, etc., you've probably heard about essential oils (a.k.a. EOs). They are wonderful and amazing, but just because they're "pure" and "natural" doesn't mean they're 100% safe. Not everything in nature is safe, right? Think thorny bushes, cactus, and a multitude of poisonous plants! Even though these cute little bottles with beautiful labels and aromas appear safe, they're very concentrated forms of plants. I could probably have an ongoing series on this topic alone, and perhaps it will turn into that, so DON'T go out and buy some EOs today unless you've already done some extensive research about it. If you want to go do more research now, check out Learning about EOs.
What makes it an essential oil?
Essential oils are made from plants, it could be from any part of a plant, too--the flower, leaves, stem, roots, or a combination of any any of those things. In fact, different parts of a plant can be more or less helpful with a particular thing you're treating. So you'll want to be sure the place you purchase EOs from labels the part of the plant the oil is from. However, only one part of some plants are useful to make into an essential oil.

An essential oil should be made completely of an extracted plant and have no additives or fillers. You can find out if this is true of an EO you want to purchase by looking at its GC/MS test certificate. Every essential oil should be tested in a lab, preferably one outside the vendor, for its chemical makeup. The test certificate has extensive information about this on it. For example, if you look up the recommended chemical composition of tea tree oil or melaluca, you should find ranges for all the things that should be in it and compare those ranges to the oil you want to purchase. This will also help you discern if the oil you want to buy will be weaker or stronger in its potency.

You can request a GC/MS certificate for the EO you want to purchase from the company or look for it on their website. Plant Therapy provides PDFs of these for all their EOs right on its website at the bottom of the page for each oil. This wouldn't apply to synergy blends though, which are a mixture of several EOs. Eden's Garden will also readily supply these certificates for any of their oils by email upon request.

Why do I have to do all the work to figure out if an EO is good quality?
Currently, there are no regulated standards for EOs. Although, due to their growing popularity, I'm guessing some will be set in place! Companies have abused labels like "therapeutic grade" or "100% pure" to gain customers' trust without support for their claims. There's no such thing as "therapeutic grade" as much as someone might want to tell you. All EOs of good quality should be able to be used for therapeutic purposes. Thus, for now, the consumer has to do the leg work to find out if what's in a bottle of EO is really what it claims to be. If a company won't offer you certificates to look at, I wouldn't buy from it. For more information on testing EOs and this subject, refer to the 3rd Party Testing page on the Learning about EOs site.

How are essential oils made?
There are three ways to get a pure essential oil from a plant. First and most common is steam distillation which "involves steaming the plant matter of choice for a determined amount of time, under a specific pressure, and at a certain temperature so as to release the oil" (Harris, Lea. "Essential Oil Extraction Methods").

The second method uses CO2 in the same way steam distillation does. According to Lea Harris this method "provides a different, more pleasant, aroma than you would get from steam distillation, and is often the preferred method of extraction" ("Essential Oil Extraction Methods").

The third method is for citrus EOs involving cold-pressing, which is basically mashing the fruit's rinds in cold water. The water is separated from the oil for collection

There's a fourth way EOs can be extracted using a solvent, but some of the solvent is left behind in the EO and is, or should be, marked as an "absolute" which means it isn't a 100% pure EO. It can still be of good quality and useful though.

What have you read or heard about EOs? What questions do you have about them? Have you used them before and in what way?