About Essential Oils

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About Essential Oils
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What are Essential Oils?

• Essential oils are concentrated essences of
  plants extracted through distillation or
  pressing. They are used widely for their flavor,
  fragrance and even therapeutic effects. Given
  their wide range of applications and the
  increasing trend to favor natural products,
  there is great demand for essential oils in the
  pharmaceutical, cosmetics, food and drinks
  industries.
• Examples of essential oils include Cinnamon bark
  oil, bitter almond oil, bergamot oil, peppermint
  oil, cumin fruit oil, lemongrass oil, etc.

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Adulteration of Essential Oils

• Essential oils are expensive to produce, and with
  their increasing popularity many companies choose
  to use the more readily available synthetic
  versions often denoted as fragrance oil.
• The synthetic versions do not have exactly the
  same components as the naturally sourced oils. In
  the production of the natural essential oils,
  there are other compounds in low concentrations
  that are also extracted. For example, when
  synthesizing cinnemaldehyde, the other compounds
  found in the natural cinnamon oil are not
  created.
• Biobased content testing (Carbon-14 analysis)
  determines whether the essential oil is natural
  or synthetic.

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Natural vs Synthetic Essential Oils

• Bitter almond oil vs Synthetic Benzaldehyde
• Bitter almond oil is used widely as a flavoring
  agent. In addition to almond kernels, bitter
  almond oil can also be extracted from fruits like
  peaches and apricots. Due to the limited supply
  and higher cost of the natural form, the
  synthetic compound is often used in food and
  drink products.
• Cinnamon oil vs Synthetic Cinnamaldehyde
• Cinnamon oil is used in the food industry as
  flavoring and fragrance, as a fungicide and for
  its health benefits. Cinnamon oil can refer to
  two types the stronger and more expensive to
  produce cinnamon bark oil and the cheaper
  cinnamon leaf oil and cassia oil. Given the high
  production price, it is cinnamon bark oil that
  runs the higher risk of being adulterated with a
  cheaper alternative.

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There are several test methods that quality
control and quality assurance departments use to
detect adulteration. However, only carbon-14
analysis can identify if there are
petrochemical-derived synthetic adulterants in a
product claiming to be 100 natural.
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Beta Analytic Garlic Oil Case Study
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About Carbon-14 Analysis

• One of the methods of adulteration of natural prod
  ucts (of plant or animal origin) is using the ofte
  n cheaper petrochemical-derived synthetic version.
    This may be identical in chemical composition
  to the natural source but adulteration can be
  detected using carbon-14 analysis. 
• A weakly radioactive carbon isotope, carbon-14
  decays over time according to the law of
  radioactive decay. As part of the carbon cycle,
  all living things have a known level of
  carbon-14, whereas petrochemical-derived
  compounds have been out of the carbon cycle for a
  sufficiently long time that they do not contain
  any carbon-14. 

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About Carbon-14 Analysis

• Thus, by measuring the carbon-14 content of a
  product, its petrochemical-derived sources can be
  distinguished from plant or animal sources.
  Carbon-14 testing, however, cannot distinguish
  between different natural sources, for example
  between plant and animal-sourced material.

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Conclusion
The testing methods available today offer a great
arsenal for those in the natural product industry
to ensure the authenticity of their materials.
This is of course not a fail-safe guarantee. By
employing several testing methods that detect
different issues, quality control is
enhanced. For details, please read Beta
Analytic's article Verifying Natural Products
Is Carbon-14 Analysis Necessary? www.betalabse
rvices.com
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Information compiled by ISO 17025-accredited
natural products testing lab Beta Analytic. For
more information, please visit https//www.betalab
services.com.