Rosemary oil is one of the most popular herbal essential oils! Its recognisable herbal scent and natural therapeutic properties make it perfect for cosmetics and aromatherapy.
Rosemary essential oil is steam distilled from the rosmarinus officinalis plant. It is a clear to light yellow colour with a distinct herbaceous and woody scent.
In this blog, we’ll discuss how rosemary oil is produced, its sustainability and purity issues in the rosemary oil industry!
Contents
- How is Rosemary Essential Oil Made?
- What Are The Different Types of Rosemary Oil?
- What is Rosemary Essential Oil Used For?
- Rosemary Oil Safety
- How Sustainable is Our Rosemary Essential Oil?
- Is Rosemary Essential Oil Pure?
How is Rosemary Essential Oil Made?
Rosemary is wild harvested in Tunisia. The plant is harvested on a 3 month rotational basis between January and June. This allows the plants to regrow and produce more rosemary for harvest.
The fresh rosemary plant is steam distilled to produce the essential oil. It takes roughly 200kg of rosemary plant material to produce just 1kg of pure rosemary essential oil.
What Are The Different Types of Rosemary Oil?
There are 7 different chemotypes of rosemary essential oil including, Borneol, Bornyl acetate, Camphor, 1,8-Cineole, beta-Myrcene, alpha-Pinene and Verbenone.
The chemotype for most rosemary essential oils are often 1,8-Cineole or Verbenone. Our type of rosemary essential oil is 1,8-Cineole.
They are all naturally occurring chemical variations from the same rosemary plant species. These variations can be caused by plant genetics, growing conditions, climate, soil and harvesting.
Even though each chemotype is from the same species of plant, they have unique chemical profiles and unique aromas!
What is Rosemary Essential Oil Used For?
Rosemary essential oil can be used to add a herbaceous scent to cosmetics and for in aromatherapy to improve mental wellbeing.
In cosmetics, it is used in soaps, shampoos, lotions, creams, conditioners and hair treatments. Try this simple rosemary melt and pour soap recipe!
In aromatherapy, it is used for its natural energising and uplifting properties. You can enjoy its natural therapeutic effects in diffusers, baths, massage oils or in a room spray.
Here’s one of our favourite blends with rosemary essential oil:
Rosemary Oil Safety
Rosemary essential oil must not be used directly on the skin as it could cause irritation or allergic reactions. Essential oils are very concentrated oils, so they must be diluted before use. To use rosemary oil on the skin, dilute it in a carrier oil of your choice.
We recommend doing a patch test with the diluted oil before using it on the skin. This is to check for any sensitivity or reaction to the oil.
Rosemary essential oil is not suitable for consumption and it must be kept out of reach of children.
How Sustainable is Our Rosemary Essential Oil?
Our suppliers make a conscious effort to improve sustainability. They also make sure every part of the plant is not wasted, from the harvest to distillation and even after the distillation process.
The rosemary plant is wild harvested, meaning it grows naturally across fields and amongst other plants instead of planting it in organised and unnatural rows on one field.
The benefits of wild harvesting include an increase in biodiversity, providing habitats, using less heavy machinery and using less fertilisers and pesticides.
When harvesting plants that aren’t wild, producers use large ploughing machines which can harm wildlife on the surface of the soil and underneath the soil. They also mass distribute fertilisers and pesticides across the crops, but when the rosemary grows wild, it is much more difficult to do this.
Rosemary oil production has little to no water wastage. The rosemary plant doesn’t need watering as it thrives in dry climates and likes dry soil. While they do use water to distill the rosemary plant into an essential oil, this water is not wasted. During the distillation process, the water is infused with rosemary, so our suppliers will sell it as rosemary hydrosol.
To maintain sustainability, the producers follow a 3 month harvesting cycle, which ensures each area is not over harvested. This helps maintain a consistent, reliable crop throughout the year.
To reduce plant waste after distillation, the producers will dry the leftover plant mass and use it to fuel the next distillation process.
Is Rosemary Essential Oil Pure?
We tested the purity of 6 samples of rosemary oil from different online suppliers. All of them failed the purity tests.
That’s right. All of them!
Each sample had very low indication of any rosemary content. The tests found the samples contained added ingredients like isobornyl acetate, isoborneol and synthetic camphor ketone.
One test showed the samples contained abnormally high amounts of pinenes. Alpha and beta pinenes are naturally found in rosemary oil, but these samples contained 5x more beta pinenes than pure rosemary oil should contain. It’s clear producers are adding beta pinene to dilute the pure oil and retailers are still selling it on as ‘pure rosemary essential oils’.
How is Rosemary Adulterated?
Producers will often dilute the pure rosemary essential oil with cheaper oils or synthetic ingredients so they can produce more ‘rosemary oil’ and sell it for much cheaper.
If producers are using cheaper essential oils to dilute the rosemary oil, they will use oils with similar properties and scents like eucalyptus oil, camphor oil and turpentine oil.
They also use fractions derived from these oils to adulterate rosemary oil. For example, beta pinene can be obtained from turpentine oil, while camphor ketone can be derived from camphor.
Some producers also use synthetic ingredients like synthetic isoborneol and isobornyl acetate to adulterate the pure oil.
How to Prevent Buying Adulterated Rosemary Oil?
It's difficult to identify the adulterated essential oils just from the scent and colour. Many dishonest producers will use other camphorous essential oils to make it smell as close as possible.
A big indicator of adulterated rosemary essential oil is the price. If the price of rosemary oil seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Based on our years of experience with the rosemary oil industry, we know that pure rosemary essential oil should cost around £80 per kilo. If you see retailers selling it for anything less than this, it is very unlikely to be pure rosemary essential oil. We’ve even seen retailers selling 1kg of rosemary oil for half this price!
So don’t be fooled by the cheaper prices! You’ll just end up paying for a mixture of cheap ingredients disguised with the scent of rosemary.
At The Soapery, we guarantee the purity of our essential oils! We independently test our rosemary essential oil to ensure it is 100% pure.
Continue Reading
Now you know more about rosemary essential oil, why not learn more?
- Want to use rosemary oil to grow your hair? Find out if it actually works with this in-depth review!
- Learn how to use rosemary, lavender and peppermint to scent a cold process soap with this recipe!
- Interested in learning more about our other essential oils? Read about geranium essential oil, how its made, its sustainability and more with this blog!
Do you love rosemary essential oil? Let us know in the comments!
