Essential Oil Quality
How to recognize and work with clinical quality essential oils
There was a time not long ago when buying essential oils for dependable clinical use was remarkably difficult, especially outside of France where essential oils have been used for medical purposes for decades. There were plenty of less expensive oils created for the recreational fragrance and flavoring industries where consistency, flavor and pleasing smell were king. But for clinical, medical uses, health care professionals required the natural, complex qualities of the aromatic plants farmed and extracted according to exacting standards.
There are four general types of essential oils:
1- Recreational fragrance oils for things like candles, perfume, household products, personal-care products and potpourri.
2- Food flavoring oils for things like chewing gum, sodas, and toothpaste. LoAnn oils are one of these used in making candy. Coca Cola uses essential oils in flavoring their drink. For those who say you can't ingest essential oils, they're not being realistic since we've been ingesting them as flavoring for decades.
3- So-called "certified oils" from various marketing companies that claim therapeutic value but may not provide consistent quality. There is a Fb group that has been exposing some of these oils, companies without integrity making claims of purity, to be 3rd party lab tested & proven to be 50% or so, synthetic.
4- Essential oils consistently suited for professional, medical, and clinical use.
The first two can be synthetic, natural or mixtures of the two. Consistent, pleasing flavor or aroma are more important than medical or clinical value. Cheap, synthetic, aromatic oils work for candle, fragrance, or chewing gum companies. Even if these oils come from natural sources, they can be distilled or extracted in a way that doesn't preserve their clinical, medicinal qualities. They typically lack the botanical and chemical precision to work effectively, safely and consistently in clinical practice.
In the earliest years of medical aromatherapy, doctors and researchers discovered that they got better and more consistent results when plants were grown in a certain way, on the correct kinds of soil under the right climate conditions. The plants also had to be handled and extracted according to exacting standards. Through the years health care professionals have continued to experiment and have developed increasing trust in certain suppliers who deliver dependable, clinical-quality oils.
Because there has been no mutually-agreed-upon clinical standard, individual companies in the third category have felt the need to invent their own "certification". Here is the problem. When marketing companies create their own certification rules, they can compromise quality in many ways for many reasons and still pass their own "certification". A company-defined certification can be a meaningless marketing system that does not guarantee quality.
This doesn't mean that there isn't a clinical standard.
I know I've shared this before. My husband is being treated for stage 4 kidney cancer with an Inner Luken 2 (immune therapy). When we asked the oncology team about using essential oils, it was "yelled" NO! Then we continued to investigate their reasoning. They said the standard and inconsistent results of essential oils generally found on the market are of pour quality. When we asked specifically of Ameo clinical oils, we were told YES, as long as it was external only because they didn't know how the oils may interact with the immune therapy treatment if taken internally. My husband found faster & longer lasting relief from pain with Ameo oils, than he did with his pain medication which had side effects. This impressed us.
Following the standards for a "clinical grade oil"
As the industry has evolved and devoted essential oil uses are experiencing consistent results in their homes, there is an increasing demand for quality standards. There are areas that clinical-grade essential oil users need to consider: quality and development.Quality:
#1: the sourcing standard: soil, botany, organic certification, climate, harvest, distillation practices, and handling procedures.There are complex issues because with oils coming to us from all over the planet, there are a multitude of things that could go wrong. Botanical precision is extremely important because in some cases even different chemotypes within a species of plants can yield dramatically different clinical results. Chemotypes are like sub-species where a particular constituent or group of constituents dominates. Even when two oils are called the same name, the chemistry of an oil can be different because of inaccurate botanical precision. You need a company who understands and respects these critical factors.
The climate can change dramatically from place to place and season to season, yielding remarkably different oils from the exact same species and chemotype. The same is true of the soil. A bergamot orange tree grown in Italian soil will yield a different oil -- even from starts from the exact same tree -- than one grown in West Africa under similar climate conditions but in different soil.
Organic certification is popular but surprisingly complicated standard that many people like to use to simplify their purchases. It is not as simple as it seems, however, Over the last decade organic certification has become a platform for a lot of unnecessary greed and corruption. We can all see when we shop that there is sometimes spoiled or damaged organic fruit being sold for twice the price of higher quality, ripe and nutritious fruit.
However, there are may sources from around the world where organic certification is used as merely a way to fleece the buyer. In many cases the certification is unreliable. Even the most precise chemical analysis cannot identify the slightest difference between organic and non-organic. many crops especially wild-crafted ones, cannot post organic certification.
In this area it is extremely important to have skilled chemists and buyers who understand where organic certification is vital and where it is merely a way to make everyone pay more. A reliable company will have purchasing staff that understands these challenges and works diligently to understand the market and not gouge the customer with unnecessary costs due to corrupt certification and pricing practices.
Then there's the precision required for growing, harvesting, handling and distilling the crops. Dr Penoel, MD, has personally visited farms and distillers all over the world, because it has been extremely important to his medical practice to know the care that farmers and distillers take to create a clinical quality oil. For many years he felt he could only trust small boutique farmers and distillers that he personally knew in Southern France. They exacted a high price from him for the highest quality oils, but he has said again and again, "I would rather have a single drop of high quality oil than a whole drum of junk product." The industry has become so large now that we must purchase oils from larger farms all over the planet, and we must be able to certify that they practice the same farming, harvesting, and distilling procedures as those small farmers Dr Penoel, MD came to know personally in the early days of the industry. Once again, buyers must be trained and know what they are looking for.
