Three major factors determine quality of essential oils. First is extraction process of oil. Second, species of plant used. Last but not least, part of plant is used to extract oil. This is because, oil from flower might be different from oil from bark of same plant.
It is not easy for a customer to differentiate oils from different species of the plant. After all, they may smell and look similar to each other. Therefore, many suppliers mix oils from different species to cut costs. For example, many supplier sale ‘lavandinum oil’ as Lavender Oil, due to similar properties. However, this reduces purity and quality of essential oils.
Only advance laboratory tests can determine quality of essential oils with certainty. It is important that you check packaging label for detailed information. Label should contain botanical name of plant and extraction process. Using botanical name you can find out breed of source plant. From extraction method you can figure out purity level.
Most common extraction method is steam based distillation. However superior CO2 extraction method is also gaining popularity in industry. Therefore, essential oils from CO2 process are more costly. This is due to high manufacturing costs involved in process.
So how to tell if Essential oils are pure:
- Check label for details of source and extraction method. You can see if oil is high quality from botanical name. We have prepare a exhaustive list of oils and their botanical name for you.
- Only buy oils from steam base distillation and CO2 extraction.
- Most oils are extremely volatile. So if you will out a drop on white paper, they will evaporate without stain. However few oils do oil stain, so their test will be opposite. However, almost all will evaporate very quickly.
- Another criteria is cost of essential oil. If an oil is too cheap, than you can be sure that it is not pure, as extracting essential oils is a costly process.
- If you are already an expert or regular user, smell of oil can clearly tell you about quality.
- Laboratory tests will cost you around $50-$100 per sample. Gas chromatography mass spectrometry will give you detail of all the ingredients present in sample.
Checking Quality of Essential Oils at Droplet care
We are sourcing our material from various continents. We test every supply of material in our labs. Our vendors and farmers share same high quality standards. We print species of plant and extraction processed used on our every product label. Droplet is a customer centric organization. Therefore, if you need any additional information about our products, please feel free to reach out to us.
Droplet care takes utmost care to make sure our every product can meet highest quality standards. Our quality of essential oils is one of best in market. We work closely with every stake holder in value chain to maintain high quality standards.
You don’t need full lab or testing for checking quality of essential oils. Just look for Droplet Care logo and be sure of high quality.
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