Essential oils and fragrance oils — Whats the difference?
Essential oils are the aromatic oils of botanicals. These oils are usually captured by distilling–that is, heating plant material (leaves, seeds, flowers, fruit, roots, bark, etc) in water to produce steam, then collecting and cooling the steam until it condenses back to a liquid. In another method, used commonly for citrus plants, the oils are extracted by cold-pressing the fruit rinds. Essential oils are almost always more expensive to produce than fragrance oils. Fragrance oils are aroma compounds, synthetically produced and blended to impart a particular fragrance. Some fragrance oils may also contain essential oils. Because they can be blended in many different combinations and concentrations, the number of fragrance oils possible is virtually unlimited.
