Best Essential Oils, Part I

September 21, 2009 in Antioxidant, Aromatherapy, Best Essential Oils, Chemicals / Toxic, Essential Oils, Massage Oils, Quality / Pure, Therapeutic-grade Essential Oil, Young Living Distributor by Shayla | No comments

gary-lavender-field-farmIn determining whether an essential oil brand is a good brand or not, one must take into account with careful consideration four areas of key importance. These four area’s are as follows: cultivation of the plant, the way the oils are extracted from the plant (processing), the purity of the oil, and the potency. It is important to realize that just because an oils smells like it is supposed to does not mean it has all the active ingredients for healing results. A therapeutic grade essential oil is one that meets a specific high standard of quality guidelines as established by the Association French Normalization Organization Regulation (AFNOR) and the International Standards Organization (ISO) standards. There are many oils that do not meet the standards as established by these organizations for various reasons. Oils that do not meet or exceed these standards ought never be used for healthful (therapeutic) purposes, and certainly never ingested.

To increase ones understanding of why it is important to use only therapeutic grade essential oils, we will elaborate on the four area’s of importance above, beginning with the way a plant is cultivated as that is the beginning of it all! First off, some oils are not created from organic plants. Whenever a plant (or food for that matter-although that is another in-depth subject) is grown with the use of pesticides/herbicides and such, the plant does not have to strengthen its very own defense system. Therefore, active ingredients in the plant that help it fight disease are not present in the same volumes as plants that have had to defend themselves. These ingredients (such as antioxidants) that help it defend itself, are the same ones that help you defend yourself when you use the plant. To compound negatives in the use of pesticides/herbicides, these chemicals do not just disappear once they are put on the plants. Essential oils are very condensed, which means the poisonous chemical traces left in the plants from cultivation are also going to be condensed! An intelligent person would never sit down to a meal with a side of glyphosate (active ingredient it Round-up), nor would they massage their bodies with Round-up, and yet we are doing this when we ingest/use plants/foods that are not grown organically. One would especially never try to heal them self with Round-up if they were sick, but yet again we do this very thing in a way when we use products that are not grown without dangerous chemicals. Perhaps it is evident now why essential oils and even foods used for healing be made from only organic plants.

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Another aspect of cultivation that is of crucial importance is the soil the plants are grown in. If a plant is grown in soil that is not nutrient dense, the plants the soil produces are not going to be nutrient dense. Sometimes they are lacking in key ingredients that are necessary for adequate results. For example, wildcrafted plants have been found to vary in chemical constituents vastly, even though they may be growing on the same mountainside. With proper cultivation, it is assured specific and key chemotypes (chemical ingredients) reach adequate levels.

Yet another area of importance in the cultivation of plants for therapeutic grade quality oils is the time of year a plant is harvested. Have you ever grown basil, and noticed that it tastes better and sweeter before it begins to blossom and seed? Peppermint is similar. It tastes better before the flowers begin to bloom on it. I use this example to show how chemicals change throughout a plants growing season, and active ingredients are higher at times verses others.  Thymol, a key healing ingredient in Thyme, may be high in the beginning of the growing season, but the longer the growing season is the more thymol it will acquire(2). Read Best Essential Oils Part II to learn about processing effects on essential oils!

More on Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils

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References;

  1. The Chemistry of Essential Oils by David Steward
  2. Essential Oils Desk Reference by Essential Science Publishing