Essential oil quality is of paramount importance. Sadly, however, essential oil quality can vary dramatically.
There are a number of reasons for this. Environmental factors can influence essential oil quality. But, production processes are the key determinant when it comes to essential oil quality.
This short article addresses the key issues affecting the quality of essential oils available in the UK.
Essential Oil Quality & Environmental Factors
The plants used to produce essential oils are grown and harvested from almost all parts of the world. Some essential oils are also made from wild plants, and are referred to as wildcrafted essential oils.
When it comes to commercially grown plants, which are used for producing essential oils, how and where they are grown is a big factor. Soil quality and sun levels are key, but so is sufficient clean water and plant spacing, etc.
There’s also the issue of the treatment of the essential oil producing plants and trees. Sadly, there are some horrific practices where this is concerned. Over extraction leads to exhausted plants. Poor growing conditions lead to infestations of mould and predatory insects. Plants reared through a process of chemical fertilisation, that are also regularly sprayed with chemical herbisides and insecticides, are of poor quality. They are also toxic.
The heavy use of insecticides and herbicides, in conventional farming, is disastrous for the soil. It is also an unsustainable form of arable farming.
Insecticides and herbicides are manufactured from fossil fuel. More precisely, insecticides and herbicides start out as crude oil.
Petrochemical insecticides and herbicides create contaminated plants. Inevitably, this results in toxic essential oils.
The stress levels of plants, due to toxicity, over-cramping, infestations, etc, will also directly affect the plants on an energetic level.
Essential oils emit energetic properties, as well as physical properties. The energetic component of an essential oil is vitally important. If the energy of the plants being used to make essential oils is poor, then the resultant essential oil will be correspondingly inferior.
All of these factors will clearly negatively impact essential oil quality.
Simply put, if plant materials are harvested from compromised plants, the inferiority of these plants will be passed on, when they are distilled to make essential oils.
Some practices are so dire that it is threatening entire species. The Boswellia tree, which is used to make Frankincense Essential Oil, for example, is the latest to join the endangered list.
Essential Oil Quality Varies Immensely From One Brand To Another
This article has been inspired by the following feedback received today.
I came across your site yesterday when I was tearing my hair out over ‘how do you choose an essential oil brand’. I used to use aromatherapy a lot years ago and had my go to (now long gone) wonderful supplier. Where to begin?
I cannot thank you enough for the generosity of your (free!!) advice. I have yet to place an order but will soon when I decide on my priorities. I have also found so many good and reliable sources all by following your links.This is such a relief after a disastrous order from an allegedly ‘safe and reliable’ site which sent me frankincense (and more) that smelled revolting…and it so shouldn’t
Gill, UK
Sadly, Wild As The Wind all too often receives this kind of message, and I am always so saddened to learn that people are losing their hard-earned money on toxic, harmful substances, which bear no relation to true healing aromatherapy oils.
Tragically, it is not just the growing conditions of the plants used to make essential oils which need to be put under the microscope. We also need to be aware there’s some dreadful commercial practices being employed in the process of making essential oils too…
Essential Oils UK
This article is a companion piece to this Essential Oils UK Market Report, which explores the issue of UK essntial oil quality and explains, in more detail, ‘how fake’ essential oils will not deliver the benefits expected, and, worse still, are likely to be toxic. The Essential Oils UK Market Report also provides a step by step guide for assessing and finding genuine aromatherapy oils in the UK, especially online.
Read on to find out why we need to avoid toxic “fake” essential oils, at all costs.
Then go to the UK Essential Oils Market Report if you wish to take a deeper dive into the subject. The Essential Oils UK Market Report explains, in detail, why the UK aromatherapy market is becoming increasingly saturated with fake, and potentially dangerous essential oils.
Adulterated Essential Oils
Essential oil adulteration is extremely widespread. Aromatherapy oils are routinely ‘doctored’ for profit. Undoubtedly, the essential oils mentioned in the feedback above have either been chemically manipulated in some way, or, are purely chemically synthesised in a lab.
Chemical adulteration is terribly widespread. For example, 90% of all the Lavender Essential Oil sold in the world today is completely chemically synthesised using non-natural substances.
Sub-standard labs in poor parts of the world are churning out these toxic chemical oils for pennies and passing them off as genuine essential oils. This doesn’t only mean that people are getting badly ripped off, but there are other awful consequences of this also…
Buying Toxic Essential Oils
There are many major drawbacks to buying toxic essential oils, but none more so than the top two in this list:
- If you buy toxic essential oils you are funding the businesses who are harming you.
- Inexperienced essential oil users are likely to harm their health.
- Toxic essential oils are generally made in sweatshops.
- Inexperienced essential oil users end up believing that essential oils don’t work.
- Chemicals are a major polluting force in our world.
- The production of toxic essential oils is threatening the livelihood of ethical producers
1. What We Invest In Is What Persists
All too often we opt to buy products on price. This almost always means that quality suffers.
Nothing could be more true where essential oils are concerned. Producing therapeutic grade essential oils is a lot more costly than producing inferior aromatherapy oils!
The price of an essential oil can be used as an indicator of quality in many instances. But, sadly, it does not provide a fail-safe method.
This is because there are a handful of essential oil companies who are charging ridiculous prices for essential oils. These companies are just as interested in profiteering from the buying public as the companies selling poor quality essential oils at low prices.
Perhaps the best approach to buying essential oils is to aim for the middle band?
