Distillation Methods ** And Therapeutic Values

[Guest guest]

Butch Owen <butchbsi

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 20:52:41 -0800

Distillation Methods ** And Therapeutic Values

 

 

Hey Michael,

 

> I have a question regarding distillation methods. One company

> (Imani Natural Products) say they use oils which come from a

> French doctor and are " slow distilled " for medicinal use. Has

> anyone (e.g. Butch) heard of this process?

 

Sounds like more marketing hype. Bet if you ask them to clarify they

will start to do the schuffle-schuffle dance and sing the humma-humma

song. Reminds me of them whut claim to distill at low temperatures.

No way in hell to distill till you reach the point of boiling.

 

> Also, just because oils are organic or wild crafted, is this

> assurance that they are not processed with solvents?

 

Not at all! Essential Oils are extracted from aromatic plant

materials via steam distillation, hydro-distillation and

hydro-diffusion. All of these three methods uses a solvent called

water (H2O).

 

Absolutes are created (using wildgrown or organic or whatever)

aromatic plant materials by first bathing the materials in a solvent

(normally hexane) and creating a Concrete .. from that Concrete (again

using a solvent) they create Absolutes .. and the remaining material

is Wax.

 

But .. if someone tells you they extract oils using " slow

distillation " or " low temperatures " .. its hard to say what they are

doing cause one lie leads to another.

 

> Am generally wondering if there is some kind of European standard

> of processing oils for " medicinal " use and if there is such a thing

> as slow distilled.

 

I've answered the second question. As for the first one ..

" medicinal " use .. it would be hard to have a standard for something

that doesn't exist and there are no essential oils I am aware of that

are or should be classified as " medicinal " .. or for that matter,

" therapeutic. I've spent a lotta time beating my head on the wall

trying to get folks to get away from such terms cause if we ain't

medical doctors .. and most of us ain't .. then what the hell we doing

prescribing medicine?

 

As far as I am concerned .. there are two classes of EO ..

Aromatherapy Grade (which is pure, unmanipulated and as natural as

when it exited the still) and Commercial Grade (which will be

manipulated in some cases cause they want standardization .. and in

other cases cause the seller is greedy). These are NOT pure, natural

and unmanipulated EO and though most people (to include some on this

list) do buy them cause they are more concerned with price than with

quality .. they should only be used in SOAP .. or maybe perfume if a

perfumer is not too particular.

 

As for an EO being therapeutic .. even an adulterated EO will have a

good bit of therapeutic properties to it. If this were not so then we

wouldn't have so many folks interested in Aromatherapy cause, like I

said, a lotta folks are getting oils that are less than the optimum.

 

But that said .. keep in mind what I have written often .. there are

basically three kinds of therapeutic value to be gained from the odor

of anything that has molecules small enough to enter through the

olfactory system ..

 

Physiological .. don't even gotta be able to smell to get benefit from

this .. the molecules will provide benefit in any case. Oregano EO is

gonna kick Big Bad Bug Butts even if you are in a coma.

 

Psychological .. there are many EO that will affect our minds in

either a positive or negative manner .. they will calm or excite us ..

its not our choice when this happens.

 

Emotional .. which in many cases sorta overlaps with Psychological.

In such cases, we can point to Rose Otto which has dramatic effects on

some folks .. makes them laugh like crazy or cry like a baby .. all

depends on olfactory memory and their conscious or subconscious

connection of that odor with events in their life. This even goes so

far as to allow me to say that I could produce an odor from Horse

Manure that would no doubt have effective emotional therapeutic value

to a feller who was born and raised on a horse ranch in TaxUs but now

is living a crappy life in the big city.

 

> Thanks, Michael

 

Welcome you be. Y'all keep smiling. :-)

 

Butch http://www/AV-AT.com