http://younglivingcircle.com/Distillation.

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Dr. Robert Pappas, Ph.D., a specialist in essential oil chemistry and Director of Applied Essential Oil Research in South Bend, Indiana, agrees: "Young Living's essential oils are the nest I have yet analyzed. I gave their lavender oil my highest rating - 5 stars. It scored high in desired esters and low in the oxygenated compounds and ketones that can give the oil a bad-smelling, astringent quality. Dr. Young's uncompromising attention to quality as well as his never-ending pursuit of perfection are what make Young Living's essential oils so very different from many commonly available aromatherapy products." According to Dr. Herve Casabianca (Ph.D.), Chairman of the International Standards Organization (ISO) Committee on Essential Oil Standards (a European agency whose acronym is AFNOR), there is only one company in North America who regularly sends samples to the AFNOR laboratory in France for testing to be measured against the international standards for therapeutic quality, and that is Young Living, Inc. "Therefore, "says Dr. Casabianca, "Young Living oils are the only therapeutic grade oils, of which I am aware, produced and/or marketed by an American company." You cannot make therapeutic grade essential oils from home it is an extremely complex art and science, if you read the artilce I posted above it will explain much but if you want more details here I can provide them - TT At home you can ensure they are for the most part "pure" and "organic" but that still doesn't mean anything, therapeutic is important and a very complicated process. -TT "Young Living has united modern stainless steel technology (to prevent chemical reactions of oils to metal) with Old-World gentle distilling techniques to create fullbodied essential oils that are far different from what we normally see." -- James Kababick, Director Flora Research (Independent analytical lab) With that said, how can you know if you are buying the highest quality essential oil? Let us review some facts. 1. Are there different grades of pure essential oil? Yes, of course! Plants can be grown in different areas where the soil has different compositions that will change the oil. Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, wrong time of harvest, or even a different way of harvesting will change or determine the quality of oil and compound percentages. 2. Are all pure essential oils therapeutic? No! A plant harvested at the wrong time or distilled the wrong way can destroy the therapeutic values of the extracted oil, but the oil is still pure. Example: peppermint essential oil should contain between 38 and 47 percent menthol to be therapeutic. If the summer is wet and rainy, menthol will be approximately 24 percent but will still be pure. It is just not therapeutic. -TT

Here is an awesome blog with some great detail and distinctions, they are pretty recent articles, and although I have been studying this for some time, I learned from it. Go from this blog post and read the next handful, (they are short) http:// www.dgaryyoung.com/ blog/2011/part-14-ndingpure-essential-oils/ TT Those are VERY toxic qualities. They are used in the perfume industry with no care given to quality or health whatsoever. Any impurity in an essential oil is very dangerous actually, because they are so effective and cell penetration they carry with them any unbalanced molecules, impurities and any chemicals they are combined with, so personally I would NEVER even use them in cleaning products and in fact the "essential oils" in cleaning products are not actually essential oils, they are used for fragrance.......in fact, the oils are such amazing and effective penetration enhancers pharma is now using them in trans-dermal drug delivery patches and several medical journals have been published on their effectiveness......it is also a very scary thought that essential oils easily cross the blood brain barrier and the olfactory bulb is attached to the limbic system of the brain.....So think about any product that even uses essential oil fractions in a chemical base are very dangerous....Menthol alone (found in Peppermint) can increase absorption by more than 1000X of most substances -TT Also look up the trace compounds on Melissa (I believe) talked about in those blogs. Therapeutic Lavender for examples has 187 compounds while another "pure" Lavender oil, imporperly distilled can have as little as 4 compounds Penetration Enhancement This is an article about Peppermint component Menthol (of course full Peppermint is more effective than an isolate but very impressive nonetheless) I think it should be clear from the previous studies that it is quite possible to achieve targeted delivery. However, if we cannot get adequate amounts of our substance past the skin barrier, it is a mute point. And, considering one of the skin primary purposes is as a water barrier (20), hydrophilic substances such as yohimbine do not readily pass through (21, 22,23). Thus, we need to turn to the topic of penetration enhancement (for a more thorough presentation, see my previous article Transdermal Delivery. Yohimbine HCl, with a LogP of about .75 (24), is fairly polar/hydrophilic, thus penetration enhancers should be chosen accordingly namely we want those which affect the polar route. This rules out many commonly employed penetration enhancers a fact many companies do not seem to be aware of. Since there is very little direct data on penetration enhancement with Yohimbine HCl, we will look at data when substances with similar physical properties were used.

