Origins of Essentital Oils

The Origins
of
Essential Oils

Learn about where Essential Oils come from and how they are extracted.

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Unlocking the essences from plant materials is not easily accomplished. Essential oil bearing plants typically contain only 3% volatile oil. Some plants, such as rose, contain far less. It can take up to 2,000 pounds of freshly picked rose blossoms to yield just one pound of essential oil. To separate these rare and volatile substances from nature, plants must be handled very carefully.

Plant material (flowers, stems, bark and leaves) must be harvested at exact growth stages, under certain weather conditions and even at specific times of the day. Most essential oils are removed from plants by steam distillation.

Fragrant plant material is placed in a large metal container known as the distillation chamber. Steam is introduced into the chamber and begins to break down the plant and vaporize the minute essential oil droplets it contains. The steam and vaporized essences pass from the chamber through cooling pipes which are often submerged in cold water to cause the steam/essence mixture to cool and condense into water and essential oil. The water and essential oil mixture empties into a third tank where the two substances seperate. The pure essential oil is the carefully siphoned away from the water.

Citrus oils are an exception. They are usually produced by the process of expression; the oil-containing outer layer of the fruit is pressed and filtered to yield pure essential oil. Citrus oils have the shortest shelf life of any essential oils because they haven't been subjected to the stabilizing effects of heat, therefore, they contain less stable substances present in the living plant material. Good quality, fresh citrus oils are readily recognized by their sweet, clean fresh peel aroma.

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