Aromatherapy: Essential Oils are not Fragrance Oils.
Being an aromatherapist for many years, I've been asked this question many times, and was just asked again the other day. -- "Should I use essential oils or fragrance oils?"
If you want natural aromatherapy oils, those cannot be fragrance oils. There is a world of difference in the two. Essential oils are always made (distilled, cold-pressed, etc.) from plants or plant-parts such as flower petals, leaves, stems and even roots of a plant, depending on the oil being made. These oils will vary somewhat in scent by the year, as nature doesn't tend to exactly duplicate anything twice.
A good essential oil will be distilled and then sent off to a lab for testing, both purity and chemical components are checked in the oil and each oil has a specific profile. What you end up with is a pure, tested oil that's got no pesticides or other things in it that will harm you. They are all from and by nature - man only distills them.
On the other hand, fragrance oils are made in a lab by a (usually) chemist, and they can duplicate an essential oil with chemical components, or create another oil that we cannot distill from nature or might be very expensive to purchase. One example would be what we find at our perfume counters, high or low end, they'll pretty much all contain fragrance oils.
Fragrance oils have no extra benefits like essential oils do, such as lavender for relaxation or to put on burns, chamomile that is also a relaxant, most of the citrus oils that are so uplifting, but the fragrance oils do have one thing in common - they're much less expensive.
They also have nothing to do with aromatherapy. For aromatherapy to BE aromatherapy, you must use pure, tested essential oils. Personally and this is just me, I'm allergic to fragrance oils - hives and the works. I avoid perfume counters like the plague as it's an instant reaction to the scents. It's up to the individual as to which type of oil they wish to use, but a fragrance oil will never be classified in the essential oil catagory, and therefore they have nothing to do with aromatherapy. Look at it this way - essential oils come only from nature. Fragrance oils are synthetic.
mn - 2008
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Comments: 23
I still make things all the time here, but mostly give it away - whatever I can afford at the time. I've "used" fragrance oils in soaps as people have asked for scents that nature can't provide (ex. peach, pear, wisteria, gardenia, blueberry and more), but I can't use them on myself and have to be careful when making things with them.
William, you're right. Candles made with soy wax will usually be the candles that are also made with essential oils. No toxic fumes either.
Heather, you're not an oil snob at all, as many people (like me) are allergic to fragrance oils and you'll usually never get an actual ingredient list from a chemist as the ingredients are considered "proprietary", so if you have allergies, you won't know just what's causing them, only that it's something in the fragrance.
So, OK, this was a request - and I bought some one ounce-to two-ounce bottles of "those" fragances, made soap and lotions and creams with them and took the finished products on over, and they loved them. Made them with the fan going and NOT touching them as I'm allergic to them. Anyways, I also brought the essential oil soaps and other things I make - so they have both and it's funny how happy they are with the fragrance oil ones as well as the others. Ugh.
Your group will be spotlighted on the Monday edition of "Today on Gather" Article. I usually publish it after 9 PM on sunday night