What Are Essential Oils?

Essential oils are the living extracts from many kinds of plant material—seeds, rind, bark, leaves, twigs, flowers, nuts, etc. They penetrate through the skin, the lungs, the olfactory organs, and the digestive tract and travel throughout the body. They are only soluble in alcohol or other oils. They have multiple powerful actions in the body.

Like salt, essential oils are highly concentrated, and a little goes a long way. They are most effective used in dilution for massage, diffused into the air, a drop at a time in drinks and recipes, in dilution in a capsule or in bath water.

They are powerfully anti-infectious yet surprisingly safe to use if you follow the simple guidelines on this site.

3 things that essential oils do

1. They bring you a high level of vitality. They bring life into your body. Unlike synthetic molecules which can only kill or block, they actually build and restore health.

2. They lower your toxicity. They have an extremely important and safe cleansing function that respects the beneficial flora of the body.

3. They allow for a free flow of energy through your meridians and reflex points.

The dead, lifeless, synthetic substances promoted by the pharmaceutical industry can’t restore vitality and health. They’re the antis—antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, anti-depressant, anti-histamine, etc. They’re lifeless. They have only two functions—to kill and block.

Essential oils are versatile. They follow four pathways to enter your body with many beneficial functions.

Aromatic and respiratory uses of essential oils

Our sense of smell influences many physical functions including stimulating your hormones, influencing your emotions and helping regulate various metabolic processes. By their proximity to the brain, the organs of smell pass the tiny essential oil molecules quickly into the brain and cause almost instantaneous reactions.

They also enter the lungs and through the lungs the blood stream. Certain essential oils, when diffused in the air you breathe, can be very stimulating while others can be calming and soothing. Diffusing essential oils can purify the air you breathe from odors and some infectious substances in the air. We recommend low or no-heat diffusers because they don’t alter the chemical structure of the oil being diffused. You can also use essential oils with the cleaning products you use in your home to do laundry and clean surfaces. We call this cleaning aromatherapy.

Topical uses

The complex but tiny essential oil molecules are easily absorbed into the skin and can be safely applied topically. They can not only help the immediate area of application as in a burn or a scrape, but they can travel quickly throughout the body to give relief wherever it is needed. They can be calming or stimulating depending on the oil and the need. You add significant synergistic benefits by using both an aromatic diffusing of essential oils to a topical application.

Internal uses

Essential oils are also used as dietary supplements. Some have powerful antioxidant properties while others help support healthy anti-inflammatory responses in cells. Many essential oils are Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS) for dietary use like those used in flavorings like thyme, oregano, lemon and peppermint. But some oils should not be taken internally. Please read the cautions for the oils you purchase to make sure you are using them appropriately. You will typically recognize by their names and descriptions whether they can be safely ingested. Obviously spice, citrus, and mint oils are safe to ingest whereas oils more typically used for aroma or massage only would not be ingested.

Our quality guarantee

Therapeutic-grade oils are extracted according to exact heat and pressure parameters for each plant species and sub-species. Steam is circulated under pressure through plant material liberating the essential oil molecules into steam. As the steam cools and condenses, the water and oils separate, and the oil is collected and filtered. To guarantee the highest quality and dependable chemical composition for consistent therapeutic benefits, temperature and pressure must be closely regulated. Too little or too much heat and pressure will not release true therapeutic grade oil. The extraction that may be fine for spearmint used in chewing gum will not be right for therapeutic-grade spearmint.

The selection of therapeutic-grade oils depends on a complex network of individual botanists, growers, distillers, and chemists from all around the world working to gather an array of quality products you can depend upon. These networks are developed over years of trustful association.

Most oils are extracted by steam distillation, but some, like citrus oils, are extracted by pressing the aromatic peels. A few delicate aromatic oils like ylang ylang can only be extracted using safe solvents that bind with the oils and are later removed from the final product.

Many products claiming to use essential oils do not use 100% pure therapeutic grade essential oils. They add less expensive synthetic chemical substitutes to dilute or replace the more costly essential oil extracts. There are no regulatory standards for “therapeutic grade” products, so suppliers must insure on their own that the oils are effective. Some essential oil companies, in order to justify the high prices of their oils, have invented various grading systems, personal trademarks, and important-sounding certification qualifications.

These do not necessarily guarantee better oils, but they often do signal higher prices.

Over 30 years of experience sourcing oils from all over the world and using them extensively with professionals in health-care applications, our suppliers and their network of growers and distillers have developed systems for not only monitoring the gas chromatographs and mass spectrometry that signal an authentic oil, but also the ability to personally test the oils for exactness and effectiveness. None of our oils contain chemical fillers or artificial ingredients that would harm their life-giving therapeutic qualities. They are organic or wild crafted so they are free from pesticides or other chemical residues.

Since we have worked for decades with individual growers and distillers world-wide and developed relationships of trust and dependability, we can guarantee quality and consistent effectiveness.

Will every batch of oil smell exactly the same?

No. These differences are, in fact, a sign that the oils are therapeutic grade and natural products. Synthetic ingredients will always be uniform. Natural substances grown under varying weather conditions will change slightly from season to season. Each batch of our oils are labeled, described, evaluated and monitored so we are aware of these slight differences. Our trusted suppliers know their oil quality from season to season, just like a fine wine, and they frequently alert us to any changes. We therefore maintain a wide range of suppliers in different countries and regions around the world in order to provide you with the finest batches from year to year.

One company claims their lavender always smells “crystal clean.” That is a signal that they may not recognize the best, most therapeutic, natural ingredients. The “crystal clean” ingredients would more likely contain simple synthetic compounds instead of natural ingredients. Your body will recognize the difference.

Over time as you compare the nutritionally dead, synthetic fragrances from candle or bath-and-body companies with the more full-bodied, complex, natural fragrances of our oils; you’ll come to recognize an authentic from a synthetic by smell alone.