What is essential oil?

Essential oil is the soul of the aromatic plant. It is the volatile oil extracted from aromatic plants through distillation. This is a complex substance, which encloses aromatic molecules, which have beneficial effect on health. Aromatherapy studies those molecules and put them into practice in order to heal and cure a pathology.

Essential oils are extracted from plant by steam distillation. Unlike what the name suggests, a pure and natural essential oil contains no fat. The essential oil is obtained from the distillation of the plant, using still water vapor. The steam goes through the plant tissue. Cells containing the essential oil burst, and the mix of essential oil and vapor is then separated in a condenser. When oils are present in large quantities, barks and peels (i.e., citrus) are compressed and essential oils are easily harvested.

The delicate and tedious procedure to obtain essential oils is the main reason why they tend to be expensive.

Some numbers:

For one liter of essential oils of:

  • Damask rose, we need 4 tons of petals
  • True lavender, we need 150 kg of flowers

Each essential oil contains a large number of active components. For example, phenols are active components that we can find in many plants such as Ceylon cinnamon, St Thomas Bay, cloves, thyme thymol, etc. The active components provide information about the type of pathology that they can treat. They are the ones that can treat, not the plant that contains them. Phenols are anti-infectious. Therefore, they can treat a wide range of diseases.

Each essential oil used in Aromessence is systematically chemotyped, thereby determining its active components (phenols, ketones, esther, etc.). The chemotype is the original name for characterizing an essential oil from a botanical and biochemical perspective. Only through knowing the chemotype, one may guarantee the therapeutic quality and safe use of an essential oil.

Last but not least, the structure of an essential oil is complex and it has several therapeutic properties. Therefore, there are many synergy opportunities, which would allow the treatment of various diseases.

A synergy is a specific combination of several essential oils and their active components that aims at providing a more effective and adequate treatment.