32: A Guide to Understanding Essential Oil Chemical Families

The raw, unedited transcript is below. For a cleaned up, printable pdf of the transcript for this episode go to Patreon.com/AromaticWisdom. 

The printable transcript is a wonderful tool that you can add to other study materials, a resource binder, highlighting key points or simply making personal notes in the margin.

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RAW TRANSCRIPT

Liz Fulcher:
This is the Aromatic Wisdom podcast episode 32. In today's show, I'm going to talk about the essential oil chemical families, what they are, and how familiarizing yourself with them will really give you a boost in your blending skills.

Introduction:
You're listening to the Aromatic Wisdom Podcast with your host, Liz Fulcher. If you're interested in learning about essential oils, hearing interviews with industry experts, and discovering ways to grow your own aromatherapy business, this is the podcast For you. For more information and show notes, visit the website at aromatic wisdom institute.com. Now sit back, relax, take a deep breath, and enjoy as Liz shares a dose of aromatic wisdom.

Liz Fulcher:
Hello. Happy New Year. This is Liz Fulcher, your host for the Aromatic Wisdom Podcast, and I'm so happy you're here with me today. Thanks very much for giving me a bit of time and your earbuds. I have been working with essential oils, gosh, since 1991. Almost 27 years of experience and adore the world of aromatherapy. So that's why I'm here to talk to you about all things aromatic, essential oils, hydrosols, carriers, business, chemistry, regulations, the fun, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it.


So before I get into today's topic about chemical families, I just want to say a couple of things. I have decided for the month of January 2018 to have a theme for the podcast, for the episodes. Every episode will have a different topic, but the theme will be chemistry. I'm doing that for a couple reasons. One oils, there's a lot I wanna say about chemistry, and I thought, let me just get it all out in 1 month. Not that I'll never talk about it again, but there have been so many requests from you, my beautiful listeners, to for me to talk more about chemistry. Now one of my most listened to episodes was number 8, and that would be aromatic wisdom institute.comforward/008. And I think it was called why every aromatherapy should learn essential oil chemistry.

And I it was just kind of an overview of chemistry and why it really will, what am I trying to say, improve your practice as an aromatherapist, as an essential oil therapist, if you understand the chemistry that makes up the essential oils. Well, that has been one of the most downloaded of my episodes, and that's very telling. And then the second thing is I get tons of emails saying, please say more about chemistry. So I thought I would do kind of a month of chemistry and with a lot of foundational stuff. And then, of course, I'll continue to talk about, not chemistry all the time, but I'll certainly make references to chemistry in future episodes. But it'll be a place where people can always come back to to listen again to get the foundations. So today, I'm going to talk about chemical families because that's kind of a great place to start. Then in episode 33, I'm going to talk about what is a GCMS report and the importance of having 1.

When you buy an essential oil, there should also be report to go along with it so you know what the components are. Then in the last 2 episodes in January, I'm going to give an overview of 8 different chemical families. So by the end of January, you'll have a good overview of chemistry. If you like this idea of my having themes for the month, let me know. I'm I'm just experimenting. There are some topics that are really big. Chemistry as one, another one is regulations, and labeling, and all that stuff that's so important. I could easily do 4 episodes with that information.

There are other topics that will be a bit random here and there, but if you can think of a theme for a month, I'm again, I'm I'm kind of toying around with this. So as always, I welcome your input. I read everything that comes in. You can write to me on my contact page. If you go to aromatic wisdom institute.comforward/contact, there's a little box there and you can write out, you can put ask Liz in the subject line, and then just whatever your question is or what you'd like me to talk about. Okay. If you're ready, let's go ahead and talk about essential oil chemical families. If you need to pause at this point to go get a pen and paper.

I understand a lot of you like to take notes during my podcast. Get your highlighter, cup of tea, some grapefruit or rosemary essential oil to help with learning, and let's get started. If you've listened to any of my earlier podcasts, especially where it's kind of a learn with Liz episode where I'm explaining something, I always like to start with a definition. So I'm going to give you a definition of a chemical family, and then I'll kinda break it down from there. So a chemical family, any central oil well, any chemical family whether it's essential oils or any other organic substance. A chemical family is a group of chemical components that share similar characteristics. Specifically, they share similar molecular structure. So there you have it.

