Therapeutic Essential

Therapeutic Essential
Essential Oils?

For each of the following naturally occurring oils: Citronella ,eucalyptus,cinnamon leaf,nutmeg,clove,rose,jasmine,lavender

a.how easy is it to produce for each of them chemically as compared being extracted from natural sources?

b.how effective the chemically produced ones for each of them compared to the ones extracted naturally(i.e the medicinal/therapeutic/healing qualities).

c.Are there any harmful effects using the chemically produced ones?

d. in the market ,if one does not know the origin of a particular oil, how likely are each of them to be produced chemically as compared it to be the naturally?

e. apart from laboratory tests, are there any other way of distinguishing between the two? (Chemistry,aromatherapy)

This is a heck of a question, and I've got to ask why you want to know.

a) It is easy to create synthetic fragrances.

b) There is no comparison in efficacy. Synthetic oils have no place in aromatherapy. They are used in the food and fragrance industry where the consistent chemical signature is appreciated.

c) The only real concern that comes to mind when using synthetic fragrances is when ketones are a factor. Ketones are are chemicals in essential oils that are known to be toxic. Thujone is a ketone. Sage essential oil is high in Thujone and is not toxic. This suggests that at least with this essential oil, the sum is not equal to it's parts. If the chemical signature of an essential oil is replicated using pure chemicals, it does not totally and accurately replicate the naturally occuring product.

d) I don't think I understand this question completely. Let me say that every distiller knows very well where the plant material came from. There are plenty of distillers that just can't grow all of the biomass that they distill. Additionally, Peppermint and Ylang require very different climates, they are not going to be grown at the same location. I think that you may be asking how well you can trust the claims of place of origin of the plant material. That really depends on how well you know them, the references you are able to get, the quality of the samples they provide. There are huge, well run, well known distilleries producing oil that is not very remarkable and there are tiny family distilleries in third world countries that make their own shipping containers out of scrap that are producing the most amazing oils.

e) Laboratory tests will reveal the chemical signature as well as trace components that should or shouldn't be there, depending on the alleged quality, origin and growing tests. The other test is the nose! I can tell you that synthetics can be detected by an individual with an educated nose.

Whew...that was fun to answer.