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What are essential oils and why are they so special?

Essential Oils are the life blood of the plant world. They have a similar biochemistry to human blood - oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc. They perform very similar functions: remove waste, transport food, and oxygenate cells. They also raise frequency. Essential oils have been shown to stimulate the immune system and help the body balance itself for optimal health. Essential oils kill virus, bacteria, molds, fungus and parasites.

The Essential Oil Desk Reference defines essential oils: "Essential oils are aromatic volatile liquids distilled from shrubs, flowers, trees, roots, bushes, and seeds.” Vegetable oils can become oxidized and rancid over time and are not antibacterial. Essential oils on the other hand cannot go rancid and are powerful antimicrobials. They are chemically very complex, consisting of hundreds of different chemical compounds. Moreover, they are highly concentrated and far more potent than dried herbs. The distillation process is what makes essential oils so concentrated. It often requires an entire plant or more to produce a single drop of distilled essential oil.

Essential oils are also different from vegetable oils, such as corn oil, peanut oil, and olive oil. They are not greasy and do not clog the pores like many vegetable oils can."

In the US, essential oils are governed by the perfume act. That means a label can say 100% essential oil, but by law only has to have a small amount of plant material in it. The rest of the bottle can be filled with all kinds of chemical fillers. A common one is propylene glycol - commonly known as anti-freeze. Perfume? Well, maybe. But medicinal?  Definitely not in my book.

It takes great knowledge and skill in many specialties to cultivate and produce true medical grade essential oils. Medical grade essential oils, for therapeutic application, are so designed by ISO (International Standards Organization) and AFNOR, a French standards and certifying agency.

Vicki Opfer, an international lecturer on essential oils, describes some of the processes and considerations at the Young Living herb farms and essential oil distillery in Utah. Young Living is the largest, internationally certified medical grade pure oils grower, distiller and distributor in the world.

Vick writes: A GC is a gas chromatograph. It measures what an essential oil has in it, and in what quantities. Since there are over 70,000 different kinds of molecules in plant oils, some are still unknown to us. However, with a GC, dilution and other forms of adulteration can usually be identified. It's not fool proof, but it is the best tool that we have available to us today, especially when used in conjunction with a masspectrometer, which is another type of equipment used to test oils.

All Young Living oils are quarantined until they have been thoroughly tested. If there are any discrepancies, they are sent out to other labs to be tested again. Because of Gary Young's (the founder and President) commitment to purity, our oils actually have a very complex testing process that they go through. To my knowledge, there is no other company testing their oils as stringently.

The problem is that even if an essential oil is pure, it may not contain the ingredients that make up an essential oil. For example, the standard process, in the industry, for distilling oils may include high temperature and high pressure during distillation, to maximize yield. The plant may have lain in the field for a long time before it is processed. It may be distilled in an aluminum distiller, or chlorinated water might be used. The plants might be laden with petrochemicals like pesticides or fertilizer. If so, during distillation, the chemicals may adversely affect the oil. A hybrid of the plant may be grown, which may not contain the desired molecules. The plant can be harvested at the wrong time in its growth process. Any of these factors can be present, and yet, a manufacturer can still call their oil, "pure". Do you see? This is why distillation is as much of an art as it is a science. Do you think the typical company cares about all of these details? I don't think so. They're looking for "pure" oils that they can buy cheap. Gary Young cares, he cares a great deal.

Young Living goes to great lengths to grow the plants that will provide us with what we want in an essential oil. Gary Young is very specific about the soil that the plants are grown in, the plants are monitored during growth, and watched carefully to harvest at the optimum time so all the compounds are intact.