Essential Oils: Quality vs. Expense
There seems to be confusion about what constitutes a good quality essential oil and many believe expensive means it’s better. Expense is not the best way to judge quality. Expensive is a perception-based judgement that is affected by marketing. It may be expensive and/or marked up, that depends on who you are purchasing from. Do your price comparison checking as with any other product. Oils may actually be expensive because they are rare, grow in hard to reach places, had a bad growing season and are imported (because we just don’t grow all plants here) and to me the fragrance is worth the price. You want that kind of expense, because it’s not expense, it’s what it costs. That’s what it costs to grow, distill, bottle, label, package and ship great quality oils. It’s when companies, like MLMs (Young Living), charge more because they want to make money, that you want to use discernment.
Regarding quality, a high quality oil smells great and with essential oils, your nose is usually your best barometer, but synthesized oils or contaminants are tough to suss out with just your nose. It may smell fresh, unadulterated, pleasant and poignant and to a decent, maybe even educated nose, perfect, but it won’t always tell you all you need to know. That’s what GCMS (Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry) testing is for. A reputable supplier should be able to supply you with a GCMS for individual oils you purchase and if they don’t, the company is perhaps not the best choice as your supplier. Attract Essentials uses only reputable suppliers who provide us with GCMS reports for all of our ingredients.
According to Robert Tisserand’s article “Essential Oils: Premium Quality Yields Premium Results”. Previously published in Massage Magazine, March 2010, but credited to the wrong author: “Essential oil quality is important in aromatherapy because poor quality oils may contain ingredients that render the oil less effective or result in adverse skin reactions. Essential oils contain more than 100 individual naturally occurring chemicals. Terms such as “therapeutic grade”, “pharmaceutical grade” or “food grade” have absolutely no meaning in relation to the quality of essential oils.” Quality is based on Composition, Oxidation, Contamination and Adulteration. Read more at Therapeutic grade oils – read all about it!.
That’s it for now. Please enjoy our products, they are genuinely made with only the highest quality, all natural, unadulterated ingredients. Stay tuned for our next blog entry…