“Our pledge to you & our commitment to nature “

Central Coast Lavender Farm has its essential oils analyzed each year to ensure its quality and bring to you only the finest therapeutic grade A essential lavender oil.

What You Should Know About Essential Oils

Unfortunately not all essential oils are created equal. In fact many, if not all the oils on the market are what is called “perfume quality” or “4th & 5th quality oils. These are over-processed, chemical laden, highly adulterated & de-natured products that, in reality, are little more than cheap perfume made from various odorous plants. This includes oils found in health food stores.

Many people think that when they buy an oil that is labeled as “100% pure” they are getting good oils. This is far from true.
Pure unadulterated essential oil is very hard to come by & can be very expensive. One reason for this is because it can take as many as 500 to 2,000 pounds or more of raw plant material to produce just a pound of pure essential oil.
To maintain all of the therapeutic qualities, it must be extracted by steam distillation using extremely low pressure & low heat so as not to defile the quality of the oil.
There are 4 grades of essential oils:

PURE

This means the oil was not diluted with a lesser quality essential oil. For example: lavender oil is often cut with lavendin, which has very little therapeutic quality. “Pure” does not mean it has no chemicals added to it. It could be 75% vegetable oil & 25% essential oil & still be labeled “100% Pure.” In the U.S., you are only required to have 5% essential oil in the bottle to label it “Pure.”

NATURAL

This means the oil was not adulterated with vegetable oils, propylene glycol, SD Alcohol 40 or other chemicals.

COMPLETE

This means the oil was distilled at low heat & low pressure so that all the therapeutic properties are there. They have not been rectified or purified (which means stripped or redistilled.) Essential oils are often redistilled to make a small amount of oil go farther. They can make more profit that way. The problem is, when you redistill the oil you lose the therapeutic properties. It’s like using a tea bag over & over again. ** An example: France is the number one producer of lavender oil. In 1997 they produced 25 tons of lavender and 67 tons were shipped to the U.S. Melissa oil is another example. It is very hard to produce. Out of 52 pounds of pure melissa oil, 1000 pounds were exported. What is wrong with this picture?

** There are anywhere from 200 – 800 chemical constituents that make up a single essential oil. When the oil is not distilled properly, you will be left with as few as 10.

GENUINE & AUTHENTIC or GRADE A

These are the cream of the crop. Great care is taken at every step of the process. True cultivar and varietal, soil- organic soil that never has chemicals put on it. Chemicals are never used on the plants in the field. Distillation by steam at low pressure & low temperature in upright containers & no chemicals are ever used in the process. Must have clarity of definition (one plant could have 200 species.) Central Coast Lavender primarily uses two different cultivars of lavender to achieve the finest essential oils. We distill the premier English Lavender for its graceful middle note and highly prized therapeutic constituents and high levels of linelol acetate and low levels of camphor, this essential oil is recognized as the most precious of lavender essential oils.

We also distill two different lavadins, both L. x intermedia, the Grosso variety and the Provence variety. These lavadins are high in camphor and are a wonderful therapeutic therapy oil having a sharper top note. We only use the purest lavender buds brought about by its sole cultivar in each batch, we do not mix our lavenders and distill a blend but offer a pure cultivar in the process of the distillation.

We use this method in our distillation of lavender essential oil to ensure this clarity and authenticity. The time in the distiller is also important. Many companies will distill at higher temperature for a shorter time. This will destroy the quality of the oil. The distiller must be no more than 50 miles away from the sight where the plants were harvested, Then & only then can they have the words “Grade A” on the label.

Central Coast Lavender oils are Therapeutic GRADE A oils. Our oils have been tested to this fact. They are one of the few companies that grows, distills & bottles their essential oils.

What Makes An Essential Oil Therapeutic Grade?

Most people read the label on essential oils bottles and see the words “100% PURE” and think that is a therapeutic grade oil. There is so much more involved in producing truly therapeutic grade oils.

The key to producing a therapeutic grade essential oil is to preserve as many of the delicate aromatic compounds within the essential oil as possible. Most of these elements are very fragile and are destroyed by high temperature and high pressure.

Nutritionists tell us not to boil our vegetables because the hot water removes the vitamins and nutrients. Similarly, “boiling” plants to extract their essence destroys many of a plant’s fragile constituents, which gives essential oils their therapeutic properties. So keeping the distiller’s temperature low is a must.

Distillation can determine the value of the oil, or destroy the value of the oil. Essential oil distilling is not just a job, but an art. The operator of the distiller must have a full understanding of the value of oils in order to produce quality oils. If the pressure is too high, or the temperature is too high, it may change the molecular structure of the fragrance molecule, altering the chemical constituents.

Essential oils MUST be distilled for the proper length of time to release all their active constituents. A distiller who is only interested in profit will distill oils for 15 minutes at very high temperature & very high pressure. This way they can produce more oil and thus more profits.

Similarly, lavender does not produce all its therapeutically effective substances unless it is distilled for one hour and 30 minutes; but most lavender is distilled for only 15 minutes!

Three-quarters of the volume is extracted during the first quarter of the distillation process. Many producers end the process there because the increased time does not significantly increase the volume. Time is “only” a crucial factor to extracting the plant’s therapeutic properties. Lavender should be distilled at no more than 3 pounds of pressure, a temperature of no higher than 245 degrees, and should be distilled for 2 hours. Here at Central Coast Lavender we do just that!

Another trick some distillers will do to produce more oil, is to redistill the plant material over and over as many as 5 or 6 times. It’s like using a tea bag over & over again. When the plant material is redistilled, all the batches after the first distillation are no longer therapeutic grade.

The oil distiller will then save the first batch to be sold as therapeutic grade oils. Then the rest of the distillations are sold to the unsuspecting public as so called “pure” oils.

There are many other factors that effect the quality of the oil.

A few examples:

How long did the plant material sit around before it was distilled?
Was the soil fertilized with chemical fertilizers or organic fertilizers?
Were any chemicals added to the distillation water?

Note: Many distillers add chemicals to the water as they are distilling to produce greater volume in the distillation process. They can say they don’t use adulterants in the oil since they only used it in the water. The chemical still gets into the oil and it is stretching the truth to say an oil distilled this way is pure.

Don”t be afraid to ask questions about the origins, extraction process, and quality of any essential oil you purchase. Insist on essential oils extracted from organically grown plants, with no chemicals in the extraction process, at the proper temperature and pressure, for the appropriate length of time. If we remain ignorant and continue to emphasize price instead of quality, essential oils will indeed be nothing more than a charming novelty item.