Dear all,
In this Blog Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to
inform you about essential oils, ways of extraction, how to use them and how to
explain the huge price differences.
1.) What are
essential oils?
I would say, that essential
oils is a term that most people have heard about. And especially for those
who are working in the Spa industries
or who maybe run their own Spa, it
is part of our daily work. And of course here in our Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali we are using essential
oils as well in massage oils, as
fragrant in Aromatherapy or as Insect repellant. But what exactly is an essential oil?
As a definition we could say, that an essential oil is a volatile oil, usually having the characteristic
odor or flavor of the plant from which it is obtained. So the oil is
“essential” in the sense that it carries certain characteristics(scent, odor,
essence) of a plant.
Essential oils do
not form distinctive categories, for medical, pharmacological, culinary or any
other imaginable purpose.
But even though essential
oils do not form distinctive medical categories, they have been used for
medical reasons and of course further for massage
oils, in cosmetic products, soaps and of course for adding scent to
incense.
2. ) How are
essential oils produced?
Of Course Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to provide you as well with
interesting information about the production of essential oils. The extraction methods for essential oils are: Enfleurage, Expression, Steam Distilling,
Solvent extraction, Super Critical Fluid Extraction and the Phytonic Process.
The Super Critical Fluid Extraction and the Phytonic
Process( as well called Florasolextraction) are very new methods of essential oil production. The equipment
for the Super Critical Fluid Extraction is still very expensive and so it is
not yet used so much, but Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali still wants to explain it here
with a few words.
The Super Critical Fluid Extraction is a method of essential oil extraction, which uses
Carbon Dioxid in a special form. Carbon Dioxid usually is a gas, or a solid
when frozen and well known as the so called dry ice. If you go the opposite way
and you increase the temperature and the pressure over the so called
STP(standard temperature and pressure) you get something new, what has
properties somewhere midway between a gas and a liquid ; a so called
supercritical fluid.
This liquid can now be pressed through plant material, where
it acts as a solvent. The advantage of this method is that the CO2 can be
easily completely removed and that of course produces a very pure essential oil and will be maybe later
make it an alternative to the classical solvent extraction, which is described
later on. I think that the Spa industry
or the industry in general looks very interested to this new method, and as
well we here at Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali hope to hear news about this new method.
The Phtonic Process/Florasol Extraction is a very new method that uses
“non-chloroflurocarbons” who are as well referred to as phytols. The quality of
the produced oils is close to nature, but it has to be said that the process
uses fluro-hydrocarbons, which can be potentially harmful and are definitely
not good for the environment.
Next Spiral Spa @
Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to
explain about the Enfleurage and Steam Distillation.
Both of these are opposite to the two methods mentioned
before very old techniques, but still in use for the production of essential oils.
The Enfleurage is one of the oldest forms of producing essential oils and fragrance. It can be
done as a “cold enfleurage” or as a “hot enfleurage”. In both methods normally
animal fat from pork or beef, so called lard or tallow is used. In the cold
enfleurage a thin layer of this fat is first spread onto a framed plate of
glass and then for example Jasmine flowers are placed on it. Now the volatile
oil of these flowers is allowed to diffuse into the fat for 1-3 days, producing
the so called “enfleurage pomade”. In hot enfleurage the fat would be heated
and the flowers stirred into the fat. The product at this point would be as
well a so called “enfleurage pomade”.
If we wash it now with ethyl alcohol to move the violate oil
into the alcohol and allow the alcohol later to evaporate it will leave behind
the “essence”.
Enfleurage was a long time the only possibility to extract
so delicate essential oils like
Jasmin. Now let’s come to the Steam Distillation.
In Steam
Distillation the raw plant material is put into a so called alembic, over
water and as the water is heated, the steam passes through the plant material,
vaporizing the essential oil. The
vapor now has to flow through a coil where it can condense and is then
collected in a vessel. Today most common essential
oils- such as lavender, peppermint and so on are produced in this way.
The Expression now is one of the mentioned essential oil extractions left. It is
simply mechanically pressed. This method is for example used for citrus peel
because of the relatively high amounts of essential
oil citrus peel contains. These essential
oils are produced as byproducts and relatively cheap.
Last but not least Spiral Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to introduce you to the
solvent extraction.
The Solvent Extraction uses chemicals such as hexane,
acetone, di-methylene chloride and others to extract essential oils. Using this method the plant is actually immersed
into the solvent to become a thick substance called “concrete”. Often now
another solvent, such as ethyl alcohol is used to extract the fragrant or essential oil from the concrete.
