70: Essential Oils vs Fragrance Oils - What is the Difference?

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Liz Fulcher: You’re listening to the Aromatic Wisdom Podcast, episode number 70. In the world of scented products, essential oils and fragrance oils are both used to enhance the sensory experience. Today, we're going to explore the distinctions between each of those types of oils, how each are produced, their best uses, and any safety considerations.

Well, hello, friends. Welcome back to the Aromatic Wisdom Podcast. Last week, I sent an email to my list. And if you want to be on the list and receive emails from me and updates and so forth, you can find that information in the show notes. But I gave the people in my community 3 options. Do you prefer to learn through listening? Do you prefer to learn through reading? Or would you like to have both available? And the majority of the responses, which were so kind and so many, most people said they like to have both available. If they're going to listen, they also like to have something to read to go along with it. And someone commented, what about the people who can't hear? People who are hearing impaired. They should always be able to have some text to read it. So going forward, I am going to put the transcript in a raw form in the show notes. 

Those of you who are on Patreon who've always been receiving a formatted, printable PDF version of the transcript know that I go to a lot of trouble to make it printable, I'll keep on doing that. That was so helpful. Thank you very much. Feedback is a really rich resource for any content creator. So those of you again who took the time to respond, I appreciate that.

Before we get into the juicy aromatic content today, I want to give a Warm Aromatic Wisdom WELCOME to 2 new Patrons, Kim and Annette. Annette, I have to tell you, you have the cutest email address. I will not say it here, but just know that I appreciated it.

Thanks so much for joining. You can learn more at patreon.com/aromaticwisdom. 

On to today's topic, which I found fascinating. As an educator, before I teach a topic or in this case, talk about a topic on my podcast, sometimes I just have to refresh my memory on something.

Other times, I have to learn about it before I feel comfortable sharing the information with you. Well, I did not know very much about fragrance oils. I only knew that they were not essential oils. What I learned was how they're made, and I found that to be interesting. So thank you so much to my students and my listeners for giving me the opportunity to continue to increase my own knowledge so I can share it with you. With that said, let's move forward and see if we can all learn something new about the differences between essential oils and fragrance oils. I think it's fair to say that in some capacity, we're all affected by scent. Scent is one of the key ways that we engage with the world, with the world around us in particular, and, therefore, it can have a real powerful influence on our emotions.

When I was in my twenties, I lived in Philadelphia, and I worked at the Franklin Institute Science Museum. Yes. I did. I was the director of group sales, and I absolutely loved that job. And I lived in South Philadelphia, what's known as South Philly on Ninth Street, about two blocks from the famous South Philly Italian market. And my apartment was on the 2nd floor, and it was directly across the street from an Italian bakery. And this bakery, as all bakeries do, would start making their bread really early in the morning. I don't know. Maybe 3 or 4 o'clock they would start. When I would wake up at 6 or 7 in the morning, the aroma of freshly baked bread would waft into my windows. Even if it was winter and my windows were closed, I can tell you it was really powerful. And I woke up happy every day. That smell, going to a job I loved. And to this day, when I smell fresh baked bread, I am transported to those Philadelphia mornings. This capacity of scent to influence our moods and our emotions makes it so fascinating, but it's also misunderstood, in particular, by people who are just new starting to work in the world of fragrances and scents, specifically aromatherapists, perfumers, crafters, people who make soap and candles. So when we're talking about the world of fragrance, there are 2 types of oils that take center stage, essential oils and fragrance oils.

Yes. They both offer beautiful aromas, but they are massively different in 2 key ways, their composition and how they're used. Now I wanna be clear that I'm not saying one is better than the other. My job as an educator is to impart information so that my student, or in this case, you, the listener, can make a more informed choice on what's going to serve you and your purposes. So let's have a look now first at essential oils and then fragrance oils. I'm gonna break these 2 oils down into 4 small segments. I'll start with the definition, then give you the origin, meaning how they're made. Then I'll give you the best uses for that type of oil.

Then finally, I'll give you any safety information that I find is pertinent. Okay. We're starting with essential oils. So part 1, definition of an essential oil. An essential oil is an aromatic liquid that is formed within specialized glands and ducts inside a plant. The plants from which the essential oils can be found are varied, and, also the parts of the plants from which the oil is extracted is also varied. Let me give you an example. You can find essential oil glands in leaves of some plants like eucalyptus, basil, tea tree.

