Essential oils: how to use them and where they came from?

Essential oils: how to use them and where they came from?
As we know in a product that meets and usually with a good Inci what a heavenly scent will find that it will not be nothing synthetic, but essential oils. Have you ever stopped to wonder what they are and where they come from?
This evidently is supposed, even without knowing anything, is that they are natural, but they are very concentrated, so use with caution here, and some are even advised if you are pregnant, nursing or children under 12 years.
That said allarmiamoci not, but Let us be aware of: essential oils are extracted from plants, leaves, stems and flowers as early as 4000 years ago ', so is dating one of the oldest laboratories found by archaeologists near Cyprus.
They are useful in cosmetic preparations DIY, in foot baths or baths in natural environments fresheners or candles, candy or sweets, and again, coming to our limbic system, help to acquire relaxation phases or solving problems of insomnia.
But what are they?
Are complex mixtures of organic substances of different chemical nature, extracted from plant material; liquid oily substances are lipophilic with high volatility and perfumed like plants from which they are derived.
Are usually immiscible in water and soluble in organic solvents instead as alcohol.
But how do you get?
The main methods are pressing, extraction with fats, the extraction with volatile solvents and finally the distillation for extraction with supercritical fluids.
One most commonly used, although give a less valuable to the product obtained, is the distillation in steam current which, however, in contrast, allows a higher speed of the process and a reduced use of steam.
The technique rather than produce a better final product is certainly that extraction by CO2 used for example in obtaining extracts such as vanilla, cinnamon or cloves.
In the vapor stream is the force of the steam that is created within the system that carries out all the work: the cellular membranes of the flowers, swollen with water vapor break pouring so the substances contained in them, oils precisely, in the water vapor . The vapor then condenses, droplet after droplet door inside the container at the end of the circuit such oily substances causes it to "float" on the water in the container.
At the end what you will get will be a solution of water insoluble and oil in suspension to which will then be necessary to follow a series of additional steps required to obtain the final product as we all know.
The oils are natural and also very expensive because this serve up to 200kg of flowers to obtain 1 liter of essential oil, variable quantity depending on whether you use leaves, flowers, bark, or, depending of the botanical species in question and depending on the extraction method used.
Some oils are very useful to Tea tree also called malaleuca or medical plant, antibacterial and antifungal natural to lavender, with a strong sedative power, the power of mint with the opposite hand, energizing or cypress, by the strong anti-cellulite.
Finally, how can we forget that a good perfume unique and natural at the end only a few drops of essential oils carefully chosen placed in alcohol and then in water.