Ethics in Aromatherapy

Every industry, during its course of development, establishes its own set of ethics according to the nature, purpose and needs of the particular industry. Good manufacturing practices, business practices, consumer information and education rather than misinformation are core needs of every industry.

The Challenge

For aromatherapy, being a relatively young industry, there are several challenges in establishing a set of ethics which I would like to describe in the following.

1. Probably the greatest challenge exists in the fact that the product we are dealing with, essential oils, is industry-wise assigned to “fragrance”. Most likely more than 95% of all essential oils produced worldwide are produced for the flavor, fragrance and toiletry industry. This industry is not concerned with healing, it has not a particular concept of wholeness and it has no explicit preference for a natural product over a synthetic. Naturally, (or unnaturally?) this industry has completely different needs regarding their raw materials than the aromatherapy industry. When I recently had to sent a shipment of 2 kg neroli oil back to the vendor in Egypt, my shipping and receiving person asked me: ”Isn’t that plain fraud, what they are doing?” In a certain way it is. But when we look at this particular case, it tels us how this industry works. We found that this neroli oil contained 6% linalyl acetate, out of which 4% came from the plant and 2% from a synthetic source. (even quantities of less than 1% synthetic linalyl acetate can easily be detected with chiral column analysis). However, the profit margins of neroli oil, which costs several thousand $$ per kg, are not significantly increased by adding just 2% synthetic linalyl acetate. When discussing the issue with the producer, it turned out that they describe their neroli oil on the spec. sheet with 5 – 15% linalyl acetate. This is the normal range for linalyl acetate in neroli oil and this is what the perfumer expects when he works with it. The particular batch had only 4%, therefore some synthetic, so called nature identical material was added. If it would have been done to increase profits, the vendor easily could have added 10%.

2. The aromatherapy industry is a fairly young industry in this country, but at the same it is growing with an enormous pace. We cannot expected our aromatherapists within weeks and months to have the knowledge of the ancient Egyptian adept or the Indian Vaidja who had a body of knowledge at their disposal accumulated and care for by many generations of healers. We are in the process of reestablishing an ancient healing art and at the same time we make the attempt to built the bridge to modern western botany, anatomy, physiology and biochemistry. This process necessarily takes time and requires patience from everyone being involved.

3. With the enormous growth rate of AT, a large scale commercialization of the industry was unavoidable. When there is a perceived need of a product the laws of the market demand that this need is being filled, whether the suppliers have the background, experience, resources and competence to fill the need or not. There is certainly a group of committed suppliers who ongoingly improve their resources and competence to do justice to the demand of a true aromatherapy product and I see these suppliers progressively succeeding in their efforts. But if an industry grows as fast as AT does, it is to me a necessary part of the phenomenon that we see for example a company selling very successfully even to health food stores a line of 30 purely synthetic perfume oils, advertised as the purest aromatherapy products, the promotional material pointing to a web page with aromatherapy certification course etc. etc. etc. Again, it will take time for things to sort out.

4. The aromatherapy industry is highly diversified. AT today spans from medicinal internal use of essential oils to room fragrancing, massage therapy, and many other forms of holistic healing while its largest commercial significance at the moment lies in the personal care industry. The boundaries between a medicinal product and scented personal care product are not clearly defined. The standard of ethics is almost necessarily different with different approaches.

5. There is no legislation or other regulation of what a natural essential oil has to be. Such regulation probably would not be very desirable since neither the Food and Drug Administration nor any other governmental institution subscribes to a holistic paradigm and therefore does not have the prerequisites to formulate such regulation. NAHA’s attempt of self-regulation, as difficult as it appears in the face of these challenges , is therefor the most promising approach.

In the following I would like to describe my view of how far the AT industry progressed in establishing a set of ethics.

