Building a Foundation: Understanding the Science Behind Essential Oils

Welcome back to Harvester’s Corner! Today’s blog is exciting, as it is our first science episode. When I became involved with the oils twelve years ago, I had a poor understanding of science. It has taken many years for me to become excited whenever the chemistry of the oils is brought up. But the more I come to understand, the more I appreciate the oils. Dr. David Hill, Founding Executive and Medical Director of dōTERRA has said, “Education is the single most powerful tool we have.” These words had a strong impact on me, as the education I have gained over the years has provided me with insights as to how I better can use the oils.

The Four Pillars of Quality: Purity, Consistency, Potency, and Efficacy 

Our understanding of essential oils is constantly growing and evolving as scientists pursue research to better grasp how the molecules—the building blocks, so to speak—of the oils can assist the body to help maintain a healthy environment for the cells to function. Based on our present comprehension, we can frame our awareness by imagining a bridge of quality supported by four pillars: Purity, Consistency, Potency, and Efficacy. Bridging Purity and Consistency is Chemistry, while Healthy Outcomes bridges Potency and Efficacy. As we understand the concepts behind the Four Pillars, we can gain a greater awareness of how essential oils can benefit our lives. That being said, let’s look at some key terms used frequently with the oils and define them, so we have a uniform understanding to build from.

Purity and Adulteration: Why Quality Matters

To start off, let’s consider purity. What exactly is purity? Simply put, purity from a chemistry perspective is the freedom from, or lack of, adulteration or contamination. Some synonyms for purity are cleanliness, undiluted or unmixed with extraneous material, and lack of pollution. Where essential oils are concerned, purity is everything. Purity begins at the source. 

Considering that purity is a lack of adulteration, what is the definition of adulteration? It is best defined as the action of making something poorer in quality by the addition of another substance. It can also be viewed as the practice of secretly mixing one substance with another.  It is important to note that adulteration can come about by diluting a batch of oil to make it more profitable or enhancing some of the key principle molecules by adding synthesized molecules to have these elements show more prominently in testing. Some synonyms include to corrupt or contaminate. An prime example of this is companies mixing wintergreen oil with their birch oil (see our prior blog on birch for an excellent clinical trial examining birch oils that were commercially available in 2022).

This is where our next term, quality, becomes important. Quality is a bit more difficult to pin down. The easiest way to best understand quality is to look at some of the synonyms, especially one in particular: standards. Quality is determined when a substance is measured against another item of the same kind, while quality control comes from the evaluation of the product’s standards at critical stages throughout the manufacturing process.

As you can see, the quality of an oil is determined by evaluating the product throughout the process from distillation to bottling to ensure that it remains pure, or in other words, free from adulteration. There are several tests to assess the purity. Those will be looked at in a future article. For now, our goal is to build a good foundation of terms to help us understand the chemistry.

Clarity and Consistency: Key Factors for Reliable Results

The next two terms we are going to look at go hand-in-hand. These are clarity and consistency. The concept of clarity is best understood by looking at synonyms, like accuracy or precision. Clarity can mean either being transparent, or the lack of blemishes or imperfections. Where consistency is concerned, the idea that comes to most people’s mind is how well something conforms to a standard, or how well a substance holds together, in respect to thickness or its viscosity. For example, we want meals at restaurants where we eat to be consistent, or we may say a sauce used with a meal has a nice consistency. But where essential oils are concerned, the consistency we are after deals with results obtained from the product. Are we able to see the same results bottle after bottle, or are we seeing the same components year after year, batch after batch?

An easy example of purity, clarity, and consistency is water. Would you rather drink water from the source, like a glacier, or a storm sewer after a rainstorm? As mentioned before, purity begins at the source and tends to get lost the farther one gets from the source. Where clarity is concerned, consider for a moment a bottle of water drawn from Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River. This bottle would be transparent and easy to see through. Next, consider a bottle of water drawn from the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, roughly 790 miles (1271 km) downstream from Lake Itasca. This bottle would be thick with sediment. If the bottle is held up to a bright light, you may see a faint glow on the other side, or possibly even no trace of the light, depending on how much sediment is present. Once again, which would you rather drink? Consistency and clarity are essential (no pun intended) when defining chemical concepts. Consistency is the key to reliable results and is highly desired.

 

Returning to our bridge analogy, the first two pillars were Purity and Consistency, bridged by Chemistry. The tests performed on the oils help ensure purity, thus enabling us to obtain consistent results again and again. This purity, the lack of adulteration, is what makes the oils so potent. Or in other words, their purity gives them their powerful effects.

From Chemistry to Healthy Outcomes: The Role of Potency and Efficacy 

The other half of the bridge, Healthy Outcomes, is supported by the pillars of Potency and Efficacy. This brings up a new set of terms we want to look at. When the oils are used topically, the molecules get absorbed through the skin to enter the blood stream. The term which is used to describe how much gets absorbed is penetration. In other words, the oil must penetrate, or pass through, the skin in order to reach the vascular network. The process through which the oil gets spread throughout the body via the circulatory system is permeation. It is very easy for a non-science person to mix up these terms. The oil must first penetrate the skin in order to for the molecules to permeate throughout the body and have effects upon the cells.

A few weeks ago, we discussed the concept of volatility where essential oils were concerned. The volatility point is where a liquid will evaporate. Lighter molecules evaporate sooner than larger molecules. While the perfume industry uses this concept to their benefit, our bodies need some of those lighter molecules. This is where using carrier oils becomes important. By keeping the lighter molecules from evaporating, it becomes easier for those molecules to penetrate the skin and enter the vascular system.

How Sourcing and Variation Impact Oil Quality and Effectiveness

Over the years I have watched as the single oils have gone from being sourced at one location, to being sourced at multiple sources. I wondered why this was so and assumed that it enabled Co-Impact Sourcing the opportunity to benefit more people as dōTERRA worked to ensure that the oils were sourced sustainably and reliably. I recently learned about the concept of variation. When oils are sourced from one location we can have a wide variation. Say a season is cut short by frost, or a drought occurs. These variables, far beyond our control, can affect the purity of the oil. Multiple sources help reduce variation, which in turn increases quality and also improves efficacy.

That brings us to the last term I want to look at today: efficacy. This is best defined as a substance being able to produce a desired effect. Do the results in the real world, for example, match what is seen in controlled tests like pre-clinical and clinical studies? In chemistry, efficacy is the ability to produce a physiologic response. In other words, the product has a measurable effect on how the cells in the body function. Hence the idea of Healthy Outcomes is being supported by Potency and Efficacy.

Certified Pure Tested Grade (CPTG): The Standard for Healthy Outcomes

Dr. David Hill

This idea of healthy outcomes is precisely what Certified Pure Tested Grade (CPTG) oils are all about. This ideal is much more than a fancy trademarked term. For people who have experienced the oils, it becomes a way of life. We all desire to be healthy. Companies are aware of this and spend large sums of money to produce “plans” for us to use. The truth of the matter is that there is no “One-Size-Fits-All” where wellness is concerned.

I hope that this post looking at purity, clarity, consistency, potency and efficacy will help you better understand common terms used frequently where the oils are concerned. Do not worry if your head is spinning. Mine did for several years before I came to better understand the science of essential oils. There were many times I drew strength from a statement made by Dr. David Hill: “You may not understand the science, but know that we do.”