Essential oils are natural materials widely used in many areas around the world and have become an integral part of everyday life. Essential oils extracted from plants are used primarily in cosmetics and many foods and for their fragrance, flavoring and preservative properties. Since essential oils are neither foods nor pharmaceutical agents, the composition of essential oils lacks regulation by regulatory agencies. This situation may lead to adulteration and/or dilution of the essential oil to reduce production costs. Analytical chemistry must be employed in all its forms to thwart the escalating, economic adulteration of these valued essential oils.
The main forms of essential oil adulteration
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines adulterate as “to corrupt, debase, or make impure by the addition of a foreign or inferior substance or element, especially to prepare for sale by replacing more valuable with less valuable or inert ingredients". The main forms of adulteration in essential oils are described below.
- Adding cheaper essential oils to adulterate (e.g., sweet orange added to bitter orange, corn mint added to peppermint or lavandin added to lavender).
- Adding cheap natural or synthetic materials to adulterate (e.g., synthetic linalool and linalyl acetate added to bergamot essential oil).
- Adding non-essential oils to adulterate (e.g., vegetable carrier oils, mineral oils, alcohols, and synthetic oils).
Our adulteration analysis services
Our adulteration analysis services can be used to screen a wide variety of essential oils that include but are not limited to the following.
| Essential Oil | Adulterant |
|---|
| Cinnamon Bark Oil | Cinnamon Leaf Oil / Cinnamic Aldehyde |
| Cinnamon Leaf Oil | Clove Leaf Oil, Eugenol, Cinnamic Aldehyde |
| Lavender Oil | Cheaper Lavandin Oil Varieties/Spike Lavender Oil / Rectified Ho Oil |
| Lemon Oil | Orange Terpenes / Lemon Terpenes |
| Patchoulli Oil | Gurjan Balsam , Vegetable Oils, Hercolyn D, Patchouli and Vetiver Ditillation Residues |
| Rosemary Oil | Eucalyptus Globulus Oil or White Camphor Oil |
| Anise Oil | Technical Grade Anethole |
| Bitter Almond Oil | Benzaldehyde |
| Cassia Oil | Cinnamic Aldehyde, Methyl Cinnamic Aldehyde and Coumarin |
| Cypress Oil | Alpha Pinene, Delta-3-Carene and Myrcene |
| Elemi Oil | Alpha Phellandrene and Limonene |
| Mentha Citrata Oil | Linalool / Linalyl Acetate |
| Palmarosa Oil | Geraniol |
| Spearmint Oil | L-carvone |
| Thyme Oil | Thymol and Para Cymene |
| Wintergreen Oil | Methyl Salicylate |
| … | … |
Our adulteration analysis method
Our adulteration analysis methods include, but are not limited to the following
- Chiral gas chromatography (GC)
- Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)
- Isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS)
- Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR)
- High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)
- Vibrational spectroscopy
- Coupled and multidimensional chromatography
- Differential scanning colorimetry (DSC)
- Gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID)
- Gas chromatography-isotoperatio mass spectrometry (GC-IRMS)
- Site-specific natural isotope fractionation NMR (SNIF-NMR)
Adulteration in essential oils is a topic of growing interest. As you can see, the detection of adulteration of essential oils requires very sophisticated technical methods. With the progress of chemical analysis, adulteration methods are also constantly improving, and solving this problem needs to keep pace with the times. As a reputable essential oil company, Alfa Chemistry continuously advances in practice. We have the ability to verify through technical means that your essential oils are pure and natural.
For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.
