Monthly Archives: May 2015

Verifying Genuine Essential Oils at Home

testing essential oils All it takes is some simple math regarding the essential oil industry to realize that a large portion of essential oils in the marketplace are not genuine essential oils (reports of 25% – 40% of essential oils may be adulterated, diluted, or outright fake). Something you get when you buy from EOX is not only great customer service and a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee, but a Certificate of Analysis with every essential oil we offer through EOX. Just go to any individual essential oil or essential oil blend, and you’ll find the certificate as a clickable link to a PDF file.

Having said that, I want to empower you, the consumer, the enthusiast, the manufacturer, the practitioner or aromatherapist to make informed choices regarding your essential oil purchases. The better informed you are, the better you can appreciate the quality of the essential oils found on EOX. It’s a “win win” for everyone!

It’s amazing to see how quickly a single news article spreads these days, and for the past 2 years, I’ve seen countless articles with this exact message; “The only valid test available for essential oils is GC/MS, which is Gas Chromatography/ Mass Spectroscopy.”

I sincerely couldn’t disagree more. There is an extremely valid test for genuine essential oils and that is our 5 senses. In the Western world, we’ve been taught to dismiss and ignore much of our sensory and intuitive input. But we are an integral part of nature, and nature is an integral part of us. Part of reclaiming that connection is by trusting what our senses and intuition is telling us.

Now, before I go into the methods of testing our essential oils at home, let’s first discuss the common methods by which essential oils are adulterated or faked.

Typical Adulterations

There are several typical methods of producing an adulterated essential oil. Some fragrance oils are quite remarkably similar to natural plant essences, but a good nose and intuition can sense the false fragrance surprisingly well. In fact, on March 20, 2014, researchers discovered that the human nose has roughly 400 types of scent receptors that can detect at least 1 trillion different odors (1). That is vastly beyond the previous estimate of just 10,000 scents. That is a powerful sense we have at our disposal naturally!

So, typical adulterations are:

Fragrance oils – typically blended with a carrier oil, such as grapeseed oil, since grapeseed is the most neutral smelling of all oils. Fragrance oils are inexpensive to produce, and are always synthetic. Most don’t have a single plant essence in them, and will not have any of the effects that a genuine essential oil will have.
Diluted essential oils – basically essential oils that have been “cut” with a neutral oil such as grapeseed oil or other carrier oil. Diluted essential oils, depending on the level of dilution, can be difficult to detect as well, although most carrier oils will have some color to them. This color will carry into the diluted oil.
Oil infusions – a common “kitchen” method of making an oil. Take a carrier oil such as grapeseed, add fresh herbs or flowers, boil for 6 hours, and strain. These often look and smell like an essential oil, but rarely have anywhere near the clarity of a true essential oil.

Now, depending on the quality of the essential oil in question, it can be difficult to test at home, but certainly not impossible. Below is a list of tests you can do without a Gas Chromatography unit whenever you are suspicious of the quality of your essential oil:

TRUST YOUR SENSES: The greatest detector of genuine essential oils is our senses and our intuition. We’ve been taught from a very young age to distrust our intuition, to disregard our connection to the plant world, and to feel self-conscious when we speak of feeling such a powerful and varied range of emotional responses from scents. Take a few drops of your essential oil and place into a clean, clear glass. Look at how the oil leaves the dropper:
- Did it look and feel like an oil? Was it watery at all?
- Did it remain in the shape of a half-moon or did it immediately disperse in the bottom of the glass? Tilt the glass and see if the oil runs like water, or is resistant to movement like you would expect an oil to be.
- Does it look and smell as you expected it to?
- Does it smell natural, organic, and exactly like a plant or flower?
- Touch the oil and rub it between your fingers. It should feel thick, viscous, and just as you would expect an oil to feel. For minty oils, you should feel a tangible cooling sensation, and so on.
USE WHITE PAPER: A great way to check the purity of an essential oil is to examine it visually. This requires a small, clear vial to place some of the oil in question into, a bright light that can be focused on the oil, and as bright white of paper as you can find. Place some of the oil into the clear vial, and place it in front of the white paper. Shine the bright light onto it and examine.
- Does the oil look clear?
- Is there anything suspended in the oil?
- Does the oil appear to be a single material inside the vial, or do you see waves, much like heat rising off the hot pavement in summertime?
- Is there any separation whatsoever in the oil or any thin layer floating at the top of the oil?
LET IT SIT OUT: Genuine essential oils will not evaporate overnight like a few drops of alcohol or water will. Those few drops you placed in the bottom of the glass should be there the next morning, most-likely still possessing a scent, albeit a less intense scent for those oils with a Top Note as their main characteristic.
FREEZE YOUR OIL: Freezing your essential oil will not harm it, but if it’s been diluted with a carrier oil such as a vegetable oil, it will separate from the essential oil. Also, if there’s water in your essential oil, it will freeze and separate as well. Alcohol doesn’t freeze, but it may separate from the essential oil in the freezer as well.
COMPARE PAST OILS: I always keep a reference sample of a previous essential oil purchase for at least 6 months, in a sealed glass container, away from light, and refrigerated. This way, I can reliably compare essential oils from batch to batch. And, contrary to what you might initially think; if your essential oil is exactly the same consistency and scent, from order to order, this may actually be a bad thing! Mother Nature is infinitely variable, and plants will vary from harvest to harvest, location to location. A genuine essential oil will likely smell differently from batch to batch, and can be a great indicator of an oil that is genuine.
CHECK THE LOT NUMBER: This is not always possible, but even essential oils should have a lot number for traceability. Keep a journal of lot numbers for your essential oils when you purchase them, and compare when you purchase again. If the same lot number is on your bottle for a purchase a year later, you know that the essential oil you purchased is at least a year old. If the oil seems exactly the same as the oil you had, it may indicate that there are synthetics in the oil, as most essential oils, even when properly stored, will lose some of their initial strength and character.
INTENDED EFFECTS: I saved this one for last because once we throw all the data way, once we stop focusing on numbers and oil separation and lot numbers and comparisons, we need to ask ourselves the most key question: Did the essential oil have the effects I was expecting? Adulterated and counterfeit essential oils will never have the intended effect because they do not contain the concentrated plant essences that are responsible for the various effects eo’s have on our mind and body.

