By Jessica Freeman

Essential oils have recently experienced a resurgence in popularity, although they have been around for many, many years. They are used topically, sometimes internally, and most popularly for aroma therapy. There are many different kinds of essential oils and sources to buy them from. As follows are a few tips for buying a quality essential oil:

1. Essential oils are different than fragrance oils. Essential oils are extracted using many different methods depending on the property of the leaf, plant, stem, flower, bark, seed, or fruit they are being extracted from. Fragrance oils are mainly from a chemical or synthetic source and cannot be used therapeutically. These are for fragrance only.

2. It is important to pay attention to the extraction method used when considering what you want to use the oil for. Extraction methods are as follows; steam distillation, cold-pressing, enfleurage, turbo distillation, and hydro diffusion extraction. These methods result in a pure product with no byproducts from the extraction process. Solvent extraction and carbon dioxide extraction are sometimes used as well on plants that are extremely delicate and difficult to extract from and may leave behind solvent residues.

3. You want the oil you purchase to be in dark glass, not plastic or clear glass. Dark glass allows your product to last longer. As with plastic containers, essential oils can eat away at the plastic and contaminate your oil.

4. Look for vendors who test their products and will provide you with samples to try so you can gain confidence in the product. This shows the companies confidence and pride in their product as well.

5. When you buy oils, beware of prices! Oils should not all be priced the same, some are harder to extract or obtain than others. Therefore, the more difficult it is to extract or obtain the oil, the higher the price may be.

6. A reputable oil company should provide you with information on how the oil was extracted and the oil’s botanical name. It is important to know that many plants have different species. For example, one would think that chamomile is chamomile, when in fact there are different species of chamomile and therefore result in different therapeutic properties. Therefore, when comparing oils, the same plant species should be compared to be sure that you will receive accurate results from your comparison.

Sage Health will be having a 10% OFF SALE on all of our NOW! essential oils from Wednesday July 25th thru Wednesday August 1st!

Come in and visit us!

Healthline sponsored by Brent Hauver, a Holistic Health Researcher who owns and operates Sage Health and Empowerment Center in Overton, NV.