You can find essential oil glands in flowers, lavender, rose, jasmine. You can find essential oil in the roots of plants, like ginger, vetiver. You can find essential oils in the rind of citrus fruit. You can also find it in some citrus leaves, but that's a rabbit hole. Focus, Liz. You can find essential oils in the rind of citrus fruit, like orange, grapefruit, lemon. And you can even find essential oils in tree resins. Frankincense and myrrh are 2 very common, good examples.

So now moving into the second segment of essential oils, we're going to look at the origin of essential oils and how they're produced. There are a lot of different ways essential oils can be extracted from the plants in which they are formed. The 2 most common are distillation and cold pressing. Distillation is when steam is used to literally extract the oils from the plant material because of the heat, and cold press extraction involves a mechanically involves mechanically pressing the oil out of the plant's peel or rind. It's actually a very cool device that kinda punches the skin, pierces the skin, and then squeezes it. Both of these methods are designed to capture the aromatic components from the various plants. And then the next thing we'll look at, or the third part of essential oils that we're looking at, is the best way for using essential oils. So essential oils contain not only the plant's natural, gorgeous aroma, which is often the first thing that attracts people to using essential oils is the spectacular fragrance, natural fragrance that is produced by these plants, but the essential oils also contain powerful therapeutic properties.

These properties come about as a result of chemistry. I'll give you an example. If you have a cup of coffee and you suddenly start to feel awake, you get a big dopamine hit that is from the caffeine molecule from the coffee bean. Now similarly, essential oils have their own special sets of chemistry of molecules that impart specific therapeutic activity from that essential oil. So a chemical such as d limonene, which you find in citrus plants, is great for boosting immunity. In the gorgeous lavender essential oil, there's a component called Linil Acetate, which will actually help to sedate the central nervous system. So I wanna circle back to the topic about aroma and fragrance. The essential oils are beautifully aromatic.

It's the natural aroma that comes from the plant, and that makes them incredibly enjoyable, and you can certainly use the aroma to your advantage In many ways, you can fragrance a room with it at the same time while you're creating an antibacterial effect in the room. You can make a blend that's much more pleasant and enjoyable for the person using the blend. If you've designed it for them for healing, for some therapeutic purpose, and you add an essential oil you know that they love, they're going to be much more likely to actually be compliant and use the blend. So, again, talking about fragrance, aroma, the smell of an essential oil, that is not why it works therapeutically. It is not because of the aroma that the healing takes place. It's because of the chemical properties of that essential oil. You can have a nosemia, which is a condition in which you lose your sense of smell, and essential oils will still work. They will still affect your healing.

If you have no sense of smell and you drink a cup of coffee, the caffeine molecule is still going to affect your central nervous system. So to wrap up this section on essential oils and their best uses, using therapeutically is true aromatherapy, and a lot of people will integrate aromatherapy into their professional wellness practice or at home, even in cleaning products. And, yes, they can be used in candles and soap, yet essential oils are very volatile, which means that they go from a liquid to a gas very quickly, and they will often escape. And so the aroma will not be very strong. It's also an expensive way to make soaps and candles, and I will talk about cost in a minute. Essential oils are versatile. They can be used in a diffuser to scent the room. They can use be used, as I mentioned, for topical wounds.

You can use essential oils in a nasal inhaler, massage oils, bath salts, even as natural cleaning agents, again, because of their chemistry, antiviral, antibacterial, and so forth. Now we'll move into essential oil safety, which is part 4 of essential oils. So essential oils might smell like heaven, and, yes, they do. But you've got to remember safety when you're using these potent natural extracts. Essential oils are very concentrated. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's safe. They should never be ingested, swallowed without proper guidance from a qualified health care professional. So this is my pat response that I always say to my students about ingesting essential oils.

It should always be the very, very last thing that you try for whatever you're trying to address by swallowing them. So in other words, if you're trying to address a stomachache or some immunity thing, try first herbs or herbs as I think we should probably say and the Brits do, try teas. How about drinking hydrosols? They're safe and they're they can be very effective. Food. Oh, what a concept. How about eating food that will also boost your immunity, will settle your stomach? There are many, many natural ingredients, natural products that you can ingest to boost your healing, whatever you're trying to address that are not essential oils and that have been proven historically for decades and eons that we human beings have been ingesting and have proven to be effective. My belief is essential oils are most effectively and best used topically. I'm not gonna go too much deeper into safety, although I know it's very important, but I have another podcast episode

I have a blog post, a lot of information on safety. If you wanna go deeper, I'll put those links in the show notes. Okay. Let's shift our focus now to fragrance oils. Just as I did with essential oils, I will talk about 4 aspects of fragrance oils. The first being, of course, a definition. Then we're gonna look at how fragrance oils are produced, you know, their origin. Then number 3, we're going to look at the best ways to use fragrance oils.

