by Evelyn Vincent, Young Living Distributor #476766, TheVeryEssence.com
As far as adulteration is concerned, it should be pointed out that some essential oil customers frequently demand oils below the market price while still wanting to be told that the essential oils are authentic. In this climate, the honest oil trader may find it virtually impossible to survive on the margins he is allowed to make (many have already gone bust).
For example, in the late 20th Century, lavender oil (Lavandula angustifolia) was being sold almost as a loss leader by many French producers as the market was unwilling to pay a realistic price.
Currently, the aroma industry is dominated by a handful of large and powerful international houses whose corporate buyers often attempt to drive raw material prices to impossibly low levels, not allowing workable profits to be made. This sets the scene for unethical practices. Young Living does not participate in this.
It should also be pointed out that France exports 100 times more lavender essential oil to the US than it distills. Clearly, this is due to the pressures of consumer demands for quantity rather than quality. Which strongly indicates the fact that the aromatherapy products flooding the market are not likely to contain much, if any, pure lavender essential oil. In other words, you may not be getting what you think you’re getting.
See one of the Young Living farms and learn why Young Living has the finest essential oils available…
Get Young Living essential oils here!
A look at the types of adulteration:
There are several distinct categories of adulteration. The addition of single raw materials. This simple form of adulteration can be conveniently divided into two groups:
1. “Invisibles” – i.e. those materials undetectable by a gas chromatograph (GC) analysis operating under routine conditions to analyse essential oils.
2. “Visibles – those materials normally detectable by gas chromatograph (GC).
“Invisibles” is the deliberate addition of vegetable or mineral oil to essential oils (Nour-el-Din et al. 1977) – rapeseed oil in Europe is a particularly cheap vegetable oil which has been used for this purpose.
Theoretically the “total area” of the detectable components of the oil’s gas chromatogram should be reduced by this latter type of adulteration, creating suspicion for the analyst and the need for further investigation.
These adulterant materials may be revealed by aqueous alcohol solubility tests, and their presence further verified by using a different GC column and operating conditions (to detect mineral oil), or by derivatisation (for example the use of a methylating agent for vegetable oils – whereby the volatile methyl esters of the fatty acid components of glyceryl esters are revealed by subsequent GC analysis).
“Visible” diluents in this context include a number of solvents and perfumery materials.
For example the following have been found in commercial essential oils, and in a few instances, resulting in a warning or prosecution by regulatory authorities:
Abitol (a primary hydroabietyl alcohol) – often used for extending resinoids.
Benzyl alcohol (now classified as a sensitiser by SCCNFP opinion)
Benzyl benzoate (now classified as a sensitiser by SCCNFP opinion; formerly widely used to extend resinoids)
Carbitol (diethylene glycol monoethyl ether or DEGME)
Diacetone alcohol
Dipropylene glycol (DPG)
Dipropylene glycol methyl ether (DPGME) and tripropylene glycol methyl ether (TPGME) – both of these substances are in air freshener technologyHerculyn DÔ (hydrogenated methyl ester of rosin)
Isoparä (odourless kerosene fractions often used as a candle perfume diluent)
Isopropyl myristate (IPM)
Phthalate esters such as di-n-butylphthalate (DNP), diethyl phthalate (DEP) and di-iso-octyl phthalate (DIOP)
Polyethylene glycols
Triacetin (the anti-fungal compound glycerol triacetate – a popular food flavorings vehicle)
3,3,5-Trimethyl-hexan-1-ol.
Use of materials like isotridecyl acetate (ITDA, Fixateur 404Ô), Herculyn D and Abitol, can be moderately difficult to spot, because the materials may show a myriad of late-eluting small peaks on a GC trace representing their different constituent isomers, which could be overlooked by an inexperienced analyst especially at low levels.
In all the above instances of “visible” and “non-visible” adulterants, the added material is merely a diluent, and makes no odor contribution of its own.
The addition of 10-14% of such a material may pass un-noticed if the material is evaluated against a retained standard solely on an odour basis – even by an expert nose – but it will in all probability be revealed by subsequent physio-chemical testing, such as added vegetable oil in patchouli oil can often be revealed by a solubility test in 90% alcohol at 20°C.
A realistic “in-practice” distinction between mass-marketed aromatherapy perfumes (as opposed to 100% essential oil singles and blends) and aromachology perfumes, other than at a hypothetical level, has yet to be defined, since both commonly employ synthetics.
The synthetics content can presumably have either symbiotic, neutral or opposing effects (mood changing etc.) to those claimed for the essential oils in the perfumes. Hence the need for clinical testing of the finished formulations to support advertising claims of containing essential oils.
This is why Young Living has distinguished our essential oils from the rest, resulting in us using the term, “therapeutic-grade.” Between the demands mentioned on the industry and the free usage, and oftentimes deceptive use, of terms as “all-natural” and in some instances “organic” – we have had to devise a language that sets what we offer apart from the rest. Young Living’s essential oils and essential oil based products are not the same low quality as the novelty aromatherapy products sold cheaply online and in stores.
If you, or someone you know, is looking for pure essential oils – the same pure quality our ancestors used long before the days of chemicals and synthetics – then Young Living essential oils is what you’ve been looking for.
Young Living has set the world standard for essential oil purity.
No comments yet
Comments feed for this article