One promising chemical in this area is the terpene, l-menthol. Polar molecules undergo signicant hydrogen bonding in the stratum corneum, which is the primary reason for their poor passage through the skin barrier (23). Because of the presence of a hydroxyl (OH) group, l-menthol should bond to these hydrogens (25), leaving our drug free to more easily traverse the skin barrier. And, indeed the data has supported this. It increased the permeability coefficient of mannitol 100 fold vs. control (26). In a study using Propranolol HCl which has a partition coefficient almost identical to yohimbine (Log P .74 vs. .75), it increased ux 1000 fold vs. control and also displayed the shortest lag time of all terpenes tested (25). This is in contrast to d-limonene, almost identical, structurally, to l-menthol, with the exception of lacking the afore mentioned hydroxyl group, which has been shown to much less effective for polar compounds (25, 27). Summary: Menthol alone with certain substances increased the absorption by 1000X, this is HUGE! Essential oils make good supplements outstanding for this same reason, they drive nutrients into the cells whether it be through the skin or through the stomach. It makes very little sense to take any supplement without essential oils, hence the power of YL supplements. The drug companies are also doing many studies on Essential oils for transdermal drug delivery. I think you would also really appreciate this article 15 Questions To Ask About Essential Oil Quality by Dr. David Stewart, PhD http://tiffanyrowan.com/es sentialoils/essential-oils /15-questions-to-ask-essen tial-oil-company-represent atives/ There is a reason why 50+ US Hospitals including the 3rd largest in the world (Cleveland Clinic) and see what they have to say about their choice of oils. "We initially began by using essential oils on our medical/ surgical oor. We encouraged and gave nancial assistance to the charge nurse to become a certied aromatherapist. She is now a member of both the National Association of Holistic Aromatherapists and the Alliance of International Aromatherapists, and has done a wonderful job of clinically integrating essential oils into our daily practice.

In order to insure consistent quality, we use Young Living Oils exclusively. Most of the oils are used Neat, (undiluted), and others are diluted with extra virgin olive oil depending on each situation. We also diffuse Young Living Essential Oils at nursing stations, in our PACU, physicians lounges, and in some offices. Over the last year, our charge nurse has done several in-services and training sessions throughout the hospital. Through her tireless efforts she has created solid educational relationships with both our orthopedic and general surgery doctors, and regularly gets consults on all oors of the hospital. She is currently working to educate our medical doctors to get them onboard as well. We regularly treat gout, neuropathy, carpel tunnel, sinusitis, headaches, abdominal pain, kidney stone pain,neuralgia, tennis elbow, arthritis, back pain, leg cramps, postop hip and knee pain and whatever else comes our way. Each patients need, including which Young Living Essential Oils were used, is documented in our electronic charting so we can track their outcomes. We always have a good stock of Young Living lavender, peppermint, Peace and Calming, lemongrass, Thieves and plenty of single oils to make blends for gout. We have great expectations for the future of our aromatherapy program and hope to train enough folks to cover our Cancer Care Center and Pain Clinic, and look forward to the day we can do clinical studies on arthritis, post-op nausea, and hypertension. We would never even entertain the idea of using any other essential oil in our hospital. Young Living Essential Oils not only provide us with the level of quality we expect, but they are always consistent in their formulation so we are assured of the best possible outcomes for our patients. Again, thank you for all your help in educating us!" D.J.R., RRT, RM. Co-Chairman, Integrative Therapies, Cleveland Clinic Healing Services Team