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| Essential Oils - also aromathic oil,essences,ethereal oil,volatile oil).The odoriferous, volatie(i.e. evaporates in the open air) component of an aromathic plant usually captured by steam distillation or expression |
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 Whether absorbed through the skin or inhaled, once in the bloodstream and body fluids, the essences may have a pharmacological effect - even though the amount absorbed is very small indeed. According to Gattefosse�, essential oils diluted to a degree at which they no longer have any effect on living cultures in the laboratory still have a clear, rapid and beneficial action on the body. This indicates that essential oils are immuno-stimulants or bio-catalysts. Having triggered their healing effect, the aromatic molecules are rapidly excreted from the body -via the skin, sweat, urine, faeces, or, in the case of certain essences, such as eucalyptus and garlic, mainly through exhalation - and yet the aromatic molecules remain almost unchanged in themselves. The efficacy of the treatment is also due to the fact that aromatherapy treatments are given once or twice weekly over a period of not less than one month, thus repeatedly stimulating the body's self-healing processes. Of course, there is also the psychotherapeutic aspect of aromatherapy which, so far, we have only touched upon. As this is a subject worthy of much more space than can be afforded here.
ESSENTIAL OIL CHEMISTRY The known chemical constituents of plants are of two kinds: products of primary metabolism and products of secondary metabolism. The first are chiefly carbo-hydrates, amino acids and fixed oils, produced by light-absorbing (photosynthetic) processes. The latter group of chemicals arise from the primary metabolites. They include glycosides, terpenoids, alkaloids and essential oils. The chemistry of essential oils is elaborate. An individ-ual oil may have hundreds of ingredients, the principle components being a group of complex substances known as terpenes and their compounds or derivatives. This explains why a single essence has a wide range of thera-peutic actions. BUT ARE ESSENTIAL OILS WHOLE? Although essential oils have been credited with possess-ing almost all of the plant's therapeutic properties in a concentrated form, the word 'almost' needs some clarifi-cation. Essential oils lack the water-soluble constituents such as tannins, bitter compounds, sugars, mucilages and pectins, all of which play an important role in the medi-cinal action of the plant. With the exception of cold expressed citrus essences, the heat of distillation (and other warm extraction methods) causes changes in the natural chemical composition of the essential oil, result-ing in substances not found in the plant. Having taken these things into account, some herbalists believe that the term 'natural' is something of a misnomer when applied to an essential oil. While it is true that the essential oil lacks certain chem-ical compounds found in the raw plant material, it is still a highly complex substance, so complex that it cannot be replicated in the laboratory. Even though high-tech processes such as gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) can Separate out main components of essential oils by looking at the chemical 'fingerprint ' produced, it is impossible to isolate the numerous trace elements - including number of unidentified compounds - which make up the whole. For this reason, synthetic or nature identical aromatic oils never quite the same as organic essences. |
Next: THE MAIN CHEMICAL COMPONENTS OF ESSENTIAL OILS
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