Foreword
Scott has a lot of interesting points in how to select a good essential oil, trying to recognize quality with a whiff of a sample. Most companies will sell you a sample. In the case of Helichrysum Italicum which is a rare and a sought after essential oil, most people buy year after year with the same supplier therefore ensuring their supply for the following year. There is never enough Helichrysum Italicum to go around, in fact Brigitte is planting the Flower this year on our land in order to obtain a constant supply, and we can’t harvest this for 2 years!
I feel that if you are too fussy some people will refuse the sale, Scott does say to use humour to find the truth and I have to agree with him there, the language barrier is another factor, should anyone need some help in French email me at crenacare@orange .com
Have a good read and over to Scott.

Introduction
Even if you go straight to the grower / distiller they may not be testing their oils. Those that do test most certainly aren't looking for unwanted phthalates, very few look for pesticides or herbicides.

Very few farmers or distillers know what the chemical composition should look like. This is not to say that there are not farmers or distillers out there that are honest and know what they are doing. If that was the case I wouldn't have a chance and I would have to grow and distill all the oils I supply, which is almost impossible.

The oils we supply come from all over the world. I'm sorry to say that only if you know the farmers and/or distillers and are an expert with a gc-ms testing facility will you get close to the truth of whether an essential oil is pure or not and the correct chemo-type.

Even if you were to belong to a group which says they are a certifying body for essential oil companies, even if this certified body test all there oils and approves them as pure, unless they know the exact source (where the oils came from and are doing in-depth testing), they still could be adulterated. There are so many cheap, natural and synthetic chemicals on the market, so many year to year and origin to origin variations in essential oils, that sophisticated criminals can fool the best.
If we think the best possible way to go down is the Pharmaceutical route, then we would be fooling our selves, as this would lead to standardization, which in my book is adulteration.

I believe nature should be left alone, as essential oils are evolving. We all know the strongest are the most diverse in nature. Plants are weaker against attack when they are standardized. People and animals get weaker when they are inbred. What makes us think eliminating changes in oil, add this and that so they are always the same is going to do anything but help suppliers make more money.

Truth is a complex thing, which needs close examination, which many people don't want to know. What I'm saying in this letter needs the specifics with the broader picture examined and revealed. You can take my word, but direct experience, in the process I live in, will confer my truth. Unless you purchase from someone like me you have very little chance of knowing if an essential oil is real.
I have lectured groups of Essential Oil Suppliers and Aroma therapists. I gave them adulterated Jasmine, Bergamot and Mandarin to Judge against real unadulterated oils of the "same". They almost always pick the adulterated ones.
Their comments on why they chose the adulterated oils, " because they where lighter." or "I liked the smell."
Nature almost always has a depth to it, roundness to it and hopefully a richness that helps one remember.
What makes a good essential oil and how do you know you’re getting pure unadulterated oil?
The most important issues in Essential oil for Aromatherapy are purity, the chemical composition and the Aroma.
So how does one go about the search for purity and composition?
One type of company will ask the price, haggle with another company, pit the suppliers against each other and buy on price alone. Another type of company will ask the price, haggle, with another company, pit the suppliers against each other and asks for samples, smell the sample and then purchase.

Here are the steps we follow when purchasing oil.

1.) First one must develop open relationships with growers and distillers, visiting them, asking for information, having them put it in writing such as the form below.
* Does your company test on Animals?
* Does the Manufacturer of your Products test on Animals? If so when the last date was this product was tested on Animals?
* Does this product contain any Animal derived ingredients?
* Does this product contain any mineral oil?
* Does this product contain any thing petroleum derived, i.e.: benzene?
* Is this product plant derived?

2.)Was any natural or synthetic chemical added to this product, i.e.: linalyl acetate? If so please list what, give % and description of its function?
* Was anything subtracted from this product, i.e.: nootkatone? If so what?
* Was anything added to this product? If so what?
* Was your product genetically modified?
* Is this product organically certified?
* Is this product of a Wild Origin, i.e. grown in the wild without the use of human intervention with the exception of pruning and harvest?
* Is this product of a Natural Farming Origin, i.e. no Artificial Fertilizer or synthetic pesticides with the exception of natural peritherins?
* Country Origin and Region:
* Latin name:
* Chemo type and method of extraction:
* Date of Manufacture and type of storage:
* Do you store in PVC?
* Get signature.