#2: The chemistry standard -- Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer (GCMS)
One universal standard that suppliers and retailers agree to use in a chemical analysis of oils using the mass spectrometer and the gas chromatography (GCMS). Every batch of oil comes with data from these two analyses. But every batch isn't always analyzed. Because these tests are often done by independent labs, they are expensive, and suppliers and wholesalers may choose to not pay for a new test with each batch of oils. A well-established essential oils company will commission an independent lab to conduct these analyses with each batch to establish a consistent level of quality.
There are ways to verify a quality of oil from these two tests, but they are not foolproof. There are many ways to adulterate an expensive oil with cheaper oils or oils that have not been extracted properly, and still pass this test. So we still need other checks on quality.
In addition to the GCMS testing, there are tests that identify other impurities in an essential oil , ensuring, for example, that there are no heavy metals, no pesticide residues, no foreign substances that don't belong in the oil, etc.
It goes without saying that a reliable company supplying essential oils for clinical use will not only have these tests done independently on each batch of oils, but they may also do these tests themselves, just to make sure that all tests from 1- the supplier, 2- the independent lab and 3- the company match with each other.
#3 Full disclosure standard
Health care professionals
need to be able to rely on a consistent high quality of essential oils
for their clinical use. However, the essential oils industry has been
troubled by loose quality standards. Companies have been known to claim internal certification of purity, yet delivered adulterated oils. A company focused on quality will create reliable systems of full disclosure where professionals who can read the GCMS charts can recognize the key constituents on each batch of essential oils and certify their purity to their patients.
Not only will the company disclose the GCMS charts and purity certifications for each batch of oils, but they will also identify the region of the world the oil came from and any sensitive growing or distilling practices that produced the oil. This can be important because, just as professional wine testers can identify better years in the wines they sample, so professionals in our industry all recognize that essential oils are natural plant substances. Climate, harvesting and distilling conditions can change from year to year, and a high quality oil from a supplier one year may not be as high the next. Buyers in a company with expert quality control will be trained and skilled at identifying the very best oils from around the world in every season. Oils not passing not only the higher standard GCMS (not internal standard), will be rejected and a broker will simply sell that batch to another essential oil company with lower accepting standards.
#4: The government test: Is the oil Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) for ingestion?
Because the flavoring industry has certain standards for a "food-grade" essential oil, the government has established what it calls the GRAS list for oils that are "Generally Recognized as Safe." This is not a clinical standard. However, these oils are used for all kinds of foods and beverages where there is no call for a clinical use to help with any ailment. The government just wants them to be safe for toothpaste, mouthwash, peppermint candy, Coca Cola, and alcoholic beverages. They can be adulterated. They don't even have to be natural.
This GRAS standard prevents us from recommending for ingestion those oils that would be harmful if ingested. For example, Birth and Camphor are not on the GRAS list. We recommend them for topical application and diffusion only.
#5: Organoleptic and physical tests
The standards of visual, texture, smell, and taste
An experienced analysis will include evaluation by each of the senses: The distinctive color of the oil, how it feels, it's thickness, it's smell, and even its taste. These evaluations require long experience with adulterated and low quality oils, but they are one of the most vital tests for quality assurance. A company must use someone qualified to recognize authentic oils by each of their senses. This is called organoleptic evaluation. Just as a wine tester, or some people have the "nose" for detecting things in tests.
The standard of Density
The specific chemical weight, or density of an oil can be measured to spot adulteration. There is also a test for authenticity that measures the time it takes for the oil to pass through a specific calibrated channel. This will help indicate the quality of the oil as well.
The standard of Refraction
When light passes through a liquid at a specific temperature, the angle of refraction of the light can be measured to give a consistent figure for each individual oil. This is another useful measurement that can help identify adulterated oils.
The standard of Optical Rotation
A beam of polarized light is used to identify oils that could be adulterated with synthetic substances. An authentic oil will cause the light to rotate in a specific direction, whereas the synthetic version (or partially synthetic) of the same or a similar chemical will not. The rotating angle of polarized light will show a specific movement to the right or the left. If the light rotates to the left it is called levogyre. If it rotates to the right it's called dextrogyre. The more active this rotation, the more pharmacologically active the oil will be.
The standard of Solubility in 70% alcohol
We can also calculate the amount of 70% alcohol it will take to create a solution. This measurement is specific for each essential oil. The test is performed at 20 degrees centigrade.
Many of these measurements and standards are not expensive to do, but they are too often neglected by companies that do not adequately test their oils.
The most well respected scientific and medical journals also recognize that studies must be done using the most scientifically pure, high quality, standardized, natural products. This is critical to their unbiased scientific reputation and repeatable results. They maintain a carefully guarded list of suppliers of products that can be used in their research. These suppliers use chemists, botanists, and biologists who collectively vet (evaluate and approve) the oils using the most advanced technologies in their respective industries ensuring their overall reproducible quality. When research is done on vetted quality oils, the findings are usually not published in journals that are considered unbiased and clinically sound.
