What are Essential Oils?
An essential oil is a concentrate that contains aroma compounds from plants. Essential oils are also known as ethereal oils, or also as the "oil of" the plants they were extracted from. Essential Oils are named as such in that they carry a distinctive scent, or essence, of a plant. Essential oils do not require to have chemical properties in common, other than their frangrant characteristics.
In most cases, essential oils are extracted via distillation. Other processes include expression, or solvent extraction. Amongst many of their applications, perfumes, cosmetics and bath products, flavoring food and drink, and scenting incense and household cleaning products, are included.
Production of Essential Oils
Distillation: Oils, such as lavender, peppermint, and eucalyptus, are usually distilled. The plant material, consisting of the flowers, leaves, wood, bark, roots, seeds, or peel, is put into a distillation apparatus over water. As the water is heated the steam passes through the plant material. The vapors produced by this steam flow through a coil where they condense back into a liquid and are collected.
Expression: In most cases, oils derived from citrus peel are cold-pressed, or mechanically pressed. Due to the high concentration of oils in citrus peels, this process is generally fairly easy and less cumbersome than distillation.
Solvent extraction: This process is usually applied to essential oils derived from flowers. Since flowers do not contain enough oils for them to be expressed and are too sensitive to withstand the heat used in distillation. Instead, a solvent is used to extract the oils. These extracts are called concretes and are a mixture of essential oils, waxes, resins, and other oil soluble plant materials.
Dilution of Essential Oils
Essential oils are usually "oil-loving" compounds, hence they do not mix with water.
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