Fragrance oils and essential oils - what's the difference?

The essential oils and aromatherapy are widely known to have positive effects on the health and to have certain therapeutic qualities. Therefore, we can find many household cleaning products with a label that they are scented with aromatherapy essential oils even though it is not the truth because these products use the fragrance oils in order to get the scent, which is similar to the scent of the essential oils.

Essential oils vs fragrance oils

The main distinction between the essential oils and fragrance oils is that the first are natural, whereas the fragrance oils are synthetically made.

The essential oils are extracted from the plants, which means that they are actually mixtures of natural compounds that are in the plant’s cells. The oils are extracted only from one plant source, meaning from the plant leaves, plant flowers of plant stem. Furthermore, the oil may also be extracted from the plant root and plant seeds.

On the other side, the chemists make fragrance oils in order to produce the attractive scents. These fragrance oils can have essential oils as their ingredients, but they can also be made of animal and synthetic fixatives, as well as of synthetic compounds obtained from petroleum.

The second major distinction between essential oils and fragrance oils is that the first are therapeutic, while the fragrance oils are not.

The essential oils have their natural scent that has therapeutic properties and for that reason, the essential oils have been utilized for centuries in medicine to improve not only the physical health of the people, but their psychological health as well. When the essential oils are inhaled or absorbed via the skin, they tend to produce certain pharmacological effects and therefore, they are widely used in aromatherapy. On the other side, the fragrance oils just give the product an attractive scent without any therapeutic effect.

Why do most commercial products use fragrance oils?

The main reason why the commercial products use the fragrance oils instead of the essential oils is the cost since the production of the essential oils is very costly while the fragrance oils can be produced in high amounts from fairly inexpensive organic chemicals.

Many skin products are made of the essential oils, especially those made of natural ingredients that provide the healthier skin and improve the mood due to the therapeutic benefits of the essential oils. There are also natural perfumes made of the essential oils.