Aardvark Essentials FAQ (Or, what Heidi imagines might be on your mind)

You know how you could wait forever till your new house is perfect before you move in? Well, this page is me not waiting for perfection to move into my new webhome. In other words: this is a room that’s not done! More Aardvark FAQ info to come.

What’s an essential oil?

When you pick a fresh herb, or bruise the petal of a rose, or fold the leaf of a plant, its essence, or what we call essential oil, is what is released. That is what you smell. The term “essential oil” is a bit misleading, since it may not be “oily” at all. Rather, an essential oil is a volatile substance–volatile as in vaporous and aromatic, and yes, often flammable.

How is the essence of the plant gotten out?

Essential oils are distilled from the roots, stems (wood), resins, berries, flowers, or leaves of the plant. There are several methods of distillation: steam, hydrodistillation, cold pressing, solvent extraction and carbon dioxide extraction.

Does the quality of an essential oil matter?

Um yes! Immensely. Most essential oils are produced for the food and perfume industry, both of which, until now, have demanded that the essential oils be identical year to year. In order to keep the scents and flavors identical, many commercial essential oils use chemical additives or imitations–natural or synthetic–to match what is expected.

But life is change. Weather varies. Plants vary. Crops vary. And so, then, do essential oils.

Unfortunately, many substances marketed as pure essential oils, have fake stuff in them, stuff that makes them smell like what the label says it is, but stuff that is not, in reality, what the label says. Likewise, sometimes some of the plant’s naturally occurring chemicals are removed to have the substance smell more like what people think it should smell like.

And that’s the fake kind of stuff that makes many of us sneeze. And that’s the stuff that I don’t use in Aardvark Essentials.

Can essential oils affect mood?

Essential oils affect our body’s chemistry by way of our brain (through our olfactory system). They also have an effect on our circulatory system because the inhaled molecules enter our bloodstream.

Plant essences have been used since ancient days to affect moods and emotions, as well as to ease pain and fight infections.