3.) When speaking to the supplier do you feel they will cut corners? Ask questions with humour, they will open up more and reveal more of the truth.

4.) Visit the Plantation or Distillery. One farmer which we buy from can't understand why the organic farm next to him has no weeds, when he has to hoe for 100‘s of hours.

5.) If you feel they meet your standards, then ask for a sample and price. Knowing the market value and the fact if you buy larger quantity you will pay less per Kg is paramount in giving your end user a good price. Price if too low is almost always a bad sign and either adulterated or old. A price that is too high is a supplier playing the perceived value game. "It's expensive so it must be good."

6.) Once you have the sample you must test it for aroma. You will need testing strips. The first note is the primary aroma chemical of the oil. This is not necessarily the largest percentage chemical, such as in Grapefruit nootkatone is only about 1% of the total oils components, but has one of the most prominent aromas. A simplified study of aroma breaks down the oil into three levels: top notes, middle and base. A highly trained nose will pick out individual chemicals, such as Linalyl acetate which has a floral cucumber-melon like odour, an ester as top note. Once one has smelled a chemical in isolation it is easier to pick them out of the many chemical components of oil. Such as when you smell a bowl of fruit and isolate the oranges form the grapefruit. You should then leave the oil on the well mark testing strip and come back to it in different time periods. These time periods are determined by the oil tested.

7.) The oil should then have weight per mille Density analyzed. All oils have a density in relation to water, which we can say is 1. Oils such as Clove, cinnamon and Myrrh should be >1. Depending on natural variations such as varieties Myrrh - commiphora myrrha vs. Myrrh - commiphora mol mol. There are many other reason why the density would be +or - which I will go into more on a later date.

8.) Then a GC-MS (Gas chromatography- mass spectroscopy) should be run. A GC is nothing more than a Oven with a Capillary column 25 - 60 meters in length in it, which the oil is injected into. The oven then has a temperature setting: as the temperature rises the lighter more volatile chemicals leave the column and are hit with an electron beam in the MS. The image of the shattered chemical is copied onto a electromagnetic plate. The image is then stored in the computer. After all the chemicals from the oil have been run you can go into the computer software and match the spectrums against a library of spectrums. Matches are made with a quality percentage. Quality matches over 90% are most likely the match, but not always. This is why you need to run standards of chemicals and develop a library of with own method (temperature profile, column type same GC-MS)
Once you get good at identifying the individual spectrum patterns it's like knowing different aromas, but visually.

Don't trust GC analysis alone. Many companies just use GC without the MS. This is dangerous even if you have a complete library of standards, which very few people on earth have. GC’s are good for a cheap and cheerful look at the relative percentages of components in oil, but they are only analyzed by retention time. (Retention time: the time a chemical comes out of the GC’s column) There can be four or five chemicals which have the same retention time, thus a 1-5 chance of being correct.
What compromises is the supplier willing to make? Brave Heart was willing to give up his life for freedom. My freedom is to make no compromise. Truth is what it is. In order to know the truth one must look at a subject in its entirety. This is not to say a well trained analyst cannot have good results. It means that quantitative analysis is better performed in conjunction with Gc-Ms.

Have as many scientific studies of the oils you provide with chemical data to cross reference. The information on oil is only as good as the research is. We have found erroneous data on oils from recognized people in the field of essential oils and Aromatherapy.
8c.) the rule at Kobashi is don't trust one testing method: do them all. Cross reference is the only sure method to get to the truth. In this day and age of production and consumption, there is always a question that must be asked:

What path does the product take and what are the motivations of the people involved?
What is it that a person wants?
Is that person’s interest in yours?
I believe nature should be left alone, as essential oils are evolving. We all know the strongest are the most diverse in nature. Plants are weaker against attack when they are standardized. People and animals get weaker when they are inbred. What makes us think eliminating changes in oil, add this and that so they are always the same is going to do anything but help suppliers make more money.
Scott Ballard