Virtually all the essential oils sold in stores have additives. Therapeutic vs. Perfume grade can mean the difference between oils that heal and oils that are toxic.

In pure, natural form, essential oils are almost universally safe and harmless if used in small quantities. But what most people don’t know about aromatherapy may be hurting them: most oils sold in stores have been adulterated with chemicals that modify the aroma, bulk up the oils’ volume (making them less expensive), or disguise unwanted byproducts from plants not grown organically. These ingredients counter the beneficial aspects of the oils and often cause toxic reactions.

What Are Essential Oils?

Essentials oils are potent liquids pressed from plants. They have been used in healing and spiritual anointing since before written history. For more information, read Herbs and Essential Oils: A Comparison.

Does Quality Matter?

In a word: Yes!

The difference between perfume-grade and therapeutic-grade oils is like the difference between a child’s plastic toy steak and a sirloin served at an expensive restaurant.

Perfume-grade oils can be harmful, causing headaches, rashes, liver toxicity and allergic reactions. They are responsible for the mixed reputation of aromatherapy: people who believe essential oil therapies “don’t really work” or who use essential oils “only to smell good” have usually only been exposed to ineffective, artificial oils. These oils may also be highly toxic to animals – the origin of the rumor that oils may be poisonous to cats.

What Affects the Quality of an Essential Oil?

Everything that happens to a plant will be transferred into its essential oil:

• growing location
• growing season
• whether pesticides or herbicides were used (these chemicals will end up directly in the oil)
• time of year (and time of day) plants were harvested
• time between harvesting plants and distilling the oil
• type of pressing or distillation process
• pressure level during distillation
• temperature of distillation
• solvents used in distillation or pressing (which will also end up in the oil)

In distilling pure, therapeutic-grade oils, low pressure and temperature must be maintained to preserve key chemical constituents in the oil that would be damaged by heat. But higher temperature and pressure yield more oil volume – a temptation to unscrupulous essential oil producers. Oils produced at high temperatures don’t work as well for healing as therapeutic-grade oils.

Those who press their oils hotter or faster usually try to “improve” the fragrance of the oil with a chemical soup of synthesized esters and other components that smell like those in a better oil. But these ingredients do smell different to the experienced nose, and they don’t heal.

What’s Left Off of Labels

1. Essential oils are considered neither food or drugs, so legislation in the United States around their sale and labeling is very lax. An oil may be labeled “100% pure organic essential oil” if at least 1% of the contents are 100% pure, organic essential oil. The other 99% may contain filler base oils, synthetic esters, perfume, or other adulterants.

2. Few companies display the scientific name of the herb on the bottle, which allows them to substitute oils from different plants, with different medicinal properties, in place of what a customer believes they are purchasing.

Marjoram (Origanum majorana), for instance, is often marketed as Oregano (Origanum compactum). Lavandin (Lavandula x hybrida) is usually sold as Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia). Real lavender is known to heal burns while lavandin will actually worsen them.

What Does Labelling Tell Me?

Most essential oil labels have very little in the way of concrete information. But the type and intensity of warnings (e.g. “do not apply directly to skin”, “not for internal use”) can sometimes be used to gauge how adulterated an essential oil may be.

The term “therapeutic-grade,” originally intended to describe organic, genuinely 100% pure oils, is not regulated. But standards groups (such as AFNOR) may be used as a third-party to test and certify the quality of some companies’ essential oils. The “AFNOR” or other such marks on labels usually indicates quality oil.

The purest oils actually display “nutrition facts” like any food or supplement because they are safe to be used internally.

For more information on medicinal essential oils, feel free to contact the author.