So let's go kind of start at the beginning. Why in the heck do we even wanna understand about chemical families and chemistry? Why isn't it enough to know that this essential oil is soothing, or let's go more specific. This essential oil is good for insomnia. This essential oil is good for relaxing. This essential oil over here is good for pain, for wound care. Why do we wanna take it to the next level and study the chemistry? Understanding the properties of an oil, which is what those the therapeutic properties, which is, the terms I was just using. Skin healing, central nervous system calming, all those words. So if you have a glossary of essential oil terms, and there is a glossary, by the way, on my website.

I can't remember the link off the top of my heads, but I will put it in the show notes at the bottom of the download on my page, and you can, read the glossary. It's really good. Anyway, the glossary is a great place to begin. I mean, if you're learning about essential oils, the first thing you wanna know, which ones are calming, which ones are stimulating, which ones are good for, wound care, which ones are good for pain. Great place to be in. But once you start to study the chemistry, it takes that information to another level. It's very empowering. You as a blender, as an essential oil therapist.

If you're using essential oils in any capacity for well-being, you're going to want to know the chemistry. When you understand the chemistry of a essential, even just the terminology like, the chemical families, which is the beginning place. It's going to deepen your understanding of what they do therapeutically and add a new dimension to your skills as a formulator. You are going to begin to see more your your blends are going to be more therapeutically effective. So essential oils are composed of natural plant chemical compounds. Right? Oh, it's organic chemistry. Everything has a chemical compound, inorganic chemistry. Essential oils come from plants, so these are plant compounds.

I will say that the term compound and constituent is used interchangeably when you talk about a central chemistry. So some people oils say components, some people will say constituents. I will use both. So these compounds that come from plants are physical substances, I e molecules, that have some measurable therapeutic activity. This therapeutic activity is measurable because it's been validated in science through research in laboratories. If you were to send a sample of essential oil to a laboratory and have it tested, you would ask for a GCMS report or a GCMS analysis. GCMS, I'm going to talk about next week in episode 33. GC stands for gas chromatography, MS mass spectrometry.

And it's a special kind of technology that will measure all of the components of the essential oils. So you can buy I'm just gonna say for example, lavender, and you know that it's relaxing. We know that about lavender. It's it's one of those anecdotal stories whether you know science or not. You know, from reading books that it's lab that it's relaxing. However, if you were to have it tested with GCMS technology, there my phone. It's supposed to be off when I'm recording. If you have to have it tested with GCMS technology, it would tell you how much how high is the percentage of molecules that make it relaxing.

So 1 lavender may be more relaxing than another depending on its chemistry. So you have your essential oil tested with g c m s technology. You get back a report that has a list of all the components that are present in that oil. And it will give you the exact percentages of each of those components. So it's a really powerful little piece of paper, event and it can be controversial. I mean, some people say they can be fiddled with in the laboratory. I'm here to tell you, it won't be if you're using the right source. Just like everything.

I'm rabbit-holing here, but this is needs to be said. Just like everything in aromatherapy, just like everything with essential oils, with hydrosols, with carriers, any product that you're buying. Know and trust your source. I trust my source for the products that I use in my classroom.  And it's the same thing if you're having your oils tested or if you're buying your oils from a place that's having them tested, and you're concerned that maybe the laboratory's fiddling with the numbers, then go to a different lab or go to a different supplier. One of my students rose wrote to me recently and said, well, isn't it true the labs can fiddle with the numbers to give the percentages that show it's a better oil? Of course, anything can be manipulated. Oils can be manipulated. Reports can be manipulated. That is why it's imperative that you have a source that you trust, that you develop a relationship from anyone you're buying you know, that you're doing business with, basically. 

Okay. Big rabbit hole there. You can tell I get a little passionate about that. So now we've okay. We've sent our oil to the lab. We've had it tested with GCMS technology.

The report comes back, and there's a long list of all the components that are present in the oil with exact percentages. Now this report is then sent off to the supplier with the essential oils. The supplier may or may not then take similar molecules and lump them together into a family. They'll take all of the monoterpene, the components that are listed on this report and put those together under 1 category called monoterpene chemical family. Then they'll take any that are if there are sesquiterpenes, and they'll take those similar components and group them together. Not all suppliers do this.

