Storage / Protection / Refrigeration of Essential Oils

[Guest guest]

thank you Butch!!!

 

You jogged my memory on the post about freezing rose otto. I will put my two

cents in and tell you I had your sample in my fridge - not freezer - for the

longest and took sniffs here and there. It got a little thick but didn't freeze

or go cloudy (other than the slight thickening). I personally never noticed a

change in the fragrance. However, Chris Z. has us all beat on the sensitive

nose for EOs (and diapers) I think!

 

My hydrosols are all now in the fridge and most of my EOs. My oregano, tea

tree, etc. are back in the dark and safely packed box in the cold room in the

basement.

 

By the way I've had a dehumidifier running in my basement since we moved in. We

didn't find any molds or mold odors but it is a basement in a 1950s ranch and we

had a ton of rain this year. Also, we did that as a pre-emptive strike

preparing to renovate the basement.

 

You're a wealth of info Butch. You CANNOT retire ... or at least without

telling us where you're going. what happened to our plans to run a B & B (bar and

bed) in the Carribean??? LOL

 

((hugs to ya))

 

Dale

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hi Dale, and other good folks ..

 

Gonna answer this one then gonna confirm some orders then gonna reply to

a large number of relatively routine (but important) posts been sitting

in my Hold Box for too long afore folks start writing poison pen letters

to me .. then gonna go sit my butt in a dentist's chair and let that

Sadist rascal drill for gold then gonna go to the Pub tonight and spend

my money, call all the wimmens Honey and wake up singing the blues. ;-)

 

Meantime .. while answering this post I will ramble a bit. I do this

cause when I write something I sometimes imagine what kind of questions

that writing brings to the inquiring mind(s) of one or more of the many

good folks on this list .. and I try to answer the unasked questions.

 

And Dale .. as I know you are taking Martin's AT Course .. I know that

much of what I write here is common knowledge to you .. and to a lotta

good folks on this list. But I am not writing only to you or them.

 

I think that on a list with 850 + members (which is where this list is

now) the AT/EO experience level will run from 0.5 to 10+ and unless a

question is technical in nature we should (methinks) try to provide a

reply that is not only directed to the one we are writing to but to the

other 850 + folks who might not yet have attained the experience of the

one to whom we are directing our reply. To do otherwise would be to

ignore the majority, who are most likely in the 4.5 to 7.5 range .. but

to do so can make some folks think we are talking down to them. So what

can we do? Answer: Our best!

 

So .. as usual .. this is sorta a longish post. ;-)

 

> Help me...I have so many oils now that my fridge can no longer be

> considered safe for food. Kidding!

 

Likely it is we can keep mayonnaise or chopped chicken gizzards for 5-6

times their normal shelf life if we have some EO in the refrigerator.

 

> Still. I thought I'd order the extra stuff now because winter is here

> and I could store them in my basement which is normally 60 degrees.

 

Nothing a'tall wrong with that .. IF .. we have no mold spores in our

basement. Some EO will kick mold spores in the butt like Mohammed Ali

would Child Molester Freako Jackson .. but some can be contaminated by

mold spores .. around half the Hydrosols I can think of and most all of

the Carrier Oils I can think of could be contaminated by mold spores.

 

Many basements have mold spores .. that's one of the reasons some folks

have chronic colds, respiratory and other problems. Another reason is

some folks depend on antibiotics too often .. its a bit like smoking

cigarettes or shooting heroin .. the more we use the more we need to

use to feel normal again .. for a short period of time.

 

Such addictions/abuses sorta remind me of falling in love .. or peeing

against the wind. We can get all kinds of warm fuzzy feelings if we do

either .. until it cools off .. then we just feel the chill and smell

the odor. ;-)

 

As for ordering EO afore the Winter gets too cold .. as a seller of EO I

can think of a two good reasons why I'd like to see folks do that .. and

I betcha I am speaking for other sellers too.

 

1. We wanna get our stock value down as low as possible afore that end

of year inventory cause Uncle Sugar uses that against us.

 

2. My Gross Sales are larger in the month of December than in any other

month .. and 70%-75% of those sales are during the period 20 December to

the end of December. Means .. nice spouses give nice spouses nice gifts

of EO during that period. Also means my folks in Maryland are gonna be

jumping through their butts to fill the orders then .. and regardless of

how quick they get them out the door .. the U.S. Postal Service and

FedEx will be backlogged .. and buyers gonna wait longer anyway.

 

> I also have a nice dark room where no one goes now as the basement

> is not renovated.

 

Sounds like a fine place .. finer'n the storage area most large sellers

keep their EO in. We're lucky in that Friendsville only has around six

weeks of warm weather a year .. we go from Fall to Winter to Fall to

Spring and then Fall again. Very high it is in them thar Appalachian

Mountains. Gotta air conditioned storeroom we keep EO in cause its hard

to get a 25 or 50 kilogram barrel of EO in most refrigerators .. plus a

refrigerator for particular bottled retail size oils .. explained later

in this post. But all oils do not need to be refrigerated.

