Aromatherapy is the use of natural essential oils from aromatic plants for therapeutic purposes. It includes simply smelling the oils, but also other applications.

What are Essential Oils?
Essential oils are the volatile oils that are produced by aromatic plants. They are the quintessential expression of the plant. Imagine the growing season; the sunshine, rain, wind, soil and environment all combine to produce the oil in the plant.

How are Essential Oils Produced?
Ideally, aromatic plants are harvested when the essential oil is at its peak concentration in the flower, leaves, root, or peel depending upon where the plant stores its oil. After cleaning and sorting, the aromatic plant material is loaded into a still for the steam distillation process. Water is heated and rises through the plant material, helping to evaporate the essential oils that are carried out with the steam. As the steam condenses, the oil and water naturally separate. Typically, the oil floats and is skimmed off the surface of the water.

What makes the difference in quality?

Medicinal quality essential oils are more than pure. Just because an essential oil is 100% pure doesn't mean it is meant for Aromatherapy. The truth is that purity is a relatively easy standard to meet, but the quality of pure essential oils depends on the following factors.

The Soil
Plants grow best with an optimum pH balance and the right nutrients in the soil. The optimum soil mix is preferably attained through organic methods, but, commercially, is attained through chemical fertilizing methods.

The Seed
Seeds are harvested from plants. If a plant has a history of producing excellent, vigorous plants with good yield, those seeds will be preferred. Commercially produced seeds are subjected to chemical fertilizing and pesticides, if not the seeds themselves, the plants that produce them.

The Growth
Plants must be protected from weeds, pests and disease. Rather than using chemical pesticides, the introduction of friendly insects, or birds, can be used to reduce the population of harmful insects

Disease resistance can be improved by meeting the nutrient needs of each plant. Weeding may be done by hand to avoid the use of herbicides.

The Harvest
Each plant has a peak time for harvest within the season, but is also particular to the time of day. The rose, for optimum yield, must be harvested during the dawn, before the sun rises. As soon as the sun rises, the rose naturally releases its fragrance into the air. The yield resulting from distillation of such roses is significantly reduced. Careful oversight by an experienced grower helps ensure a good harvest.

The Preparation
Plants may be harvested by hand or by machine. For an exceptional quality oil, harvested plant material is inspected and sorted as the still is loaded. Any dead or foreign material, unwanted plants, or portions thereof, are removed so that only the premium material is loaded into the still. The importance of this step cannot be overrated. The juniper berry, for example, yields the finest and the safest oil; however, juniper needles have a higher yield. If a portion of the distillation includes needles, the yield will be much higher, resulting in a lower priced, but inferior oil.

The Distillation
Good distillation begins with good water from the earth and not from the tap. During distillation, temperature and pressure can be adjusted. High temperature and pressure are used commercially because the small loss of constituents from the heat does not outweigh the economic value of rapid distillation. Quality distillation requires a slower, lower temperature process that maintains the subtle and volatile components of the oil. The retention of the widest range of naturally occurring constituents fundamentally makes the difference between medicinal quality and commercial essential oils.

The Handling
After capturing the essential oil from steam distillation, commercial oils are often subjected to a standardization process. Essential oils have a worldwide market and are traded by the barrel commercially to large food and other manufacturers. These customers expect a consistent essential oil for their manufacturing process. They develop specifications for percentages of the main components that the suppliers must meet in order to make the sale. If a specification requires 42% linalol acetate in Lavender, for example, and the distillation produces 45%, then 3% is extracted and saved to be added to another batch whose linalol acetate is below 42%. Do you see how this oil is still 100% pure? Yet this standardization moves away from the natural state of the oil produced by the plant. When the oils are preserved in their natural state without standardization, they are referred to as “in-totum”. Medicinal quality essential oils are in-totum and while they may vary from batch to batch, they are presented as nature intended.

The Distribution
It is certainly important that no one in the chain of distribution adds any adulterants or diluents to the oils, but there are even more subtle factors that I believe can affect the quality of an essential oil. Essential oils have an uncanny intelligence to them. They have a manner of making their way into the hands of the right people. The best oils seem to engender personal growth in the people who come in contact with them. I have seen people who have a strong identity with their problems repel from the oils. Those who are ready to change are drawn to them.

It is profound to contemplate the amount of energy that essential oils represent.

Beginning from only a seed, the elemental forces of the sun, water, wind and earth develop and shape the plant through its growing season.

Space, time and effort is spent by those devoted to growing, harvesting and distillation. A large amount of aromatic plant material is required to produce a relatively tiny amount of oil.

Finally, the oils come from all over the planet to one location and are attainable by almost anyone. It is simply amazing!