Welcome to Essential
Oils at Natural Earth |
Essential Oils are a form of natural health and healing
therapy that aim to promote natural health- they are considered an
alternative and natural treatment used to enhance a happy and healthy
lifestyle.
 Essential
oils are concentrated, hydrophobic liquid containing volatile
aromatic compound extracted from plants. It may be produced by distillation,
expression, or solvent extraction. Essential oils are used in perfumery,
aromatherapy, cosmetics, incense, for flavoring food and drink,
and to a lesser extent, in medicine and household cleaning products.
As well as being a potent natural health and healing modality, essential
oils are valuable commodities to the fragrance and flavorant industries.
 Essential
oil is also known as volatile oil and ethereal oil. It may also
be referred to as "oil of" the raw plant material from
which it was extracted, such as oil of clove. The term essential
is intended to indicate that the oil is the fragrant essence of
the plant from which it is extracted and not in the more common
sense of being indispensable. It is not to be confused with essential
fatty acids.
Today, most common essential oils, such as lavender, peppermint,
and eucalyptus, are distilled. Raw plant material, consisting of
the flowers, leaves, wood, bark, roots, seeds, or peel, is put into
an alembic (distillation apparatus) over water, As the water is
heated the steam passes through the plant material, vaporizing the
volatile compounds. The vapors flow through a coil where they condense
back to liquid, which is then collected in a holding vessel.
Most oils are distilled in a single process. One exception is Ylang-ylang
(Cananga odorata), which takes 22 hours to complete through a Fractional
distillation.
The water recondensed from the distillation process is referred
to as a hydrosol, hydrolat, or plant water essence, which may be
sold as another fragrant product. Popular hydrosols are rose water,
lavender water, and orange blossom water. Many plant hydrosols have
unpleasant smells and are therefore not sold.
Click
here to read more about Essential Oils
PLEASE NOTE: Natural-Earth.com
does not necessarily endorse any of the natural health and healing
treatments and therapy in the natural health, natural medicine and
lifestyles directory. The material on this web site has been provided
for your information and we urge you to be discriminating in making
your choice of natural health and healing. We wish you Good Luck...
and Good Health.
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