Again, the use of essential oils is an art that is in perfect harmony with our senses. They are abundant with natural energy and it’s easy to feel a connection to genuine, natural products such as the high quality, guaranteed authentic oils that we only offer here at EOX. I may sound like a broken record, but learning to trust your senses and your intuition when it comes to essential oils is one of the most powerful means you have at your disposal.

And, perhaps worst of all, is if you are using adulterated or outright fake essential oils, as mentioned above, they will not have the therapeutic effects you’re looking for, and everyone loses. Essential oils are incredibly concentrated bursts of plant energy, with effects that are far beyond placebo effects. Anyone who has experienced the powerful healing, soothing, and numerous other positive effects of essential oils will know what that connection feels like. Trust that connection that only genuine essential oils can provide. Trust the results of proper application and use of essential oils can bring. Trust yourself and your observations regarding that specific oil. Sit with it. Contemplate it. Smell it. Play with the oil by warming it, adding it to a candle wick, placing it in a sachet that you place under your pillow, and so on.

Have fun. Experiment. Connect.

Lastly, it’s clichè to ask for comments from readers, but I would be very interested to hear any other methods people have discovered to help identify and verify the authenticity of their essential oils. After all, EOX is intended to be a co-op, powered by you, and we’re thankful for all of the input we receive daily here at Essential Oil Exchange.

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REFERENCES:

Williams, Sarah CP. “Human Nose Can Detect a Trillion Smells.” ScienceMag.com. N.p., 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 12 May 2015.

Art & Music of Blending Essential Oils

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music-of-essential-oils One of the most fun jobs I’ve ever had is as a formulator. Blending raw ingredients to make genuine herbal products to find that perfect scent or healing blend actually enriches our space or helps ourselves or others; it never gets old and I doubt it ever will. There truly is an art and a music to the craft of pairing and blending essential oils. But the basics are not that difficult to pick up and master.

The Music of Essential Oils

A love of scents and herbs is really the first requirement of becoming an effective and creative formulator. There is an art and a craft to blending essential oils, one that is not too dissimilar to mastering any creative skill. Even if you think you don’t have a lot of creative bones in your body, passion for scents is just about all you truly need to get started in essential oil blending. And, the more you practice, the more you study about scents and blends, and the more you exchange ideas with those who have a similar interest, as well as share your blends and ask for feedback; the better you will become at blending.

And, for me, the most important rule I follow when starting a new blend, is to have a vividly clear mental picture of what I want the blend to do. Knowing exactly the purpose of the blend will instantly make you a much better formulator from the start. So, even if you think that you might want to make a formula based on lavender to help you sleep, think about the bigger picture, such as whether you just need something that helps induce sleep, or if you need an essential oil that is known to calm the mind as well.

If you need to help calm your mind, you might want to consider adding calming oils such as rosemary, sweet marjoram or Roman chamomile to your blend. Or, perhaps you have some pain, which is why you have difficulty falling asleep. You may want to include sweet marjoram, citronella, or basil essential oil.