Allowing the alcohol to evaporate it leaves behind the so called “absolute” or essential oil. Of course we don’t
prefer this method, because of the use of chemicals, but at this point simply
has to be mentioned that vegetable oils are produced in the same way, still
delivering a product that can be eaten!!!
Knowing now the amounts of essential oils that might be used in massage oil we are talking
about extreme small amounts of solvents that might remain!
But of course Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali and probably many others would be
happy about alternatives and maybe the Supercritical Fluid Extraction will
offer that one day.
3.) Why are there so
huge differences in the price of essential oils?
Here in our Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali we are often asked why prices of essential oils offered in Supermarkets
differ so much prices of the essential
oils we and other high class Spa
offer.
There has to be first mentioned, that in general there are
big differences in the the production prices of essential oils in general. So we already know that one factor is
definitely the extraction method that is used. But there are other criteria as
well, like for example the availability of raw material and that makes for
example Sandelwood essential oil(what
needs ages until it can be harvested ) compared to clove essential oil(what can be distilled out of the leaves) an expensive
essential oil. And last but not
least don’t forget that cheap essential
oils are very often synthetic products ( and should then be called
fragrance) or simply not pure!
4.) What should be considered when using
essential oils?
When handling different essential
oils please be aware that the potential danger of essential oil is generally relative to its level or grade of purity.
That means the higher the level of purity; the more careful we have to handle
them. In general you have to say that essential
oils have to be diluted before they should come into contact with the body.
Doesn’t matter in which way you want to use them, as a Perfume, a Mist or for massage, we first have to mix them! In
case of an massage oil we normally
mix the essential oil with a so
called carrier/base oil. Example for that could be Olive oil more info, Sunflower oil more info,
Grapeseed oil more info, Sweet Almond oil more info, Jojoba oil more info, Apricot Kernel oil more info, Soy Bean oil,
Coconut oil and many more. In our Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali we follow the following guidelines
when blending massage oils:
Body massage-50
drops essential oil/100ml base oil
Facial massage-25
drops essential oil/100ml base oil
Children 1 year to 12 years-25drops essential oil/100ml base oil
Elderly people-25drops essential
oil/100ml base oil
Babies up to 1 year- No! essential oils!! Pure Sunflower oil is perfect for infant massage
Pregnant woman- No essential
oils
If not diluted and directly applied to the skin some essential oils can cause severe
irritation, provocatean allergic reaction and, over time even be hepatotoxic (that
means to damage the liver!).
Please be as well aware that other essential oils, like for example many of the citrus peel oils
increase the skins vulnerability to sunlight. Apart from that it is suggested
to not use essential oils internal!
I mean just the fact that many of them can attack plastic
bottles, should make clear that the stomach isn’t the right place for essential oils. Some of them can have
as well certain toxicity if taken orally.
In the end we would like to recommend doing a bit of a
research before using a new essential
oil. And there will be soon Article published in our Blog concentrating on
the different essential oils.
5.) What are
essential oils mainly used for?
Essential oils
have a very wide range of use and so of course the main usage in the Spa and Beauty industry is the usage in
massage oils, creams, perfume, body
mist and many more. They are as well the key ingredient of Aromatherapy an alternative
healing method, and here in our Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali we use them as well frequently as
insect repellant, or as fragrance for face towel( for example lavender).
Outside of the Spa
essential oils are used as well, for
example for flavoring food(but just certain, in certain amounts and quality’s!!!!
Pls. don’t experiment with that!!!), Household Cleaner, and even today still in
medicine. So is for example juniper valued for his diuretic effects and Thymol
well known for its antiseptic effects.(By the way a Tea made of Thyme leaves
helps very well with colds and diseases of the respiratory system).
In the end Spiral Spa
@ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali wants to show you a list of essential oils we are using in our Spa and which will be soon subject of
further article.
Lemongrass essential
oil read more
Citronella essential
oil
Tea Tree essential
oil
Clove essential oil read more
Rose essential oil
Jasmine essential oil
Lavender essential
oil
Peppermint essential
oil read more
Sandalwood essential
oil
Ylang – Ylang essential
oil
Frangipany essential
oil read more
Cempaka essential oil
Cinnamon essential
oil
Patchouli essential
oil
Spiral Spa @
Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali hopes you enjoyed reading.
Recommended links:
http://spiralspa.blogspot.com/2013/12/v-behaviorurldefaultvmlo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enfleurage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_distillation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid%E2%80%93liquid_extraction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercritical_fluid_extraction
0 comments:
Post a Comment