That is one of the major reasons why research done on products from some essential oil marketing companies are rarely found in the most respected journals.
A clinical-grade oil will conform to this high quality standard, a standard the scientific community trusts for consistent quality they can recommend to health care professionals and serve as a basis for medicinal advancements.
#7: The Human Cell test
How does an essential oil interact with actual human cells? Health care professionals have used
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6PxrfsnuAA (Cell Active & Permeable)
Can "Therapeutic grade" also be a marketing term?
According to Robert Tisserand, also accepted as an authority in essential oils, Therapeutic grade have
As natural substances, essential oils are not patented or standardized. Calling a company's oils "certified" or "therapeutic grade" can be misleading. Several companies have promoted this misconception that there is some kind of independent body that certifies oils as "therapeutic grade". There is no such body, at least not a widely recognized one.
This doesn't mean that "therapeutic grade" couldn't have real meaning to health care professionals. But because there is no independent body that certifies the quality of oils, it just means that any certification standard is an internal one that is not recognized across the industry. Many analysts and aromatherapists would be happy to find an independent, trustworthy standard. As the standards mentioned above.
Do companies have to own their own farms and extract the oils themselves to guarantee quality?
No single supplier could maintain farms and extract oils from where they are best grown all over the globe. A single supplier may grow an distill a small selection of aromatic plants on large farms and gain a deeper understanding of the farming and distillation process, but most of their oils will come from a large number of growers all over the world. A broad pharmacopeia of therapeutic aromatic plants requires many different types of soils in many different countries and climates.
Maintaining farms and distillation factories all over the world is costly and does not make economic sense if a company is trying to keep their oils as affordable as possible.
Instead, look for a company who uses qualified independent experts to guarantee the quality of their oils they purchase. Find a company willing to be flexible in purchasing their oils from different parts of the world as climate conditions shift from growing season to growing season. Find a company who's single oils are slightly different from batch to batch because that signals attention to a complete, natural oil with all its constituents kept intact. Choose a company who's peppermint smells more like a field of plants than a candy store.
Choose a company that uses all the points of quality listed earlier -- botanical accuracy, farming and distilling standards, chemical accuracy using scientific charts, government food-grade certification, sources used by scientific research community, a test for how the oils react as they actually come in contact with human cells, an expert, "nose" and quality delivery standards.
Choose a company committed to science and the research community that supports it. A trustworthy company will use evidence based research to promote those oils with the most well-established clinical track records. It will promote those uses and therapies that science has proven to be most consistently effective. (And be FDA compliant).
Essential oils are not cure-alls. They have safety issues that must be addressed. They are highly effective for certain uses but less effective for others. A trustworthy company will work hard to promote what consistently works to keep you healthy. They will not attempt to oversell and will be transparent about the relative power of each oil and each therapy. I personally look up each single essential oil for the Cautions, listed in the book "Integrated Guide to Essential Oils and Aromatherapy". Another book (expensive, about $99) is "Essential Oil Safety"
The company you can trust will not try to sell a novice (distributors or customers) more than they need for convenient, in-home use. They will offer blends that combine therapeutic amounts of rare and expensive ingredients so you don't have to purchase the whole pharmacopeia and learn to blend them yourself. Again, leave the blending to the experts who understand the clinical uses of these complex aromatic tools.
I teach about essential oils proper use & safety, cautions, basic information, chemistry, blending, at the local college. During a class with 18 participants, I decided to do an experiment with absolutely no idea how the outcome would be. I had purchased several brands of essential oils. Some where local brands, they buy in bulk, and relabel. Three were 'considered' the top essential oil companies. I covered each bottle completely, and simply labeled them 1 through 10. I asked each person to pick up bottle 1 & 2, and put down the one they did NOT like. Then pick up bottle 3, and continue the process until at the end, they are holding the bottle they believe to be the best of these oil samples.
I did this for the general 3 oils that most companies will carry, Lemon, Lavender & Peppermint.
At the end, they wrote down what they believed to be best. 3 students were from 1 major company. 2 students from another major company. The rest were new or bought many brands. ALL of the students picked Ameo for Lemon, Ameo for True Lavender, and all except 1 lady picked Ameo Peppermint. She picked NOW peppermint. This shocked the 5 distributors (none from Ameo) in the class that they didn't even pick their own company of oil. As this was a blind test (labels covered) it could have gone anyway. I was pleased to see this class was choosing Ameo. Comments were how it was more "real" smelling, they were also allowed to taste if they wanted. I know this wasn't a documented experiment. I hope to repeat it in next years class, perhaps recorded, to see if the results are similar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLyK5fxKaGHWJN_pLVPSe-ja8VLAULbf8C&v=RdHY9ltFJHk (Clinical Grade explained)
This is what I respect and admire about Zija, Ameo clinical grade essential oils. This company has Integrity behind their expertise.
http://ClinicalGradeEssentialOils.myameo.com
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