What are Essential Oils?

Essential oils are pure natural plant essences, that are extracted from various parts of the plants, like, flowers, petals, roots, bark, leaves, stems, etc. For example, essential oil of rose is extracted from its petals, patchouli essential oil is extracted from the leaves of patchouli plant. Essential oils are not oils, in the true sense, but are the natural chemicals found in the plants, which are extracted as aromatic and volatile essences.

There are various methods to extract essential oils, like, CO2 extraction, cold pressing and stem distillation, but, steam distillation is the most important among them. These products are pure and do not contain any color or other ingredients, like carrier oils. Essential oils are highly concentrated and have to be diluted several times before using. The fragrance of essential oils are retained even after diluting several times. These oils are very expensive owing to the fact that large quantities of raw materials are required to make small amounts of essential oils. For example, a drop of rose oil is extracted from thirty petals and 1000 pounds of jasmine flowers are used to make one pound of essential oil.