And, from a cursory look, it seems that sweet marjoram might be a great choice for either blend, which, to me, seems like a great place to start. Now, a consideration is that lavender, chamomile, and marjoram are all “Middle Note” oils (explained below). So, you may want to find an oil that is a top note to help balance those middle notes out — you get the idea, yes?

So, having a clear idea of your intent will go a long way towards blends almost formulating themselves! It’s all about fun and health and healing and energizing our spaces, minds, and bodies, so don’t forget to have fun!

Okay, back to the technical stuff: In technical terms, essential oils are typically categorized in terms of musical notes. Most individual essential oils have a main note. Oils can have 2, or even all 3, but most aromatherapists agree that EO’s typically have one note that dominates. Here are the 3 Main Notes:

TOP NOTE: As you gather the INITIAL “Big Picture” of an essential oil, as you approach it and observe it from a distance, gathering your first impressions of an essential oil, all of this is referred to as the “top note” of the essential oil. Often, the Top Note can be fleeting; it can be what first hits your nose and then dissipates. If you think of this as the “spirit” of the note, you would have a good analogy to begin from.

MIDDLE NOTE: The middle note can be thought of as the main “body” of the note. It’s also often referred to as the “heart” of the essential oil. These notes typically last longer than Top Notes. On a test strip, the Middle Note scent will remain furtive for at least 1-2 hours, sometimes longer. Middle notes are key when working with aromatherapy blends that will be used in oil warmers or vaporizers.

BASE/LOW NOTE: These are just as you would think; they’re the foundation of an essential oil’s scent, often appearing after the Middle Note dissipates in an hour or two. If an oil is left out all day, or placed into something such as a scented sleep pillow, this is the essence of the scent that will linger for hours and often, for days. For items like bath and body products such as soaps and body washes, these are the scents that allow the scent to remain when products are made exclusively of essential oils.

And this might be a good time to mention fragrance oils: Fragrance oils consist of mostly synthetic scents intended to mimic natural scents as best they can. The downside to fragrance oils is that they are artificial, carrying no genuine scent or essences from the living plant.

The Balance of Essential Oils

Another key tool in your beginning toolbox is understanding the inherent strength and concentration of individual essential oils. The best way to learn this, I feel, is to dig right in with a few droppers and testing trays (which can be anything made of glass that you have around the house).

Take the oils you plan to work with, let’s say that you’re going to make a relaxing evening blend of oils to help melt the stress of your day away, but you don’t want to get too relaxed. One of my favorite blends is lavender, sandalwood, and peppermint.

Lavender is renowned for promoting a sense of calm and relaxation. When used in meditation, it promotes feelings of clarity and may help intensify intuition. Lavender is also often used because it is known for helping to ease feelings of anger or frustration. Sandalwood is lesser known as a powerful relaxant and stress reducer, partly because it is most-often associated with meditation because it helps support feelings of peace and inner tranquility. Sandalwood, like lavender, is also known to intensify intuition.

So far, we’ve got two powerful relaxers that are also known for their ability to help calm and clarify the mind. But, if we’ve got stuff we still need to accomplish, perhaps a dash of energy would be appropriate, which is why the unlikely choice of peppermint. Peppermint is one of those sneaky scents that are widely used in aromatherapy blends without most people realizing. Peppermint, when used sparingly, will change the overall characteristic of the blend without making it minty.

In aromatherapy, peppermint is known for its aphrodisiac effects! That can be a potent energy booster when carefully added to a blend. But, it’s also used because it promotes a calm mind and sharper mental focus. I’ve also found it to be a perfect accompaniment to both meditation blends and relaxation blends.

But, peppermint can be extremely overbearing in blends, and this is where the balance of essential oils is key to our understanding of making effective blends. If we simply added 10 drops of each oil to our relaxation blend, it would end up smelling like peppermint and little else. What would likely be more effective and balanced for this blend, is 10 drops of lavender, 5 drops of sandalwood, and 1 drop of peppermint.

Sandalwood is quite expensive and quite rare these days, but it’s also a potent scent. Even though we’re using varying amounts of each oil, when we blend the oils together and diffuse the scent into the air or add it to a relaxing massage oil, we find that it is a perfect balance of the 3 scents, almost creating a new single scent with very noticeable effects.

Trust Your Intuition

Remember to have fun and to rely on your senses, rather than endless charts and books and guides on how to blend essential oils. Know what each oil does, and then experiment, explore, and discover the inner formulator you didn’t know was there, inside each one of us.

When you blend your first two oils together, take time to inhale the new aroma. Take a break. Come back to it in a few minutes. Make a test blend of perhaps 30 drops total, placing a few drops in a vaporizer or oil warmer. Place a few drops on a piece of paper. Notice what the scent is like just after blending, and then in 5 minutes, and 30 minutes from your initial blend.