Marge Clark of Nature's Gift will do this. It's the gold standard of essential oil suppliers to not only have the GC/MS report, but then to list the molecules to or group the molecules together by chemical family. And what's so cool about this is if you know the action of a chemical family, then you know oh my word. There are a lot of components. There's a very high percentage of molecules in that chemical family. Therefore, I know that the essential oil is going to have x action because that's what that family does. So just to give you an example, the monoterpene essential oils, if you see there are a lot of chemicals I beg your pardon. If you see there are a lot of components, in the chemical family, the monoterpene chemical family on this GCMS MS report.

You're going to know that whatever monoterpenes do, this oil is going to do because there are a lot of monoterpenes components in this oil. One of the things monoterpenes do. They have they do a lot of wonderful stuff, but one thing they do is they, support immunity. So if you see an essential oil is very high in the monoterpene chemical family, you're going to understand, this could be good for immunity. You're also going to understand, oh, it may not have a long shelf life because the monoterpene chemicals don't or components don't. So immediately, it gives you a window into that oil. Now in my Aromatherapy Certification Program, which starts March 7th, by the way, in Pennsylvania. If you wanna come to a live hands on awesome course, I'm starting March 7th.

I'll put links to that in the show notes as well. In my program, my students study in-depth 10 chemical families. So not only do they understand the action of each of the 10 chemical families, they learn about the molecules that are within those families so that they can even see which of the molecules is giving the chemical family its action. When you know something about a chemical family, and you see there's a high percentage of molecules in that family present in the oil, then you can start to make some generalizations about how the oil is going to act therapeutically. Just please remember, this is not a deep dive lesson. It's simply an overview of the concept, so I am keeping it simple. The chemistry of essential oils is really complex, and you can, you can take spend years studying it. So what I'm telling you is pretty general, but it is a good starting point when you choose oils for your blends.

So if you're interested in learning more about essential oil chemistry, you kind of just dipping your toe in, the first thing I would do is learn the characteristics of each of the chemical families. I'm going to put a link in today's show notes that will send you to a blog post I wrote specifically for this podcast episode, and it will have the 10 chemical families, their characteristics, as well as the shelf life, because it's really important for safety as well to pay attention to the age of your oils. Older oils are not good oils necessarily. Another thing I wanna mention is one essential oil can belong to different families. So for example, black pepper. Black pepper is very high in components from the monoterpene family, but it's also high in components from the sesquiterpene family. So you'll see black pepper show up. If you're seeing a list of essential oils in their families, you may see that it's high in monoterpenes, and you'll see it's high in greens, and that is, because it has a lot of both components in the oil.

So do you see how classifying essential oils according to the chemical family can be a big help in understanding what they do, their basic therapeutic activities? You know, if you've got 3 oils that contain the that have are high in the same chemical family and even the same constituents, you can assume that the therapeutic activity is going to be similar for those 3 oils, can't you? This goes a long way toward helping you make really good choices for combining essential oils. If you're trying to go for a strong therapeutic effect, look for several oils that are high that have a high percentage of, the chemical families. Now, again, how do you know the percentage? Well, you're going to need to learn to read a GCMS report. You don't have to read it. Basically, learn how to overview 1. Again, in episode podcast episode 33, which oils be coming out next week, I will, explain to you what a GCMS report is and give you an a sense of how to read the percentages. Okay. So the reason we wanna learn chemical families, you know, what is a chemical family? Why do we care about chemical families oils so that we can understand the therapeutic action of an oil.

Right? But the other reason, and this is really important, is that we have a better understanding of the safety of the oil. The people that are online, specifically on Facebook. They're you'll I often find a lot of people who are really getting bent out of shape when they come across a recipe or, some claim that is being made about an essential oil that they know to be wrong. And usually the people who are getting up arms or ones who have studied the chemistry, who really understand why that recipe is unsafe, especially if it's been a posted by someone who really doesn't have education. They simply are reposting something they found maybe on Pinterest. This is a problem with the Internet, unfortunately, it's just like anything. 1 person claims it, somebody else says that's cool, and then they repost it. And on and on it goes, and this is how misinformation is spread.
Whenever you another rabbit hole here. If you find a recipe, if you find a claim, or somebody is making some big statement in social media. Facebook and Pinterest are the 2 big offenders. Question it. Look and see who's posted it. If you can generally, the serious recipes and the serious claims are made by someone from their business page or their biz you know, business perspective, not just, okay, you know, I read about this. I have a child. You have a child.

