How Aromatherapy Essential Oils are Extracted

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How Aromatherapy Essential Oils are Extracted

Friday, August 17th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed

Aromatherapy essential oils are the base elements for any aromatherapy treatment. Essential oils are effectively the essence of the plant or herb that has been used to create the oil. By essence we mean the unique scent that the plant or herb has. This unique scent is believed to have some therapeutic affect on the body. The other definition that is often misunderstood is the word aroma in aromatherapy. Aromatherapy uses essential oils to provide treatment. These oils are categorized by their aroma. They are identified by their aroma but the aroma or scent is not always the key element in providing therapy. It could also be the way that the oils react when they come in contact with the body, for example.

It is important that the essential oils are extracted in as pure a method as possible. There are two reasons for this. The first is that you do not want an industrial or chemical processing that might taint the oils and render it ineffective. And secondly that the processing might cause a chemical reaction that creates a completely different oils that has a different scent. There is also a greater emphasis in aromatherapy, and holistic medicine in general, to divorce themselves from the industrial pharmaceutical type processing and identify with natural products and production.

In this vein, there are two types of processing or extraction that are natural and chemical free.

Two Of The More Popular Extraction Methods

Distillation is the first method. This method uses water to extract the essential oils. Distillation is the process of using steam to extract the oil and then rapidly cooling the steam back into water form. As the extracted oil does not mix with the water it is fairly easy to separate the liquids. This is a very pure and chemical free method. The more common essential oils such as peppermint and lavender are extracted using distillation. Once the oil has been separated from the water it can be used for aromatherapy treatment. The leftover water can also be utilized. It is known as Hydrosols and can also be used as part of an aromatherapy session or as part of a beauty or skin care regime. One such hydrosol used in beauty care is rose water.

The other natural alternative for extracting oils is to simply press the raw materials until the oils are released. This is known as expression and is also the principle method for extracting perfumes. Citrus plants are very concentrated in essential oils so the process of simply squeezing the oil out of them is inexpensive. It is very effective and offers a very pure resulting product.

These are the two main ways that aromatherapy essential oils are extracted from the raw materials that could be a freshly picked plant or a herb.

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