Essential and vegetable oil buying guide

When looking to buy essential or vegetable (base) oils you can be quite dumfounded by the array of oils and claims regarding origins, purity, organics, chemistry and so on but it really isn't that difficult if you understand the basics of the essential oil market. Understanding the marketFirstly, understand that the oils come from plants which are grown the world over - sometimes wild, sometimes grown on farms and sometimes cultivated commercially in vast greenhouses.Secondly, understand that there are many methods of extracting oil from plants - sometimes the oil is distilled using steam. Some oils are extracted by "squeezing" as in the case of citrus oils. Sometimes using infusion whereby the plant is put into an oil(usually sunflower) and its essence "infuses" into the host (as with Calendula or Carrot) or maceration when the plant is chopped up and put into a carrier (again usually Sunflower). Sometimes the plant is "pressed" as with Olive or Wheat and many of the nutoils. Sometimes, a solvent is used(as with Camelia) or a tree can be "tapped" and the oil simply exudes out of the "wound".Thirdly, understand that good quality essential and base oils can be very expensive which gives a major opportunity to the less scrupolous to makea lot of money by selling inferior oils or blending expensive oils with cheaper oils or adding synthetic oils (made in a laboratory) to natural oils or even passing off synthetic oils as natural.Now for some simple facts:25% more Lavender is sold than grown - Good quality Lavender is often blended withcheaper variants to make up the missing 25%. Country of origin usually means the country an oil is bottled in - not necessarily where the plant was grown -a good example being the citrus fruits which are harvested for their juice and the remnants thenpulped and sold on to those who extract the oil who sell on to those who store the oil which is then marked as being from the country in which the holding tanks/bottling plants are regardless of where the fruit was actually grown. Do remember that (as with wine), whatever is in the soil and air is in the plant and that weather conditions can produce good or bad years for crops therefore a grower might produce excellent oil one year and poor oil the next."Organic" means that a farm or commercial growing operation has been certified by the soil association but the many of the best growers around the world and those that gather wild plants can never produce "organic" oils because it is only really feasible to certify commercially farmed plants as "organic" but, farmed plants are often lacking much of what only mother nature and the weather can put into a plant.Before buyingAsk yourself what you need from the oil you want to buy. If you want to make some product using Frankincense then it's fine to buy the Indian Boswelia Thurifera but if treating chest complaints then you'll have to pay almost double to get the Somalian Boswelia Carterii. If you are making soap then it's OK to buy the East African Sandalwood Osyris (one of the cheapest variants)Tenifolia or the Australian Santalum Spicatum or, indeed, any number of other variants but, if you are treating urinary infections orwant something to impact on some other physiological or psychological issue then youwill have to pay more than twice as much to get Santalum Albumtaken from the ancient woodlands of Mysore/India (the most expensive variant). In Britain, we have had a couple of years of bad weather and this has resulted in poor crops across the board - this means that British variants of Chamomile, Lavender, Mustard and others are cheaper now but you must remember that they are cheaper for a reason.This year we have switched our buying from English Chamomile Roman to Chilean. Our Lavender this year is Bulgarian and our Mustard from Holland because, therapeutically speaking, they have produced the best oils.When buyingThere are many people selling oils on EBay, onlineand on the high street - nearly all boast "100% Pure Oils" and many offer all manner of certification and prices can vary enormously - so when you see someoneselling Sandalwood at

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