 

> Advice please...should I even unpack the box they arrived in - which

> by the way your folks do an awesome job of packing?

 

Thankee ma'am for acknowledging their efforts. My SOP for packing is

that they must pack for a drop from a 2 story window .. and Wholesale

oils valued at $35 or more are encased in specially designed styrofoam

overpacks (expensive they are) .. but even then we find the gorillas and

elephants in USPS and FedEx sometimes sit on the packages or do gorilla

stomps on them.

 

Howsomeever .. ain't nobody no time ever had a loss that was not covered

by either commercial shipping insurance or my company's self insurance.

And its gonna stay that way long as my doors are open - no exceptions!

 

Which reminds me .. good recyclers we are fer'shur.. and as many of my

wholesale customers already know and practice .. those who return those

overpacks to us via FedEx Ground/U.S. Postal Parcel Post, etc., receive

a credit of 150% of the shipping cost for sending them back to us. :-)

 

As for whether or not you should unpack your EO from the box/wrappings

they came in .. matters not either way .. less'n you get a hankering

to do some serious sniffing in the middle of the night .. which happens

to me from time to time. I dream about the odor of some EO .. haven't

told folks about this before cause already too many folks think I am not

a normal person .. and they're not all wrong.

 

> Will they be fine sitting on those shelves of a dark room at 60

> degrees all winter?

 

Yes ma'am .. but some oils need to be refrigerated. Refrigeration is

not gonna harm any EO, Carrier or Hydrosol .. but it can temporarily

change the density of some EO and most Carriers. If we refrigerate

Olive Oil (can't imagine why anybody would do it) it will " Winterize. "

Means .. it'll turn cloudy and thick .. takes a while of exposure to

room temperature for it to come back to its original configuration.

 

Some folks are now wondering if freezing will harm an EO. The answer is

NO! I can't imagine why anyone would want to freeze and EO in the first

place and in the second place some EO would be very difficult to freeze

anyway. Can we extend the shelf life of an EO by freezing it? I know

of no research that would support this .. but logic tells me that long

term exposure to extreme temperatures is not good for any chemical

component .. so my unqualified opinion is that there is no benefit to

freezing an EO. Why would anyone but a pack rat want to do it anyway?

 

" I betcha my mama got a whole lot more frozen EO in her stash than your

mama has. " ;-)

 

Most Essential Oils are not near as delicate as the rumors in this

industry claim them to be. Losing an oil is about as rare as causing

harm from use of an oil. Either almost has to be a blatant violation

of the unwritten laws of common sense. Unfortunately, we find that the

preponderance of embellished information leans toward the protection of

EO rather than safe use of EO.

 

If you are a routine end user of EO .. it might not be to your advantage

to buy (for example) my 20 ml of this or that .. might be better for you

to buy 10 ml .. and if you haven't dealt with a particular EO provider

in the past .. it might be a good idea for you to request samples of EO

prior to purchase .. this especially applies to the costly EO.

 

> There have been posts before but I'm being extra careful.

 

One of those posts is below .. I was able to find it in my Rat Nest

files cause I gave it a proper subject in the first place .. which I'll

gently remind our list members to try to do all the time so we can find

those suckers when we need'em. Hard to find a post when the subject

line is something like, " I Have a Question, " or " I Need Suggestions, "

and such. ;-)

 

> My rose otto eo is here now too!! Just need reassurance.

 

Don't refrigerate the Rose Otto .. or Anise Seed .. see the post below.

Its not an old post .. but this is a dynamic list .. getting lots of

new members daily and I know many of the new folks missed this one.

 

Oh yea .. in a day or two I'm gonna tell y'all about some new research

on Rose Otto .. research I am glad to see .. research that forces me to

make an exception to a statement I used to make that NO Essential Oil

had therapeutic properties capable of being able to do a particular

thing (physiologically) for us human critters. ;-)

 

> TIA

> Dale

 

Yes ma'am .. gotta post or so to answer from you .. and from some of the

other good folks on this list .. and my lack of response the last few

days or maybe a week has nothing to do with neglect of friends .. its

just a matter of me acting like a Turkish truck driver .. trying to load

10 tons on a 5 ton truck.

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-) Butch http://www/AV-AT.com

 

PS: It is a good idea to refrigerate Hydrosols .. they are mostly water

and refrigeration can help to extend the normally expected shelf life.

 

 

 

Butch Owen <butchbsi

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 06:26:21 -0700

Refrigerating and Otherwise Protecting

Essential Oils

 

Hi Jennifer .. other good folks ..

 

> One more thing, I keep my EO's in the fridgerator because I had read

> they would keep fresh and potent longer.... Is this correct thinking?

 

Generally speaking .. its a good idea. Can't harm any of your EO by

refrigerating .. and some (like cold pressed Citrus, all " Blue " oils,

and Elemi (Canarium luzonicum) should ALWAYS be refrigerated.

