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Aromatherapy - Plant to the Bottle
plant in a bottle page 3
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Nature is, of course, bio-diverse and is not too happy in replicating things season by season, so one can see the need for the process industry to "interfere" or rectify that natural material. On the other hand the holistic aromatherapist may not be interested in the replicability or reproducibility, being satisfied with a material as near to nature as is possible but in the first instance having clearly established that it came from a plant. This latter oil is likely to be more expensive than the refined or rectified material.

However, the therapist should keep in mind the purpose of the material. If for example, the object is just to create a pretty smell of Lavender using a burner then it is not the most sensible thing to use a clinical or connoisseur material which would be reserved for more important applications.

A good example of the manipulation of essential oils can be seen with Ylang Ylang oil. Ylang Ylang is generally sold in a number of grades – extra, first, second and third. Extra is the most expensive and chemically can be judged by its ester content. This, however, can be easily manipulated.

Basically the grades are arrived at by fractionating the distillation process. The "extra" is derived from the oil being taken at a given time, say two hours after the start; Nos 1, 2 and 3 following suit.

The aroma of Ylang Ylang "extra" is very powerful and is difficult to reproduce artificially. It is frequently adulterated not only with Nos. 1, 2 and 3 but with other chemical components such as Vanillin and Methyl Benzoate. There is no apparent definition for Ylang 1 and 2 and they are generally used in cutting other grades. Ylang 3 is interesting because it is cheap and has a good tenacity and is usually used in soap perfumery but is also frequently adulterated not only with chemicals but also other materials such as Amyris, Cedarwood and so on.

There is another type of Ylang called "complete" which should be the result of an uninterrupted water and steam distillation of Ylang Ylang flowers. In reality complete may simply mean a mixture of the other varieties of Ylang Ylang.

From an aromatherapy point of view one can perhaps see the benefit of the extra and complete oils but would one really find the other grades acceptable? This would be an individual judgement based upon the purpose and even perhaps the definition of aromatherapy. Is one treating a person or making soap? The one thing which should not be the determining factor between the use of the grades in aromatherapy is price alone.

Other considerations with Ylang behind the scene would have been the type of flowers used, only the true yellow flowers give the desired result. Indiscriminate picking of immature blooms is not uncommon. Distillation should have been immediate to avoid fermentation and off notes. There is a difference between material distilled into hot water rather than heating from cold. The length of distillation is important, perhaps 20 hours or more. All this again will vary upon the type of still and process.

Essential oil production can still be very individual and as one sees from the example above open to the same interpretations and parameters as the wine referred to earlier.

From the therapist's point of view one thing should be quite clear; that there are substantial differences between essential oils, one supplier and another. There are many essential oils for sale and clearly not all of them are offered with aromatherapy in mind. It often takes experience and a long search to settle upon a regular supplier who is seeking to market products for holistic aromatherapy. There are penalties to be paid when one finds one, it could be price or variation in chemical analysis but as I have said above that depends upon the stance and position of the therapist as to whether they wish to be near to nature or whether to be standard or biochemic in their approach. Equally the end use would need to be considered for bodywork or perfuming.