The Role of Essential Oils in Perfumery and Why Quality Matters
People have been using plants to make perfume for centuries. Today, these ingredients are known as essential oils, which are 100% natural and plant-based. They are essentially liquified leaves, stems, flowers, and fruits. High-quality essential oils contain the same plant compounds as the plants themselves, lending them to medicinal use.
Isolates, conversely, are more refined, delicate ingredients that require chemical extraction. While there are many differences between essential oils and isolates, the main one lies in their fragrance. Isolates are single scent notes drawn from essential oils, which tend to have richer fragrance profiles.
Essential Oils and Fragrance Production: 4 Scent Families
Modern perfumery relies on isolates and essential oils to create unique fragrance combinations. All essential oils have base, middle, and top notes. The top notes are most potent when applying the perfume, eventually evaporating to reveal the middle and base aromas.
Understanding this process helps perfumers choose the correct blend of essential oils and isolates to craft a long-lasting fragrance that will develop pleasantly throughout the day. Oils with larger molecules evaporate slower than those with smaller ones and are best used as mid or base notes.
On top of their molecular composition, essential oils and isolates contain terpenes–compounds that give plants their scent. All perfumes fall into one of four scent families:
- Floral – rose, geranium, lavender, neroli, ylang-ylang.
- Fresh – lemon, orange blossom, citronella, spearmint, eucalyptus.
- Amber – jasmine, davana, cinnamon, myrrh, piperine, sandalwood.
- Woody – pine, vetiver, cedarwood, rosemary, tea tree.
Selecting essential oils and isolates complementing one another is crucial to fragrance production. A perfume’s entire identity relies on these scent ingredients; without them, it would have little to no fragrance.
Higher Quality Essential Oils Produce Better Perfumes
Expensive, designer perfumes always last longer on the skin than cheap alternatives. That’s because they contain pure, unadulterated essential oils with a good mix of top, mid, and base notes. Factors influencing an essential oil’s quality include the plant’s health, pesticide use, and processing techniques.
Quality standards differ by country–European producers often use the best essential oils. These oils come from carefully cultivated, well-watered, and fertilized plants. They also contain nothing but plant extract–many producers of cheap/low-quality essential oils dilute their products with vegetable oil.
Finally, quality essential oils always come in dark glass bottles. They contain volatile compounds that evaporate easily and should never be exposed to direct sunlight. Protecting the oil from heat and light ensures it retains its scent throughout the perfume-making process.
Advanced Biotech’s Quality Commitment
Advanced Biotech only supplies the highest-quality essential oils and isolates to our fragrance production clients. Our sophisticated extraction technologies help us preserve the aromatic qualities of the plant compounds in all our products for purer, more potent scents.
We select reputable suppliers worldwide to ensure the best raw materials for our essential oils. Through trust and transparency, we can trace our ingredients throughout their journey in the value chain, ensuring their quality from the farm to our factory.
Furthermore, our team regularly conducts thorough quality control inspections to ensure the safety and effectiveness of all our products. We also work with independent certification bodies to give our customers peace of mind that our essential oils meet European quality standards.
Put Our Quality to the Test
In today’s oversaturated market, prudent shopping is more important than ever. Despite our evidence-based quality claims, we don’t expect you to take our word for it. Feel free to request product samples to put our quality to the test or contact us for more information.