Essential Oils

Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils Are The Best Quality

When looking to buy essential oils, you need to know that oils are graded according to quality. There are shelves crammed full of all kinds of essential oils now that aromatherapy is getting more popular. But prices for the same oil can vary remarkably. Depending on the purity of the essential oil, the price can vary widely. The process used to extract the oil also is a factor in the price of the essential oil. Therapeutic grade essential oils are one of the best quality oils you can buy.

Suppose you need one of the most versatile aromatherapy oils in existence tea tree oil. Did you know that there are over two hundred plants in the tea tree family, and they all produce similar smelling oil? However, there are only a few specific species of tea tree plants that can make you feel better. The others have no therapeutic or medical purposes at all. Some companies use additives or solvents or other kinds of oils to cut production costs which dilutes the essential oils and reduces their efficacy..

Some even use non-essential oil producing parts of the plant, while the real beneficial scent cells that help you are only in certain parts of a plant. Still others use dried plants when they need to be harvested fresh instead of dried. So how can you tell that you're getting the best quality for your money? You look for therapeutic grade essential oils, sometimes called "medicinal grade essential oils".

How Can You Tell Therapeutic Essential Oils From Their Cheaper Counterparts?

There are certain things on the bottle that will let you know if an essential oil is one of the therapeutic grade essential oils and not an evil twin.

The bottle will be dark. This keeps the oil safer longer. The Latin names of all the organic material will be on the label. For example, the tea tree Latin name you want to see is Melaleuca alternifolia. Some labels will say boldly that they are NOT for anything else other than burning in an oil lamp. Put those back. These are not therapeutic grade oils. The labels will often proudly proclaim that there no pesticides were used on the plants or herbs before harvest. They might be certified therapeutic grade essential oils by one or both of these groups -- ISO or AFNOR.

Who Is ISO and AFNOR?

These are the watchdog groups of the aromatherapy business that set the standards for what grade an essential oil can be sold at. It's not quite the same as Grade A, as they use tests American agencies do not use, but these groups are the best in the essential oils quality standards.

The ISO is short for the International Organization of Standardization, which in other languages other than English makes more sense than IOS. It started in 1947 and tests not only therapeutic grade essential oils but many other products as well. It has branches all over the world.

AFNOR is short for The Association Francaise de Normalisation . Yes, it's French. It's the French government's equivalent of the ISO. The tests for therapeutic grade essential oils are especially strict.

So when shopping for the highest quality essential oils, look for therapeutic grade oil. Also look for the ISO or AFNOR stamp of quality and approval to be sure you are getting what you are paying for.