What are Essential Oils?

Essential oils are liquid extracts that come from various plants, flowers, bark and roots. The oils capture the plant's essence. Unique aromatic compounds give each essential oil its characteristic and positive benefit.

Inhaling the aromas from essential oils can stimulate areas of your limbic system, (which is a part of your brain that plays a role in emotions, behaviours, sense of smell and long term memory). There are various ways to extract the useful compounds from these plants, such as:

Steam or water distillation

This process passes water or hot steam through the plants, pulling the essential compounds away from the plant matter. The benefit of steam distillation is that it yields oils that are exceptionally clean and pure. Cold Pressing

Cold pressing is the oldest extraction method, and is used almost exclusively for the production of citrus essential oil. This process works by mechanically pressing (or squeezing) plant matter in order for the oil to be released.

After extracting the active compounds from the plant matter, the essential oils can be used in many different ways; one of the most beneficial is to dilute them so they become safe to apply to our skin. (Essential oils are far too potent to apply directly to our skin and can actually cause issues such as sensitivity, irritation or allergic reaction if used neat). This is where Carrier Oils come in...

Carrier Oils

Carrier oils (which have their own beneficial properties for our skin), also known as "base oils", are taken from a plant's kernels, seeds, or nuts such as Almond, Jojoba, Coconut and Sunflower etc. (the same oils that are used in cooking, but these are extracted differently, and not beneficial for skin in the same way).

When carrier and essential oils are blended, a product with multiple properties is created! (What is Aromatherapy? blog post to follow).