What are Essential Oils?

Essential oils are natural aromatic compounds found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants. They can be both beautifully and powerfully fragrant. If you have ever enjoyed the gift of a rose, a walk by a field of lavender, or the smell of fresh cut mint, you have experienced the aromatic qualities of essential oils. In addition to giving plants their distinctive smells, essential oils provide plants with protection against predators and disease and play a role in plant pollination. 

Essential oils are non water-based phytochemicals made up of volatile aromatic compounds. Although they are fat soluble, they do not include fatty lipids or acids found in vegetable and animal oils. Essential oils are very clean, almost crisp, to the touch and are immediately absorbed by the skin. Pure, unadulterated essential oils are translucent and range in color from crystal clear to deep blue.

Try this at home: Squeeze the peel of a ripe orange. The fragrant residue on your hand is full of essential oils.

In addition to their intrinsic benefits to plants and being beautifully fragrant to people, essential oils have been used throughout history in many cultures for their medicinal and therapeutic benefits. Modern scientific study and trends towards more holistic approaches to wellness are driving a revival and new discovery of essential oil health applications.

dōTERRA (CPTG) Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade^® essential oils represent the safest, purest, and most beneficial essential oils available today. They are gently and skillfully distilled from plants that have been patiently harvested at the perfect moment by experienced growers from around the world for ideal extract composition and efficacy. Experienced essential oil users will immediately recognize dōTERRA's superior quality standard for naturally safe, purely effective therapeutic-grade essential oils.

Extraction Methods

Therapeutic-grade essential oils are most often extracted via a low-heat steam distillation process in which steam is circulated under pressure through plant material liberating the essential oils into the steam. As the steam mixture cools, the water and oils naturally separate and the oil is collected in its pure form. To ensure the highest quality oil extract of correct chemical composition, temperature and pressure must be monitored very closely. Too little heat and pressure will not release valuable oil while too much can change an extract's composition and potency. As important as the carefully controlled extraction process is, the careful selection of the correct plant and plant parts harvested at the right time is also required for a successful extraction. This complex process is as much art form as it is science and requires experienced growers and distillers working together to ensure a quality product.

(Fact: It takes as much as 12,000 rose blossoms to distill 5 ml of therapeutic- grade essential rose oil.)

Steam distillation is by far the most common method of extraction, but some oils such as citrus oils are extracted through a process of compression in which the oil is squeezed from the plant. A very few essential oils are extracted using solvents that bind with the oils and are later removed from the final product.

Essential Oil Quality Grades

There are a growing number of products claiming to be or to contain essential oils. They range in price and quality and are found in skin care, cosmetics, aromatherapy, and other products. However, many of these products do not use 100% pure essential oils and often use fragrant synthetic chemical substitutes to dilute or replace more expensive essential oil extracts. Furthermore, there are no current regulatory standards for the descriptive use of the “therapeutic grade” for products labeled as essential oils.
The CPTG Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade^®* mark represents dōTERRA's own internal standards for sourcing and testing 100% pure aromatic botanical extracts using  independent testing laboratories. The dōTERRA brand and registered CPTG mark represent dōTERRA's guarantee of 100% pure essential oil extracts that meet high standards for both purity and material composition and accurate product labeling.

dōTERRA's therapeutic-grade essential oils are 100% pure natural aromatic compounds carefully extracted from plants. They do not contain fillers or artificial ingredients that would dilute their active qualities. Proper extraction and quality control methods also ensure that dōTERRA's essential oils are free of any contaminants such as pesticides or other chemical residues. In addition to being 100% pure and natural, dōTERRA's Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade essential oils are subjected to further quality testing that ensures the correct composition of the active natural compounds found in each oil. Even though an essential oil may be 100% pure, if the right species or part of a plant has not been used, or if the plant has not been grown in the right environment or harvested at the right time, or if it has not been distilled under the right conditions, the natural chemical makeup of the extraction will not provide as predictable and powerful a benefit. In some cases, the wrong plant harvested at the wrong time may result in an extract that contains harmful levels of some constituents.

dōTERRA's Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade essential oils are guaranteed to be 100% pure and natural and free of synthetic compounds or contaminates. They are subjected to rigorous mass spectrometry and gas chromatography testing to ensure extract composition and activity. dōTERRA's 100% pure essential oils represent the safest and most beneficial essential oils available today.

(Try this at home: Compare the smell of dōTERRA's 100% lavender essential oil to another lavender oil or product in your home. If your product's fragrance is overbearing in any one note it may contain synthetic chemical substitutes. A 100% pure therapeutic-grade essential oil should have a balanced, broad fragrance profile and should smell crystal clean. Now, compare the feel of your product to dōTERRA's essential oil. A pure essential oil should not feel slick or oily but rather absorb cleanly and completely into your skin.)