Plant oils
Types
Vegetable fats
(list)
Essential oil
(list)
Macerated
(list)
Uses
Drying oil - Oil paint
Cooking oil
Fuel - Biodiesel
Aromatherapy
Components
Saturated fat
Monounsaturated fat
Polyunsaturated fat
Trans fat
An essential oil is any concentrated, hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds from plants, which are called aromatic herbs or aromatic plants. They are also known as volatile or ethereal oils, or simply as the "oil of" the plant material from which they were extracted, such as oil of clove. The term essential indicates that the oil carries distinctive scent (essence) of the plant, not that it is an especially important or fundamental substance. Essential oils do not as a group need to have any specific chemical properties in common, beyond conveying characteristic fragrances. They are not to be confused with essential fatty acids.
Essential oils are generally extracted by distillation. Other processes include expression, or solvent extraction. They are used in perfumes, cosmetics and bath products[1], for flavoring food and drink, and for scenting incense and household cleaning products.
Various essential oils have medicinal properties that have been applied in folk medicine since ancient times and are still widely used today. For example, many essential oils have been used medicinally at different periods in history. Medical applications proposed by those who sell medicinal oils range from skin treatments to remedies for cancer, and are often based on historical use of these oils for these purposes. Such claims are now subject to regulation in most countries, and have grown correspondingly more vague, to stay within these regulations.
Interest in essential oils has revived in recent decades, with the popularity of aromatherapy, a branch of alternative medicine which claims that the specific aromas carried by essential oils have curative effects. Oils are volatilized or diluted in a carrier oil and used in massage, or burned as incense, for example.
Contents
1 Production
1.1 Distillation
1.2 Expression
1.3 Solvent extraction
1.4 Production quantities
2 Essential oil use in aromatherapy
3 Dilution
4 Raw Materials
4.1 Rose oil
5 Dangers
5.1 Gynaecomastia
5.2 Pesticide residues
5.3 Ingestion
5.4 Smoke
5.5 Toxicology
6 Media
7 Notes and references
7.1 Additional