You will be surprised at the things you will notice. And, you may find parings that create a new, almost single scent that you may then use as a base for other blends. Peppermint, for example, dissipates quite quickly. When we smell the drops we placed on paper in 30 minutes, it will have a scent of lavender with some notes of sandalwood, as the peppermint will have dissipated.

Aromatherapy is a powerful means of altering our moods and emotions, and is not new age mumbo jumbo. Aromatherapy also dates back to ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian times. Scents can activate memories, stir up latent or deeply buried emotions, and can have very tangible effects on both our bodies and minds. And, one of my favorite things about essential oils is that they provide us with a direct connection to Mother Nature and our origins.

So, be mindful of these connections while you’re formulating and pairing, and you will be a better formulator. Take the knowledge embedded into our genetic coding, and feel the connection to the plants and your states of mind.

Some Basic Mechanics

01. HOW MUCH OIL?: This is perhaps the most-often asked question I get at EOX and at Florapathics. As a general rule of thumb, formulators use between 25-30 drops of essential oil per 1/2 ounce of carrier oil for their blends.

02. HOW TO BALANCE?: Lighter, thinner oils are typically more aromatic (more volatile) than heavier oils that pour from their containers more slowly. It’s important to craft blends that use both yin and yang; a lighter note with a heavier note to balance the blend. This is not a had and fast rule, but when starting out, your blends will be more complex and more appreciated by your mind and body when they are balanced.

03. HOW TO STORE?: As you might suspect, it’s best to keep essential oils out of sunlight. Amber bottles are best for essential oils, with at least a small amount of air space so the oil can breathe without oxidizing. Even the best storage techniques, away from any light and direct heat source, oils will lose some of their original brilliance and clarity within 6-9 months. I have oils on the shelf from 2 years ago, and they are still quite scented, but they definitely have lost some noticeable character. So, blend in small batches and waste as little oil as possible.

04. LESS IS MORE: Always start out conservative with essential oils. Look for any precautionary statements regarding how much an oil needs to be diluted for safety. Some oils can easily irritate skin when used at full strength, so always conduct a test by applying a drop of the oil you plan to use to the underside of your forearm, or on your upper thigh if you’ve got shorts or a skirt on.

05. USE GLASS EVERYTHING: Metals can react with essential oils, so it’s best to never use any metal anywhere in the process of working with essential oils. This means no steel spoons to stir your blends, no steel containers to hold them, and no steel pans or whisks or blades or anything metal to come in contact with your oil. Glass stir rods are easy to find, as are glass bottles.

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TABLE OF ESSENTIAL OIL NOTES

Please know that this table is simply a starting point for you. These category assignments are not hard and fast rules; they are just what’s been generally agreed upon by experts in the field of aromas. Most oils have a single category, but some do ease into a second one. For those, there is a “+” sign.

Top Notes	Middle notes	Base notes
Basil (+ Middle)	Bay	Balsam Peru
Bergamot (+ Middle)	Black Pepper	Cassia (+ Middle)
Cajuput	Cardamom	Cedarwood
Cinnamon	Chamomile	Cinnamon (+ Middle)
Clary Sage (+ Middle)	Cypress	Clove
Coriander (+ Middle)	Fennel (+ Top)	Frankincense
Eucalyptus	Geranium	Ginger (+ Middle)
Grapefruit	Ho Leaf	Jasmine
Hyssop (+ Middle)	Ho Wood	Myrrh
Lemon	Hyssop (+ Top)	Neroli (+ Top)
Lemongrass (+ Middle)	Juniper	Oakmoss
Lime	Lavender (+ Top)	Patchouli
Mandarin /Tangerine	Marjoram	Rose
Neroli (+ Middle)	Melissa (+ Top)	Rosewood (+ Middle)
Verbena	Myrtle	Sandalwood
Niaouli	Nutmeg	Valerian
Orange	Palma Rosa	Vanilla
Peppermint	Pine	Vetiver
Petitgrain	Rosemary	Ylang Ylang (+ Middle)
Ravensara	Spikenard
Sage	Yarrow
Spearmint
Tagetes
Tangerine
Tea Tree (+ Middle)
Thyme (+ Middle)

Use this table as a general reference when beginning, but I encourage you to create your own chart. As Buddha said; “Until you make my teachings your own, you will have learned nothing.” This could be applied to the creation of your own chart of essential oils. Experiment. Trust what your senses are telling you. And most of all; have fun!

Lastly, all opinions expressed on this blog and website are my own, formed through decades of personal and commercial experience with herbs. This article is for informational purposes only and the information contained within is not intended to treat, diagnose, cure, or prevent disease. Always consult your primary care physician or other health or mental health care professional before making any decisions that may affect your health and well-being.