Essential oil quality with Salvatore Battaglia

Whether for professional or home use, essential oils of the highest quality should always be used.

However, how do we define the quality of essential oils?
The challenge is that essential oils are not just used for aromatherapy purposes.

Essential oils are also used in:

• Food flavouring
• Perfumery and fragrances
• Pharmaceutical preparations
• Chemical manufacturing.

Each of these industries has developed its own set of standards for defining the quality of an essential oil.

In aromatherapy, it has been suggested that the quality of an essential oil should be defined by knowing if an essential oil is going have a therapeutic effect. This makes a lot of sense, but it also opens the door to a new set of challenges.

What defines the therapeutic activity of an essential oil?
Do we assume the standards adopted by ISO (International Organization for Standardization)?

If we go down this path, we will end up adopting industrial or scientific standards for essential oils which are not necessarily appropriate for aromatherapy use. Often, essential oils are blended, adulterated or rectified in order to comply with such standards. This is definitely not the type of essential oil that we should use in aromatherapy.

It is not surprising that some essential oil companies have decided to establish their own internal standards such as ‘therapeutic grade’. However, some in the industry suggest that this term is misleading, and claim it is a failure of aromatherapy essential oil trading associations for not issuing guidelines for essential oils - which has led to this situation.

I suggest the quality of an essential oil for use in aromatherapy should include the following:

• Purity – no adulterants or contamination
• Integrity of source plant and extraction process
  Country of origin, preferably the plant is organically cultivated
• Correct botanical identification of the plant
• Packaging process is compliant with quality assurance and GMP standards
• Quality control procedures for testing the essential oils
  Including detailed chemical analysis, chemosensory and analytical tests.

I have always been passionate about sourcing the highest quality essential oils. More than 35 years of experience as an aromatherapist, educator and supplier of essential oils has helped establish Perfect Potion as the leading supplier of essential oils in aromatherapy.

Our C of A provides you vital information regarding the correct identification of your essential oil such as the botanical name, the country of origin, the organic status of the oil and the method of extraction.

It includes a description of the appearance and organoleptic qualities of the oil, as well as the specific gravity and refractive index. These analytical tests are all done in-house in our GMP approved laboratory, and can be very useful to identify if the oil has been adulterated.

We also include a detailed chemical composition of the essential oil. For those who have studied essential oil chemistry, this will give us a good indication of the potential therapeutic qualities and safety of the oil.

We are proud to be able to offer this detailed and comprehensive C of A for your essential oils as transparency, integrity and honesty are a core part of our ethos and philosophy at Perfect Potion. 

Please enjoy Perfect Potion's pure essential oils and aromatherapy products with the knowledge that our pure essential oils; essential oil blends; aromatherapy skin care, hair care and body care preparations; and our aromatherapy mists and balms use essential oils only of the highest quality and integrity to ensure you flourish in body, mind and spirit.

Best wishes,

Salvatore Battaglia
Aromatherapist, Owner & Founder of Perfect Potion