What are Essential Oils?
Have you ever held a peppermint leaf in your hand and enjoyed the minty smell that was left behind on your fingers? If so, you have experienced the aromatic qualities of essential oils. Similarly, when you peel an orange you are rupturing the essential oils in the peel and creating an aromatic experience. Essential oils are volatile aromatic compounds that have highly concentrated natural constituents and are found in the stems, roots, flowers, bark or seeds of plants. To put it simply, they are what give a plant its distinctive scent.
While essential oils have been reemerging in the last 10 years as a natural alternative to Western Medicine, the reality is that they have been around for centuries. The Egyptians used plant extracts as early as 3,500 B.C. and the Chinese have used herbs and plants as an integral part of their traditional medicine for thousands of years. History shows that essential oils have not only been used for their unique fragrance, but also for beauty treatment, food preparation and healthcare practices.
So what does a volatile aromatic compound mean? Volatile indicates that essential oils quickly change state and compound refers to the small organic molecules that go from being a solid or a liquid to a gas at room temperature. When you open up a bottle of dōTERRA essential oil you can smell it immediately. This is because of the physical and chemical properties of the volatile aromatic compounds found in each essential oil. The aroma moves very quickly through the air and interacts directly with the olfactory sensors in the nose. Because dōTERRA essential oils are very high quality, they are incredibly potent and you can smell them from quite a distance. It takes 28,000 rose petals to make one 5mL bottle of dōTERRA Rose essential oil and 50 lemons to make one 15mL bottle of dōTERRA Lemon essential oil. This demonstrates how pure and potent each bottle of dōTERRA essential oil is, making them very common in aromatherapy practices to help maintain a healthy mind and body. To date there are over 3000 varieties of volatile aromatic compounds that have been identified.
When it comes to the strength and quality of a plant, it varies depending on the time of day, season, geographic location, method and duration of distillation, year grown, weather and much more. dōTERRA takes every one of these factors and more into account and carefully plans every step of the production process to ensure the overall quality of each essential oil is the highest in the industry.
dōTERRA offers a wide range of essential oils, essential oil blends and other natural health products that contain essential oils for your everyday life. Whether it is for emotional or physical wellness, or for your pet care it is important to know how to use these essential oils so that you are experiencing all of the benefits that they offer.