Essential Oils vs Fragrance Oils has been a debate in certain quarters for some inherent similarities. For the most part, people use Essential oils and Fragrance oils interchangeably, which is not a correct practice. Although, both the oils sometimes may find some usage for same purposes, they are chemically different. Whereas, the former is pure natural extract, the latter can be mixture of essential oils and synthetic aromas too.
Potential Uses of Essential Oils vs Fragrance Oils
Basically, essential oils have got most uses in aromatherapy and high-end natural attar oils. In fact, natural occurring aroma in essential oils have therapeutic properties which enable them to treat many health anomalies. In addition, essential oils are used in perfumes, body lotions, soaps, flavourings in food & alcohol etc. Some of the bestselling attars in India make use of essential oils mainly.
The Fragrance oils find uses in mediocre Attars perfumes, perfumes, colognes soaps, candles, flavours etc. Additionally, many fragrant body products, soaps, detergents or deodorants use them in manufacturing. Being less natural with essential oils forming only a part of them, they are not suitable for internal consumption. On the contrary, you can consume many essential oils directly. That said, best attar brands in India and many others use fragrance oils widely especially, for making Apparel fragrances.
Attar fragrances which use natural ingredients in larger concentration are suitable for directly applying on body. When they are natural, organic perfume oils, they can be worn on the skin or clothing equally. Equally, they are suitable as body oil, scented oil or aromatherapy oil in place of pure essential oils also. Having high concentration of essential oils and natural extracts they could be very potent and strong in effect. Hence, only a small dab of such fragrances is enough and the best attar for you should ideally match their attributes.
Availability of Essential Oils vs Fragrance Oils
There are only limited number of Essential oils. This is because not all the plants are not able to release essential oils. Availability of essential oils is brief, even best attar brands in India use it economically. On contrary, fragrance oils can be of countless varieties, because you can artificially create them. And, that too without using an essential oil.
In fact, creation of fragrance oils involves mixing of many ingredients. And, mixing can be countless combinations of natural & synthetic aromatic substances with or without essential oils. Thus, it is possible to create almost any aroma in a fragrance oil you want to. So, its unlike an essential oil, which you can only extract from a plant. The range of fragrance oils can be way bigger than essential oils. Because you can make almost any fragrance in the laboratory today.
Volatility of Essential Oils vs Fragrance Oils
Essential oils can have fast or slow volatile properties which exactly help you decide top, middle or base note of fragrances. Fragrance oils are intentionally made to stay longer.
Sometimes, fragrances fade away soon and people judge them as low quality. However this is not always the case. The attars and perfumes containing high percentage of essential oils will fade away sooner than the ones having more of artificial fragrance oils. In fact, the best attars in India have average volatility, meaning they might be using essential oils by higher quantum.
Chemical Composition of Essential Oils vs Fragrance Oils
Normally, chemical components of essential oils are complex and it is difficult to reproduce them synthetically. Moreover, not all chemical components in essential oils are precisely identifiable by scientists today. Fragrance oils may contain a certain percentage of essential oils, but they are not completely natural, like essential oils.
Pricing of Essential Oils vs Fragrance Oils
Normally, essential oils come pricey. Price however mostly depends on the type, season and availability. Mostly, essential oils, such as rose and sandalwood, come expensive given, process of their extractions. Usually, you need around 1000 rose petals to make just one drop of Rose essential oil. If rose essential oil is cheaply priced, it is most likely adulterated and fake product. On the contrary, citrus essential oils are usually inexpensive because of ease of their extraction.
Oppositely, fragrance oils come very cheaper than essential oils because of the process of their making by synthetically. Unsurprisingly, every possible aroma is available as a fragrance oil in the marketplace. For instance, fragrance oils possessing aroma of banana, strawberry, melon, apple, blueberry pie and hot fudge cake are available but their corresponding essential oils are not there.
Making of fragrance oils Vs Essential Oils
Notably, it is difficult to reproduce essential oils through artificial ways in laboratories. In fact, essential oils are naturally occurring in different parts of plants. Where, parts of plant may be the blossom, fruit, leaf, stem, bark, wood or resin. Factually, you can only extract the essential oils through suitable processes and they come with proven positive or negative effects. For example, cinnamon essential oil possesses antiseptic and astringent properties but causes irritation to the skin.
Essential oils are made of all-natural substances. Usually, they have 50-500 naturally occurring chemicals only available in plant kingdom. And, all of the natural chemicals forming an essential oils are not identifiable yet. So, the reproduction of essential oils becomes almost impossible. You can though, extract essential oils through steam distillation, solvent extractions or other complex processes. Based on the type of plant, extraction processes may be simple to complicated. In short, essential oils are 100% pure oils, virgin, neat and you cannot duplicate them.
On contrary, you can manufacture fragrance oils artificially. So, they are artificial creations for most part. In fact, the fragrance oils might contain multiple artificial additives depending upon the aroma you want. You can duplicate them in labs by getting to know their ingredients. Obviously, only certain fragrance oils would contain a small percentage of essential oils along with other synthetics. Meaning, fragrance oils are adulterated, processed or diluted by certain measures with additives and solvents. Thus, you must not confuse fragrance oils with natural essential oils which may be only partially present in fragrance oils.
Solvents to Make Fragrance Oils
Fragrance oils are a pre-defined mixture of essential oils, synthetic aroma chemicals, and aromatic resins. In order to achieve a certain fragrance, the perfumist has more than 3000 different fragrance ingredients that he can use. These ingredients may be natural OR synthetic and available in the form of liquid, powder, or crystalline.
In order for a perfumist to be able to dissolve the powder and/or crystalline ingredients into liquid oil, he must use solvents. DEP (Di Ethyl Phthalate) is a common solvent that has been in use for over 50 years now. Although, scientists have declared it safe by strictest worldwide standards, today’s perfumists are also making phthalate-free fragrances.
Some alternative solvents, phthalate-free are part of trade secrets of many suppliers of fragrance oils. Although, solvents are a necessary component in fragrance oil production, some companies may sell fragrance oils that contain diluents like DPG (Di Propylene Glycol).
Variety of Fragrant Material for Making Fragrance Oil Attar & Perfume
Yes, Essential oils are only one of the basic ingredients to make fragrance oil or any scent for that matter. In fact, Organic Extracts, Chemical Aroma, Absolute, Concretes, Resinoids, Amber , Ambergris & Pheromone are other vital ingredients responsible for crafting NOTES of a fragrance. These all are available in different production qualities and grades to match your specific needs. Check this handy reference to fragrance ingredients list !
By combining all or few ingredients to make perfume you can make your own fragrance oils. The natural base oil, the foundation of a fragrance oil can also be of your choice. Further, on varying the ratios of different components would result in fragrance oils of different quality grade and smell.
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