And finally, safety indications for fragrance oils. Okay. Here is one definition. Fragrance oils are blended, synthetic aromatic compounds that are diluted with a carrier like propylene glycol, vegetable oil, or mineral oil. Sometimes they're also called perfume oils or aromatic oils. So another thing to watch out for and be really careful is what the heck is the thing called. So in a nutshell, essential oils come from plants. Fragrance oils are created in a laboratory.

So what does this mean to the user? Well, at the risk of being corny, although in truth, I I kinda like being corny, I like to say it like this. With essential oils, you have the aroma and the therapy, aromatherapy. With fragrance oils, you have the aroma without the therapy. Again, one is not better than the other. 1 is not worse than the other. They're simply different products for different purposes. Now that we've looked at the definition, let's look at their origin. How are fragrance oils produced? This is the second part of our 4 parts for fragrance oil.

So scientists can do amazing things with scent from inside a laboratory. They can create a product called nature identical. Now why would they do this? Well, because it's a very economical way to reproduce a scent that's created in nature, but at a fraction of the cost. And not only that, but they can create fragrances that don't exist in nature, such as hickory and suede fragrance oil. Something like raspberry hibiscus fragrance oil will neither raspberry nor hibiscus produce an essential oil. So by default, it's going to be a synthetic fragrance oil. Speaking very broadly, fragrance oils are produced in 2 ways. 1, purely with synthetics, or number 2, with synthetics plus natural aromatic isolates.

So what the heck is an isolate, Liz? I'll tell you. Looking at essential oil chemistry, we know that essential oils are made up of 100 of components for the most part. Some only have 3 or 4 components. But, regardless, every essential oil is made up of specific molecules that make up its being. There are things within the the essential oil that give it its fragrance. Isolates in fragrance refers to a single odor molecule that has been isolated from the original essential oil. So they have a way of extracting the smelly molecule from, say, lavender, reproduce it, and add that to a fragrance oil. Sometimes they will take the extracted molecule and reproduce it synthetically, which is generally what happens.

Now recreating an aroma synthetically is not unethical. It's just another way to get a fragrance. It is unethical when that is used to adulterate rose. For example, rose and sandalwood, these are very, very frequently adulterated with isolates, synthetic isolates, to get the smell because they're very expensive oils. So that's highly unethical. And another reason why I stress over and over again to my students and to you, my listeners, know your source. Every supplier should be completely transparent. They should be able to answer all your questions about the source of their products, the source of their ingredients, and it's just really important to have a relationship with your supplier.

Okay. Hold on. Give me a minute while I step down from my soapbox. 

So let me tell you a little story about 1999 when I spent a summer, week-long program called an international training in essential oils at Purdue University in Indiana. And one of the exercises that we did was try to smell the isolate in the lavender. We were given 7 little samples of lavender, and one of them was adulterated with, I think, it was linalool. And the exercise was to smell these 7 samples of lavender essential oil and determine which one had been adulterated with synthetic linalool. And at first, I thought, well, they were all a little bit different, but, honestly, I could not tell which was the fake one.

After we smelled these 7 samples of lavender, each of us were given a sample of Linolol, just the isolate to smell, and it smelled a little bit like funky lavender. But when I went back then and smelled the 7 samples again, it was immediately easy to pick out the one that had the synthetic in it. Because once I had smelled the synthetic, I immediately picked it up from the, sample. I'm telling you this because, initially, sometimes it can be really hard when you're new working with essential oils to smell if something is real or if something's been added to it. I promise you, the more you work with essential oils, the more you work with good essential oils, the easier it is to pick out something that's off with an essential oil. Now sometimes, it really is that the, that batch wasn't great, but you'll see. It has a smell that it is synthetic. It smells like there's something in it that doesn't belong there.

So if you're new to working with essential oils, trust me, with time and experience, you'll get better and better at being able to identify really good essential oils. So I wanna say something at this point. I have taken a break from this recording because as I was making the recording, I started to get I started to get sick. I got a really bad cold and a cough, and I could not record. In fact, I lost my voice for a little bit. So I'm back now to finish this recording. My apologies if I do sound a bit nasally or my voice has suddenly changed. It's because I, I'm finishing the recording at a later date with the nose that is a little congested.