Hey. Look. We've got this ear oil that's got 20 drops of of clove in it. Well, immediately, a person who studied chemistry will know that clove is in the phenol chemical family, and phenols are highly irritating. If you our seeing any of these big claims being made on social media. Just stop and look. Go back to the source. Is this person a professional highly you know, a trained not even highly trained.

A trained aromatherapist. They've had at least 200 hours of training. That's generally when chemistry is studied in programs like mine where our minimum of 200 hours. If it is someone who works for a company, or I beg your pardon, if it's someone who's associated with the company where it's primarily about selling the essential oils and less about education, that's another thing to to have a look at. So if you're out there in podcast land taking notes, I always say to my students, please highlight this. So I'm gonna say to you, highlight this. All safety concerns about using essential oils are based in chemistry. Science is not an opinion, it's empirical.

As you start to understand the chemistry of essential oils, your eyes will be opened and the safety concerns become really obvious. And, of course, that's a good thing because then it makes it really easy to make safer blends and effective blends. So at this point, I invite you to, number 1, become familiar with the names of the 10 common chemical families. As I said, I'm putting a, link to a document down in the show notes so you can do that. And then once you kind of familiarize yourself with the names, say them a few times, and roll them off your tongue, then start to learn some of the basic generalized characteristics of each of the chemical families. Now remember, some of them it's harder to generalize, so try to kind of learn the basic characteristics of each of the 10 chemical families. And then when you get a g when you get a GCMS report, look at it and see which chemical family has the highest percentage, and immediately you'll have an understanding of what that oil does. Now next week, as I've said three times, I'm going to talk about GCMS reports, so you'll have a better understanding of how to get them, what to look for, and so forth.

That is it 4 chemical families. I really hope that was helpful. If you found this helpful, please let me know if you found it confusing. I'd like to know that as well. Remember, I'm sitting here at my desk with my kitty cat, Hanaboo, and I'm just talking to my microphone. So I love feedback. You can write to me, aromatic wisdom institute.comforward/contact. And go in there and just put ask Liz or podcast question maybe in the, subject line and then ask me your question.

I'd love to hear back from you. You can also write in the on the page, the aromatic wisdom institute.comforward/032. There's a place where you can write comments on the podcast page. And finally, it's time for smell my life. Indeed. Right, so smell my life is a segment where I share some way in which I've used an aromatic in my life recently. Right, so this is a hydrosol story. I I have a lot of hydrosol in my home because my husband has a company copperstills.com.

He actually sells the stills that make the hydrosols, and I teach classes on hydrosols, and we have plants. And I just happen to have a I have a lot of everything in my house, oils, carriers. I mean, I have a school. So I found a way to kind of use up my lavender hydrosol before it got bad. What I do every morning because my hair is short. I literally just pour it on my head. I dampen my hair so then I can blow it out and style it. So instead instead of using water, I use lavender hydrosol.

Let me tell you, this is decadent. And if you have a lot of hydrosol, absolutely do it, because I feel as though it's good for my hair. It's good for my, scalp, my skin. Of course, it runs down into my face. Hydrosol is great for, what's the word? Rebalancing your natural acid mantle on your skin. So I just sort of soak my head. How I soak. I wet my whole head with lavender hydrosol, and then I sometimes I'll let it dry naturally.

Usually, I style it. And my hair smells so good the whole day, and it's so soft. And so this is how I've been using my lavender hydrosol until we distill the next batch. So that's my smell my life story this week. So that'll just about wrap it up for episode 32 of the aromatic wisdom CAST. Just a reminder again, on March 7th, I'm beginning an aromatherapy certification program live, hands on. We make almost $1,000 worth of products. Lots and lots of blending.

We blend for each of the chemical families. We study chemistry, tree taxonomy, business, safety. There are case studies. It's very full, very rich course, and I adore teaching it. And being in the classroom's fun because there's a lot of bonding that happens in the classroom, and, of course, the students have access to me to pick my brain as much as they want. The link to that is in the show notes, aromatic wisdom institute.comforward/032. 

Next week I'll be discussing what is a GCMS report and how you read one as I continue with a series of essential oil chemistry in the month of January. 

Until next time, 

Be Happy, Be Well, 

Liz Fulcher
Clinical Aromatherapist, Educator, Back-Porch Distiller