What Labels Really Mean

You can find oils in retail stores whose labels say things like "100% pure, organic, and natural." They may even say "therapeutic grade." Most of the time, this would be an outright lie, but a legal one since no government agency has defined the term "therapeutic" and no government agency, as yet, regulates the content of labels on essential oils in a way that would remedy such deceptions.

As for "100%" that quantitative term does not really mean 100%. In some cases 100% can mean as little as 10% of the real stuff while the rest may be a colorless, odorless petrochemical. yet this is tolerated as okay in the retail trade.

Another misleading term is the word "organic." Educated health-oriented people interpret that to mean "grown naturally without poisons or chemicals". But the definition of "organic," as used by organic chemists, is that organic means "composed of carbon compounds". In other words, any carbon compound is "organic".

By this difinition, most pharmaceuticals (and all petrochemicals) are "organic", regardless of their origin. In other words, gasoline is organic. Pure rubbing alcohol is organic. Dioxin, a known carcinogen, is organic. Highly toxic industrial solvents such as benzene, hexane, toluene, xylene, and carbon tetrachloride are organic. By this definition, every artificial compound synthesized by an organic chemical laoratory is "organic". So when these adulterants are added to an essential oil, the term "organic" can still legally be used, implying one thing to an organic chemist yet something quite different to an unsuspecting customer.

Some of the dilutants used in essential oils are odorless, colorless petrochemicals (which are cheap). However, such compounds can be harmful to one's health when applied to the skin, taken internally, or inhaled over long periods of time. The common availability of such adulterated oils has caused some aromatherapists, who unsuspectingly and routinely use such products, to conclude that it is not safe to use an essential oil directly (neat) without diluting it down to a 2-5% concentration in a neutral fatty base. If such aromatherapists would seek out a reliable source of truly pure therapeutic grade oils, they would find that applying essential oils neat is perfectly safe (with a few exceptions) and of far greater therapeutic value than using them diluted.


When is "Natural" Natural?

Another subterfuge to fool the trusting oil shopper is the word, "natural". Any compound that can be produced synthetically by a laboratory that is also found in nature can be legaly labeled and sold as "natural", even though the process by which it was produced was totally unnatural and the raw products from which it was manufactured may have been petroleum, coal, or natural gas.

A comparative chemical analysis of the synthetic and the natural component would be identical for a specific compound, such as methyl salicylate, whether produced in a chemical factory or by a wintergreen plant (Galtheria procumbens), or a birch tree ( Betula alleghaniansis). But the synthetically produced version will not have the same isomeric mix as the naturally produced version. In other words, the same proportions of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen will be present in both the manufactured and the natural methyl salicylate, but the assortment of structural arrangements at a molecular level will be different, thus giving the two seemingly "identical" compounds different properties when applied to the human body. Since precise determinations of isomeric proportions are difficult and often impossible, the true composition of a natural ingredient of an oil can not be duplicated.

Chemistry Isn't Everything

Futhermore, the living element or electromagnetic frequency present in the natural oils of wintergreen and birch is absent in the synthetically produced version. Thus, all pertinent factors are not considered by chemists in synthesizing an oil. Electromagnetic frequency is another factor they cannot duplicate. A chemical analysis, however meticulous, isn't sufficient to adequately describe a therapeutic grade oil. There is electricity and life force, too.

Since the healing oils of wintergreen and birch are chemically more than 85% methyl salicylate, there are some places, such as in England, where pure synthetic methyl salicylate is sold and labeled as if it were natural wintergreen. A chemist, with all his or her equipment, may not be able to determine the difference between the natural and the laboratory produced products, but the discerning powers of the human body can tell the two apart instantly and reacts accordingly.

Synthetically produced methyl salicylate is toxic, while its naturally grown cusin is not. In addition to being non-toxic, the natural product also has curative powers while its artificial counterpart does not.

Some aromatherapists don't understand this and decline to use wintergreen or birch oils for any purpose. They are especially alarmed at the idea of applying these oils neat. What they don't realize is that the toxicities they may have experienced or read of do not exist with true therapeutic grade oils, only with synthetic or adulterated grades.

The Cleverness of Counterfeiting Chemists

Because the profits are so high in selling cheap-to-produce non-therapeutic oils at costly-to-produce therapeutic prices, the temptation to do so has created many laboratories and teams of chemists who are very skillful in imitating the chemical composition of natural oils. Many of these are in France, with a reputation where excellent therapeutic grade oils can be obtained. Some unscrupulous French businesses bottle cheap adulterated imitation in containers saying "Made in France:, producing them for export only, knowing that they would never pass the rigorous French standards in a government testing lab. Some couterfeit oils are so carefully compounded they are virtually impossible to detect, even with the most sophisticated laboratory equipment.

What some chemists do is to synthetically combine the ten or fifteen most abundant ingredients contained in a natural oil, which are the ones the testing lab will measure to see if the proportions are right. But a natural oil contains hundreds of components, most in trace amounts and most, as yet, of undetermined composition. Testing labs do not and cannot test for every component because ot would be economically prohibitive and, at this time scientifically impossible. The counterfeit companies know this and take advantage of it.

Hence, when an authentic oil and a false oil are tested for their most abundant constituents, they can both look identical insofar as the analysis was taken. But the imitation oil will have no healing capability because it is dead. It would be like assembling all of the major parts of a cat in perfect form and expecting it to perform as a real cat. The same amounts of hair, bone, skin and tissue may be there, but ther is no life. Only God can give that.

While the laboratory cannot always tell the difference between bad and good oils, humans can tell the difference right away. Either the oils render benefits, or they don't. An electromagnetic frequency measurement would also reveal the truth, but chemical laboratories thus far, are not equipped for routine measurements of electromagnetic frequencies in the megahertz and nanovolt range, as would be necessary.

Dr. Herve Casabianca (Ph.D.), director of the largest essential oils testing laboratory in France and chairman of the International Standards Organization committee on oils, has come to the conclusion that the only way one can be certain that they are obtaining true therapeutic grade oils is to "Know your grower. Know your distiller. And know your supplier. Otherwise, he says, "the chemists have become so clever that they can sometimes fool even the best of laboratories."

The bottom line is that one cannot absolutely confirm the authenticity of an oil by a gas chromatogram, a mass spectrogram, or by any other chemical analytic technique available to modern science. It takes human experience with the oil to determine that. And who wants to be a guinea pig?

Over 90% of the oils sold as 'essential oils' in America are food or fragrance grades and unsuitable for healing applications. So one cannot go just anywhere and expect to find therapeutic grade oils. One has to search and be discerning in one's search. One must also educate oneself thoroughly in the use and application of essential oils to gain their full benefits. Be discriminating in what you read. There are false teachings out there as well as fake oils.