So I went back and just listened to the last thing I recorded, and we're still talking about fragrance oils even though I did go off on a a essential oil tangent there for a minute. The big takeaway that I would like to impart upon you for this episode is that fragrance oils, unlike natural, fragrances like essential oils and and c o twos and absolutes. Synthetic fragrances are developed artificially in laboratories as opposed to being created from a natural source like botanicals. So let's talk about some good things with fragrance oils. Because fragrance oils are composed of artificial components, it allows for a lot of control over the aromas characteristics. So, for example, if, you want to create a candle or a batch of soap that has a very specific aroma, especially if it's one that doesn't even exist in nature, you want to be able to reproduce it. So one of the advantages of using fragrance oils is their consistency and their reproducibility. Try to say that 10 times real fast.

Their ability to be reproduced exactly the same as the last batch. Another upside of using fragrance oils is that they can create an extensive range of scents. There are companies like Yankee Candle - a very big American candle company and the first one that came to mind. I know there are others that have, I bet they have 100 of scents. They retire scents. They bring new scents in every year. Certain ones become favorites, and they can just continue to create more and more scents.

From a commercial standpoint, using fragrance oils allows for a lot of creativity and a bigger impact on the scents that they're producing and that’s what their customers expect. 

Okay. That was part 3 of fragrance oils. Moving on to part 4, fragrance oil safety. I'm a little out of my element here because I don't work with fragrance oils, but what I do know is that people tend to have a lot more allergies or allergic responses to synthetic fragrances than to natural ones. It does make sense that our bodies would respond more holistically to things that are natural and made in nature and would be much faster to repel something that is synthetic. So for any of you wondering, should I be concerned about using synthetic fragrances? First of all, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably already committed to minimizing the number of synthetic ingredients in your life, whether it be in your what you're using on your body, in your healing products, in your cleaning products. You already know that synthetic fragrances can be problematic for your personal health and for our environment.

Specifically, I want to  talk about three things about synthetic fragrances that I want you to be aware. The first is that phthalates are often used as a fixative for the fragrance. Diethyl phthalate, DEP, is very commonly used as as a fixative, which means it helps the smell last. We have actual natural fixatives that we use in aromatherapy, but DEP is used in you know, it's a synthetic, probably very cheap. And there has been some concern around DEP and its effects on the reproductive system. So, you know, as always, know what the heck you're buying and what you're using. The other thing is that manufacturers can create really inexpensive fragrance with petrochemicals, which are made from petroleum. There's so many reasons why this is not a good idea, why it's not something you wanna have in your life.

One of the top things is it really increases skin irritation. So and and, again, there's that whole environmental impact. So please reconsider buying any products made with, synthetic fragrance. I wanna say specifically, cleaning products. They're some of the biggest offenders of having nasties in their products. It is so easy to make your own natural cleaning products. I have got a couple of well, I've got a lot of blog posts. I think I've got 1 or 2, episodes of this podcast about cleaning products.

And in, the spring of the of this year, 2024, I am going to put out a small online course on cleaning naturally, all the different kinds of products you can make to clean your home. And in that course, I have a pretty extensive list of the toxic stuff that they put in cleaning products. Let's see. Where was I? Petroleum. And then the final thing, which actually I'm gonna say now I'm starting to repeat myself, but allergic reactions are just really common when you're using synthetic fragrances. Contact dermatitis, which just can create itchy red rash. A lot of people can't use, specific laundry soaps because of the synthetic fragrances. And be really careful with using something like a deodorant, which is applied to really sensitive areas of your skin.

And that is another place where synthetics will really raise their ugly heads. Okay. I think that's all I want to say about that. Let's talk about the cost differential between using essential oils and fragrance oils. Essential oils, of course, they're gonna cost more than fragrance oils because of the difference in production methods and the raw materials. When you make an essential oil, it takes a lot of plant material to yield just a little bit of essential oil. And, of course, some plants will cost more than others to produce, some cost more to harvest. There's a reason why lavender is inexpensive compared to jasmine.

The other thing is consumers are willing to pay more for the natural benefits of essential oils compared to the aromatic qualities of fragrance oils. So since fragrance oils are synthetically created, the materials, the production costs, the end product is gonna cost a lot less. Okay. Wrapping up this conversation today about essential oils versus fragrance oils. We've explored the differences between the 2, and, ultimately, your choice will depend on your intended use and sometimes your preference. So for aromatherapy, holistic wellness, natural therapies, if you want the therapeutic benefits of aromatics, you could use essential oils. If all you want is scent, if you're crafting scented candles, you're making soaps, perfumes, any product that relies on consistency and a wide diversity of scents, fragrance oils are probably what you're gonna wanna go with. Sometimes it's just not sensible to use essential oils for, fragrancing quite honestly for candles and so forth.