 

But .. if we refrigerate some EO, Rose Otto (Rosa damascena) and Anise

Seed (Pimpinella anisum) come to mind now .. when we take them out we'll

find they have crystallized. Won't hurt them as they will come back to

their normal consistency/density when they warm up to room temperature.

 

Refrigeration slows down some chemical deterioration .. far less so for

the distilled oils than for cold pressed oils .. with some exceptions to

that statement too. Almost anything said in this industry will have an

exception or two .. and many things will have many exceptions because

the statements are wrong from the git go. ;-)

 

But .. lack of refrigeration is not as harmful for oils as is exposing

them to light and oxygen .. two things needed to sustain life .. and the

two things that age oils .. and human critters.

 

Y'all know how to protect your oils from light .. use colored glass

bottles .. and keep them in a dark place.

 

As for protecting them from oxygen .. the easiest thing is to keep the

tops on tight. Also .. if you are using large bottles you can pour the

oil into smaller bottles as you use it up .. this reduces the dead space

that oxygen creeps into. Two other ways to do this .. get a bottle of

the spray Nitrogen from a good wine shop .. this is good to top off the

larger bottles as nitrogen is heavier than oxygen and displaces it ..

and nitrogen is NOT harmful to ANY essential oil. " Nitrogen flushing "

is not easy to do for small bottles but something else we can do for the

small ones (besides switching to smaller bottles) is to drop pure glass

beads into them. That too will displace oxygen.

 

(NEW INFO .. not in the original post. Be careful if squirting Nitrogen

in a small bottle cause it might force the EO to fly up .. and into the

eye. If this happens .. its not gonna cause permanent harm but it is

gonna make you learn a new dance or two.

 

If EO gets in the eye, how do we handle it?

 

First .. lemme tell you how we should NOT handle it .. we should NOT do

what many of the novels say we should do .. flush with milk or vegetable

oil. Why? Because that is convoluted thinking .. EO will dilute in

milk and vegetable oil .. dilution is NOT what we want as it will merely

spread the diluted EO around the eye.

 

What should we do? We should flush the eye with fresh, clean water!

Why? Because the EO will NOT dilute in water and we want to flush the

EO out of the eye .. the EO will bead up and flush out with water .. it

will also flush out with milk or vegetable oil .. but that is after it

has completely covered the eyeball and we have become expert at dancing

that new dance.

 

Those who want to practice the misinformation common in this regard can

do so if they want to .. but keep in mind that we can not find ONE

professional distiller in the entire world who would consider doing it

any way other than how I have explained it. One professional distiller

on this list .. my Aussie buddy, Dennis Archer, has had EO in his eye

more than one time and has supported my position on this list more than

one time. Enough already .. back to the original post. ;-)

 

Where does one find these pure glass beads? I have no idea. I have

often considered having some of the Turkish glass makers do me up a few

thousand of them .. just didn't get around to it because (1) I doubt

that folks would bother with them .. and (2) we don't use them in my

company .. we use nitrogen flushing for our stock .. not in the little

bitty bottles .. but for our shelf stock.

 

So .. in addition to refrigerating oils .. we gotta keep the tops on

tight, keep'em out of sight .. and treat'em right by reducing exposure

to oxygen.

 

My statements above are not cutting edge or avant-garde .. they are

simply plain old common sense IF we understand the chemical processes

ongoing when heat, light or oxygen hits oils.

 

Since I began messing with EO (in 1995) I have seen few new questions

asked about them .. we continue to put out the same old fires and squash

the same old rumors. Rumors often created by instructors who quote

unreferenced " novels " written by writers quoting other unreferenced

" novels " .. and by the misinformation/disinformation and marketing hype

put out by some who wish to make an easy buck. The industry of AT

thrives on misinformation. Were it not so there would be a " Bible "

folks could turn to and get all the answers .. wouldn't need Newsgroups

like Oils & Herbs.

 

Actually, there is nothing really critical about most of the bad info

unless it is unsafe info .. but the situation we have created in AT does

much to ensure that AT is never validated .. never accepted as a viable

alternative mode of self treatment.

 

One can talk or write on Aromatherapy and rarely be wrong as there are

no universal " truths " in AT .. plus there are many ways to skin the cat

when using EO .. and things that work for some don't work for others.

But when one speaks or writes on Essential Oils its no longer in the

realm of personal opinion .. they gotta do a bit of research or they

gonna be challenged by them whut have done it.

 

I have no intention of ever devoting time to writing a book on EO or AT

because they are the least significant things I have done in my entire

life. I might write on some experiences I've had .. maybe Largemouth

Bass fishing or SCUBA or raising Bullfrogs or Bird Dawgs .. something

real important and interesting like that .. but never on AT or EO. But

I will never entitle my book " The Complete Book of Anything " .. I always

run away from books with such titles. ;-)

 

> Thanks

> Jennifer

 

Yes'm .. welcome you are.

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-) Butch http://www.AV-AT.com