Purity of Essential oils

Considering the above described difficulties, a considerable amount of progress has been made, with a lot of work still ahead of us. Essential oils these days are rarely extended with alcohol, mineral oil, vegetable oil or other extenders. However, we find that a large number of oils are standardized with so called nature identical compounds. Oils like neroli and bergamot are rarely true botanical, and oils like lavender, rosemary and ylang ylang are often extended in the same way. Regularly, essential oils are reconstituted to an extend that its cost cutting effect is obvious. It is my sense that the AT companies within HAHA are quite successful in keeping these oils out of their inventory, however there is a huge problem with the rising number of AT personal care manufactures. I recently received a phone call from a manufacturer with the request that I match the price offer of another supplier in the United States for several bulk oils including rosemary, spike lavender and a few others. The prices this supplier was offering were less than 50% of what my distillers are charging me. At the same time the claim of 100% purity was made from the side of this particular US supplier. I offered to analyze the spike lavender and it did not contain more than 10% botanical oil. To take this problem a step further, we see an increasing number of products labeled AT on the marked with no botanical aroma in it at all. Whereas a significant number of therapists and committed manufactures have managed to procure botanical oils, the word AT is currently abused in an increasing way to further commercialize the use of synthetic fragrance.

Labeling

I believe that proper labeling of single note essential oils can contribute to consumer education. With testers in stores, the interested consumer has at least the chance to sample a variety of true botanical oils. Besides the botanical name, labels should display plant part used and the country of origin. It is a good manufacturing practice to print lot numbers on bottles so every bottle can be traced to its origin. Many AT companies already adhere to these standards.

Organic and Wild-Crafted

Repeatedly articles in this journal discredited the labeling of oils as being from organic and wild-crafted sources. The argument was, that organic oils hardly exist and if at all only at prices and quantities which are prohibitive for aromatherapy use, except for strictly medicinal internal use. Essential oils from wild-crafted sources either would not exist or their production would endanger the particular species. I would like to take the occasion to correct these common misunderstandings, based on my experience of working for the last 10 years with distillers around the globe. Over the last 10 years, an increasing number of distillers have been certified as organic producers. Not only in France, Italy, Spain and other European countries distillers had been certified, but also in developing countries like Egypt and Madagascar. The advantage of these oils is not only that the plants have been growing without artificial pesticides and fertilizers, but differently than most other essential oils they have been produced for aromatherapy purposes and their purity is ensured by the certification. The higher cost of these oils usually stays within limits. It is not different from organic vegetables. Organic farming is more expensive in some cases, in others it is not. For example ylang ylang does not require any fertilization nor any pesticides. The oil is by default organic. A certified organic ylang ylang oil requires only the cost of certification.

For wild-crafted oils the situation is again not as simple. Many oils like the conifer oils come always from wild-crafted plants. On the other hand, many labiatae which often are cultivated, can also be harvested from wild-crafted sources. Most of these plants are abundantly available. In Turkey alone, the annual harvest of oregano herb from wild-crafted sources is 40 Million metric tons. There is no risk of depleting the species. Spike lavender, rosemary, red thyme, sage are wild-crafted and distilled by smaller and larger distillers in Spain. Even in a situation like the helichrysum italicum where the increasing demand of the oil cannot be met anymore, the species as such is not endangered. The plant propagates through the roots which is not affected by picking the flowers. There are two endangered species from which an oil is distilled, sandalwood and rosewood. In both cases the threat does not come from the essential oil production. In the former, the species is well protected by the Indian government (which results in limited quantities of oil available). For the latter, the endangerment comes from the lumber industry in South America, which unfortunately is determined to produce high quality furniture until the last rosewood tree is cut. The essential oil is distilled from saw dust and otherwise unusable wood pieces and therefore does not increase the cutting of the trees. As in the case of sandalwood, the oil is limited and pure quality is difficult to procure. I believe that a holistic approach will require, that our ethics will consider ecological, economical and social aspects of the production of the oils we are using.

Considering the young history of modern day aromatherapy, its complex nature and its struggle to separate itself out from the fragrance industry, there is a high ethical standard establishing itself among a significant core group of practitioners, educators, and manufacturers, in particular among the ones organized in NAHA. I believe this group has the potential to give AT the recognition of a truly ethical healing art.

Christoph Streicher, http://www.amrita-essentials.com (source: naturalhealthweb)

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