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Therapeutic grade vs cosmetic grade essential oils

Written by Go Native NZ on July 8th, 2021.      0 comments

Therapeutic vs cosmetic grade blog

We often get asked "what is the difference between therapeutic grade essential oils and cosmetic grade essential oils?" So here's a quick explanation...

Therapeutic grade essential oils
Therapeutic grade essential oils are most often distilled, sometimes cold pressed, directly from the plant matter. The reason essential oils vary so much in price is based on the quantity of plant matter required to produce the oil. For example, take lemon essential oil, which is relatively inexpensive, it takes around 15 lemons to produce approximately 5ml of lemon essential oil, whereas it takes 242,000 rose petals to produce the same amount of rose essential oil. That is why rose oil is incredibly expensive.

It's easy to think of just the finished product, the little bottle of beautifully scented oil you hold in your hand, but when you think about the planting, the tending, the harvesting, the preparing and the producing that goes into creating this gorgeous liquid... well, that's a LOT of roses.

Cosmetic grade essential oils
That's where cosmetic essential oils come in. They are created in order to make some of these ultra expensive essential oils attainable to more people.

Cosmetic grade essential oils are created made by mixing natural isolates from therapeutic grade essential oils. The resulting oil is also natural but is made cheaper by using isolates from cheaper plants. For example, to make carrot seed cosmetic oil, the active ingredient geranyl acetate and other actives from cheaper plants are used. To make geranium cosmetic essential oil, the isolates geraniol, citronellol and other aldehydes from citronella Java are used.  

Cosmetic essential oils are therefore cheaper and are 100% natural but have no therapeutic benefits. (Though in my humble option, having access to their amazing scent can be therapeutic in its own right.)

Fragrance oils
Fragrance oils are lab-made and don't have any therapeutic benefits. That being said, they have one job to do, which is smell amazing, and they do that extremely well! They also can create beautiful scents that don't necessarily exist naturally, coconut for example. There's no such thing as a coconut essential oil but it is a scent we all recognise and the majority love. The only way to create deeply coconut scented products is with coconut fragrance oil.

All our fragrance oils are from the famed perfume region of Grasse, France, and are designed for skincare to provide a rich, complex and long lasting scent.

So now you have all the information, you can make a decision that best suits you and your products. If you're wanting aromatherapy or skincare benefits then you're after 100% pure, therapeutic grade essential oils. If it's scent you're after, say for perfumes or soap, cosmetic grade essential oil and fragrance oils give you access to these incredible scents that can otherwise be unattainable.

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