The following Wild As The Wind customer review highlights the issue:
I have been using many Wild as the Wind essential oils for several months now and I am writing to say how delighted I am to have come across this website sometime last year. I have been using essential oils for many years and have been studying holistic aromatherapy for the last three. As part of my course, I have learnt to recognise the quality of an oil, not only its physical properties but also its energetic quality (the latter being largely determined by the ethics applied to the entire process of oil production and selling). This is very important as the higher the vibration of an oil, the higher its potency and ability to help us heal not only physically but emotionally and mentally also. I have tried and tested many brands (including big names who have acquired a reputation thanks to a clever and well funded marketing strategy rather than an emphasis on ethics). Wild as the Wind oils have become my favourites. Rachel’s knowledge and her generous sharing of information, her passion and determination for uncompromising quality make these oils exceptional. I am so grateful for companies like Wild as the Wind who genuinely care for their customers. In my opinion, they deserve nothing but success.
This review was submitted to the How To Write A Review page by François Hascoet
Thankfully, François found Wild As The Wind online, but this is becoming increasingly difficult to do. The reason for this is simple:
If you mistakenly buy toxic essential oils online, you are not only funding the businesses who are harming you instead of healing you… you are also keeping them in business.
Worst still, by supporting the purveyors of poor quality essential oils, you are not only perpetuating their existence. You are also strengthening them.
This will mean that more essential oil users will have access to these inferior oils, and the problem will persist and worsen.
Ultimately, the stronger these unethical businesses become, the more they will continue to tarnish the reputation of the essential oil industry, as a whole.
Any negativity towards businesses in the essential oil industry will impact the ‘clean’ essential oil producers too.
Investing in these businesses increases their profits, and allows them to invest in greater levels of promotion. If their actions are profitable, they will remain all the more determined to keep on doing what they are doing.
In using their mounting profits to gain increasing levels of prominence online, a vicious cycle of ongoing abuse of the buying public is entrenched.
How this works is simple: The more visible these substandard essential oil producers are, the more likely they are to make sales. The more sales they make, the more profit they have to invest in publicity.
Tragically, the more visible these profiteering companies are online, through selling inferior essential oils, the less visible the genuine producers of ethical essential oils become.
As search engine results are delivered in lists, ethical vendors of high quality essential oils become less visible when poor quality essential oil vendors increase in popularity.
Wild As The Wind has become increasingly hard to find online.
2. Inexperienced Essential Oil Users Are Most At Risk
The people who are most likely to buy adulterated essential oils are the people who are new to using essential oils.
Sadly, inexperience around buying essential oils means that many people are unable to tell the difference between pure, natural essential oils, and adulterated, poor quality essential oils.
Tragically, this will likely result in them using tainted, toxic essential oils for some time, completely unaware of the harm they are doing to themselves.
Essential oil adulteration is harming the health of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people… every day!
3. Adulterated Essential Oils Are Often Made In Sweatshop Conditions
Toxic essential oils are generally made in sweatshops, in developing countries, by people wearing a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops.
Even though these workers are being exposed to noxious ingredients, for up to 12 or 14 hours a day, they have no protective clothing to shield them from the harm being done to their health.
The chemicals they are working with can cause burns, which often turn into suppurating wounds in tropical conditions, and they can cause massive dermal allergic reactions including blisters, scabs and rashes.
All of these aberrant skin conditions can secrete their contents, and end up in the essential oils being made.
As these chemically produced oils are also neurotoxic, through simply being inhaled, the workers in these facilities are exposing themselves to appalling health outcomes.
So, when people in the West buy adulterated essential oils, they are investing in the ongoing exploitation of others who’s working life can lead to profoundly life-threatening conditions.
4. Toxic Essential Oils Discredit The Industry Efficacy Of Pure Natural Essential Oils
When inexperienced essential oil users, who have bought toxic oils, don’t obtain the benefits they were hoping for from their essential oils, they end up believing that essential oils don’t work.
This discredits the entire industry and shuts down an avenue of healing which could have made a vast difference to so many.
5. Chemicals As A Polluting Force
The chemicals being used to make adulterated and chemically manipulated essential oils are not just harming the people making and using them, they also harm our environment.
The manufacturing processes used to make these chemicals have dire environmental consequences.
Manufacturing processes lead to water and air pollution, as does the secondary process of combining these chemicals in the making of fake aromatherapy oils.
The third way in which these chemicals pollute is when people use them in their home and work environments, again tainting the air quality and potentially entering domestic water supplies when diffusers, oil burners and mixing bowls are washed after use.
6. Fake Essential Oils Are Threatening The Livelihoods Of Ethical Producers
Ethical essential oil producers support our environment by growing plants naturally. This also provides our wildlife with the habitats they need to thrive.
Because adulterated essential oils lead many to believe essential oils are unhelpful, and because true natural essential oils are increasingly difficult to find, due to the dominance of fake oils online, this means that the demand for natural essential oils is potentially diminished.
The knock on effect of this scenario is that producers of therapeutic grade essential oils will have to increasingly reduce production.
Finding Quality Essential Oils
Much time and effort has been invested at Wild As The Wind to try and educate people about essential oil quality. The following articles are just some which help guide people to find quality essential oils.
- Essential Oils
- Essential Oils UK – A Comprehensive Consumer Guide
- Best UK Essential Oils
- Essential Oil Adulteration
- Essential Oils Versus Fragrance Oils
- Essential Oils Versus Perfumes
- Fragrance Oils FAQ’s
Frankincense Essential Oil Under Threat
As mentioned in the introduction, Frankincense Essential Oil is under threat. The following articles explain why…
Frankincense Production Doomed Scientists Warn
Wild As The Wind Frankincense Products
Wild As The Wind Frankincense products are, to the best of our knowledge, produced sustainably.
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