It's extraordinarily expensive. Know that there are different qualities of fragrance oils and, you know, take a look at that when you're exploring your options. Alright, friends. That concludes the main body of this episode of the aromatic wisdom podcast. 

Next, we move into your favorite segment and mine, Smell My Life! 

Next we move into your favorite segment - Smell My Life! *Children Cheering*

So you can probably guess what I'm gonna talk about now in this smell my life segment, and that is the cold that my husband and I have been sharing.=

We're both pretty much over it, but we both have some residual stuff like my congestion and my voice is still not completely healed. So we didn't have COVID. We did not have the flu. James and I just had the classic rhinovirus, stuffy nose, coughing, congestion. In order to address any problem, whether it is cold and flu, or muscle pain, or emotional issues, whatever I'm trying to address with aromatherapy, the first thing I look at are the symptoms. What is the uncomfortable part of this issue that we wanna resolve? So for us, it was the congestion. And for James, it was the coughing. I I was coughing a little bit.

Mine was mostly in my throat, having lost my voice, having a croaky voice. And for James, it was mostly in his lungs and with a lot of coughing. So with James, well, let me back up. With both of us, the first thing I do is make sure that we are doing a steam inhalation with tea tree essential oil. It's so simple. Not a lot to to do, not a lot to put together. I do have a I did a blog post on steam inhalations and how to do it, so I'll put a link to that in the show notes. So the first thing is that I had us do steam inhalation twice a day.

For James, I made a salve to rub into his chest, and I used hyssop, which you have to be really careful with hyss hyssop, especially if you're using it at night because it can keep you awake. Hyssop can be very stimulating, and it's also can be dangerous. So you wanna be real careful when using hyssop, but, oh my word, it's so effective at reducing coughing. I also used, some spike lavender because of the camphor in it. Let's see. What did I put in? I put hyssop spike lavender, and I think I put a little bit of tea tree in that as well. And I made a salve and just slathered that all over his chest and throat, before the morning in the morning before he went to work and, in the evening before bed. I probably used a little bit on myself, but I don't love hyssop.

No. I don't I didn't I think I used it on myself once, but mostly for me, it was all about the congestion. Now I will tell you for my, laryngitis, I gargled with sandalwood hydrosol, which I've always found to be really effective in throat stuff. I never got a sore throat. I simply had laryngitis. I lost my voice. So those were the pretty much the remedies, steam inhalation, chest rub. I made a salve, which is literally just carrier oil, beeswax, and essential oils.

I can put a link in the show notes also to how to make that, and I did a gargle for myself for my throat. I could have done a ton more things. I also diffused a lot, and I diffused peppermint because I couldn't I lost my sense of smell, and that kinda scared me. So I was diffusing a lot of peppermint trying to bring my sense of smell back. I don't know that it really helped, but eventually it has returned. Now my goal is to really get my voice back on track. As a podcaster, I do not care for this rough voice that I have. So that's pretty much how we address the rhinovirus in our home.

It made us more comfortable. It made us less congested. Oh! And I also made for both of us an inhaler. Those little, nasal inhalers, which I kept 1 by by the bed on each side of our bed so that we would could inhale that in the night when we got congested. And with that, I did use peppermint and eucalyptus. So that was how we addressed the rhinovirus in our home. And as I said so I started to say there are a ton more things we could have done.

You could do so many different types of oils, but that was how I addressed the rhinovirus this week. It has taken me a month to complete this one episode, and that's what happens when you run your own business and you get sick. But that's okay. We have essential oils to make us better. I am going to conclude this podcast now, but not before I say I am very close to launching my aromatherapy certification program level 1. It will be at the end of April 2024. I don't have a specific date yet. I am right now making the sales page, which should be available as of March 1st.

So keep an eye out for that. Of course, I'll send out an email and let people know if you're on my list. If you're not on my list and you'd like to be, you can go to aromatic wisdom podcast.com, and you'll see a place to sign up, or you can go to aromatic wisdom institute.comforward/newsletter. That, my friends, is a wrap for today's episode number 70. Thank you so much for your patience, for my patrons, for your patience, for everyone just being here, keeping me company. God knows I need it. Love you all very much. 

Until next time.

Be Happy. Be Well.

Liz

Liz Fulcher
Podcast Host, Aromatherapy Educator

AromaticWisdomInstitute.com

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