What is Essential Oil Adulteration?
Thursday, August 09, 2018
Essential
oil production is a booming industry in the past few years. With the increasing
demand for essential oils for both personal and commercial uses, it is no
wonder that some suppliers are finding ways to produce essential oils at a faster
and cheaper rates. It is a known fact that “pure” essential oils are costly to
make and this condition leads to suppliers practicing adulteration of essential
oils.
Adulterated
essential oils refer to essential oils that have been modified in order to
- Lower the production cost
- Lower the price of the essential oils
- Increase the company’s profit
- Meet the increasing demand of the consumers
Here
are the different ways in which essential oils can be adulterated.
Dilution with Non-Essential Oil Components
There
are suppliers who claim that they’re selling 100% pure essential oils only to
find out that their oils have been diluted with either vegetable oils,
synthetic oils or alcohols.
Thin
and odorless oils like fractionated coconut oil (natural) and isopropyl
myristate (synthetic) are often used as “extenders” to essential oils because
they won’t change the aroma of the essential oils. One way to know if essential
oils have been mixed with vegetable or synthetic oils is by doing the paper
test. Add a few drops of essential oils on plain white paper and leave
overnight. Pure essential oils will evaporate completely leaving the paper dry.
If there is still an oily residue, then it’s a sign that the essential oil has
been adulterated with vegetable or synthetic oils.
Meanwhile,
95% deodorized ethyl alcohol is another cheap additive used since essential
oils can be dissolved in alcohol. If the essential oil dispersed in the water
instead of floating on top, then it’s most probably mixed with alcohol.
Addition to Essential Oil
More
expensive essential oils are often extended with cheaper oils that possess
similar chemical composition or fragrance. The most perfect example of this
kind of adulteration is rose essential oil. Rose essential oil is very
expensive to produce. In order to cut down the cost, rose essential oil is often
adulterated with geranium and palmarosa essential oils because of their
similarities in aroma.
Essential
oils can also be modified by adding chemical components that are extracted from
another essential oils. This type of adulteration is known as isolate addition. For instance,
peppermint essential oil can be extended with menthol that is extracted from a
cheaper corn mint oil.
It
is also possible to extend an essential oil with oils extracted from the
different part of the same plant. For example, clove bud oil is sometimes mixed
with clove leaf oil because it is cheaper and easier to extract oils from the
leaves than the buds.
Extraction from Essential Oil
There
are cases where certain chemical constituents are removed from an essential oil
in order to remove its impurities (e.g. unwanted components), to make it safer
to use or to modify its aromatic profile. This type of adulteration is known as
rectification. One example of this
is the removal of bergaptene from
bergamot essential oil in order to make it non-phototoxic.
Reconstitution of Essential Oil
Reconstituted
essential oils are oils that are recreated synthetically by combining the
chemical constituents of multiple essential oils. This type of adulteration is
often practiced on essential oils that are costly to produce. For example,
melissa essential oil (also known as lemon balm) is often reconstituted from the
chemical components of lemon, lemongrass and lemon verbena because they have
similar scent to melissa oil.
Adulteration
of essential oils often resulted to lower quality oils that have been stripped
of their important therapeutic properties, therefore they are not recommended
to be used in aromatherapy. Unfortunately, there is no 100% foolproof way to
detect all kinds of essential oil adulterations. However, the best you can do
is to find reliable suppliers that can provide you with Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis reports for each of the essential oils they are offering. This
particular report will give you a summary of each chemical components of the
essential oil being tested to see if there are any adulterants in the oil.
References:
Adulteration
of Essential Oils. Retrieved from https://meluhanaturals.com/adulteration-essential-oils/
Purity,
Adulteration & Testing. Retrieved from https://www.oshadhi.co.uk/purity-adulteration-testing/
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