How to Choose Essential Oils – Is there a difference in quality?
How to Choose Essential Oils –
Is there a difference in quality?
Everyone claims to have good quality. Companies need a good quality system where they inspect that quality procedures are followed throughout the entire manufacturing process, and they do extensive testing throughout to make sure essential oils are pure and meet exacting standards. Plants should be grown without pesticides and no chemicals should be added during the distilling process especially if you want to ingest the essential oils or put them on your skin. Only pure, authentic therapeutic grade essential oils should be ingested and are designated for dietary use. by meeting FDA Standards.
Unregulated: essential oils, personal care products, and vitamins and supplements industries are not regulated
Quality Matters: 95% of essential oils that are sold are adulterated. They add chemicals to enhance the essential oils. Quality can be comprised for a variety of reasons:
The plant is grown in nutrient-poor soil and not harvested at the right time
Pesticides (typically toxic and containing hormone disrupters) are used
The company uses toxic chemicals to clean their distillation equipment
Plants are distilled more than once, resulting in a less effective oil
Plants are distilled at an increased temperature to decrease time it takes to get oil, but also decreasing the amounts of chemical constituents of the oil
Essential oils are not tested to see if they meet highest standards
Cypress has 280 known chemical constituents. If you want cypress to the job it is intended to do, you must get all 280 constituents. If it is distilled for 20 hours you only get 20 of the 280 properties. If distilled for 26 hours you get zero properties. The correct length of time for distilling cypress is 24 hours to get the full 280 properties, however, most cypress on the market is distilled for only 3 1/2 hours. Frankincense is another oil that is commonly adulterated. It is typically processed at a high temperature for a short time or cut with synthetics.
Types of Essential Oils:
Synthetic Oils- created in a lab
Extended or Altered Oils (fragrance grade)- used only for aroma and have minimal or undetectable of important plant compounds
Organic Oils- pass growing standards, but may not contain optimal levels of plant compounds because of improper distillation techniques
Therapeutic Grade Oils- pure essential oils, extracted from sustainably-raised plants, and contain optimal levels of natural plant compounds found in organic botanicals
Cheap, synthetic, diluted oils are potentially toxic. It is very important that you use only high quality essential oils from a trusted source.
Remember:
One of Fit to Live’s quality criteria was a company has to have a quality system in place to ensure their quality standards are being practiced. Just sending oils to a lab to be tested is not enough. Quality systems are just good manufacturing practice, but when I checked out essential oil companies, I was shocked to discover most of them did not have a good quality system in place. Companies should do on-site inspections of their vendors, sending batches to independent labs for testing, and verifying quality standards are being practices at every step of the essential oil process. Young Living was the only one I found who did this. They call their quality system Seed to Seal. They authenticate the seed and quality of cultivation. They also make sure their quality standards are followed for every step of the process; preparation, testing and bottling of the essential oil. They inspect their vendors and verify first-hand exactly where an oil came from and where and how it was distilled. This is why Fit to Live only recommends Young Living essential oils. Check out Seed to Seal, Young Living’s quality system. It’s impressive:
For more details on their quality system go to: https://www.youngliving.com/en_US/discover/seed-to-seal
To order Young Living, click here.
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