Organic and Wild-Crafted 

Establishing a Set of Ethics

In the following I would like to describe my view of how far the AT industry progressed in establishing a set of ethics.

Purity of Essential oils

Considering the above described difficulties, a considerable amount of progress has been made, with a lot of work still ahead of us. Essential oils these days are rarely extended with alcohol, mineral oil, vegetable oil or other extenders. However, we find that a large number of oils are standardized with so called nature identical compounds. Oils like neroli and bergamot are rarely true botanical, and oils like lavender, rosemary and ylang ylang are often extended in the same way. Regularly, essential oils are reconstituted to an extend that its cost cutting effect is obvious. It is my sense that the AT companies within HAHA are quite successful in keeping these oils out of their inventory, however there is a huge problem with the rising number of AT personal care manufactures. I recently received a phone call from a manufacturer with the request that I match the price offer of another supplier in the United States for several bulk oils including rosemary, spike lavender and a few others. The prices this supplier was offering were less than 50% of what my distillers are charging me. At the same time the claim of 100% purity was made from the side of this particular US supplier. I offered to analyze the spike lavender and it did not contain more than 10% botanical oil. To take this problem a step further, we see an increasing number of products labeled AT on the marked with no botanical aroma in it at all. Whereas a significant number of therapists and committed manufactures have managed to procure botanical oils, the word AT is currently abused in an increasing way to further commercialize the use of synthetic fragrance.

Labeling

I believe that proper labeling of single note essential oils can contribute to consumer education. With testers in stores, the interested consumer has at least the chance to sample a variety of true botanical oils. Besides the botanical name, labels should display plant part used and the country of origin. It is a good manufacturing practice to print lot numbers on bottles so every bottle can be traced to its origin. Many AT companies already adhere to these standards.