Chemical components of eucalyptus EO

[Saponista]

This is so interesting. Thank you Galaxy!!!! Please do more if u get chance.

 

[galaxyMLP]

I actually don't have that many EOs... I'm going to have to get some more just for these tests. Are there any suggestions on what to compare next? I have 2 types of tea tree oil but they really do smell the same to my nose. What would any of you all like to see here?

If someone has spanish lavender EO I could do a comparison with that as well. I would test the FO's but since they have much higher boiling points, I'd be afraid to gunk up the instruments. So for now its just EO's.

Had a thought: What about 10x orange, 5x orange and sweet orange? I only have sweet orange. Anyone close to me got some 10x or 5x to spare?

 

[kchaystack]

That is too bad about FO's. It would be interesting to see a comparison between sandalwood EO and FO to try and find out how to best dupe it.

I don't use much EO. Peppermint, tea tree, and lemongrass.

Maybe a compare between lemongrass and other citrus? Just brainstorming.

 

[not_ally]

Galaxy, I recently visited Jo Lasky of Fragrance Labs, one of the things she showed us (in the context of aroma chemicals) was this great book which listed commonly used e.o.'s in fragrance making and broke them down into their chemical constituents (not sure if I am describing this right) which is helpful for blending A/C's as well as EO's. I don't have the name of it, I did write it down but my notebook is in boxes of stuff that is all spread around b/c I am moving.

It was a rare book and expensive, but she said that it was worth it, you might want to email her (or PM JBlaney, she was there as well) to see if it was something that you might like.

ETA: I just realized, this might not be that helpful if you are comparing different types/sources of the same EO, though, sorry.

 

[not_ally]

We used to prank each other by filling the eppendorfs with liquid nitrogen and dropping them in people's pockets. It goes off with an almighty bang lol! I probably shouldn't admit to that!

Man, you science geeks know how to have fun! Said fondly My dad is a molecular biologist, and he can crack himself up (and us too, just by how hard he is laughing) at this stuff as well.

 

[galaxyMLP]

Thanks NA, I'll have to look into that! Sounds like an interesting book!

Oh, and K, I wish I could do FOs but I really shouldn't. I'd love to try a lavender FO vs the real deal or as you said, sandalwood (although getting the real deal would be next to impossible!) I like the lemongrass idea. I have live lemongrass. I'll try extracting some oil from it in alcohol and run it against some lime eo. Or if someone has lemongrass eo they want to donate to science, that works too!

 

[TeaLeavesandTweed]

I'd also be curious to see what rose FOs compare to real rose otto or absolute, but I imagine I would have to foot the bill for that one. So, yeah, not that curious.

 

[galaxyMLP]

Haha, I would absolutely love to know that too! I think 5% rose absolute is not too bad. I might actually try that one.... maybe one day.

I thought of that one a while ago. I have a nice rose FO but it certainly doesnt smell like a true rose.

 

[TeaLeavesandTweed]

Haha, I would absolutely love to know that too! I think 5% rose absolute is not too bad. I might actually try that one.... maybe one day.

I thought of that one a while ago. I have a nice rose FO but it certainly doesnt smell like a true rose.

I found a 10% rose otto mixed in argan oil on Etsy from an EO seller that a like a lot. I've thought of buying it as a hair serum. She also does 10% jasmine (grandiflorum) in argan, so I can't make up my mind.

I love the scent of roses, but I had a bad reaction to a fragrance in a handmade soap in the past and don't really feel like patch testing any FO I buy for a month with the possibility of randomly erupting in hives again. I have one FO-based product that I love enough to risk it and it turned out alright. It might be worth it again if I had a really nature-similar FO to try...

 

[DeeAnna]

I have a 10% to 20% dilution of rose EO in jojoba. At that dilution, it's really pungent, and I wouldn't dream of using it on my body. I use this diluted EO at 0.5% or less in lotion and the scent is more rose-like and pleasant at a very low %. That stands to reason -- the % of rose aroma that you get from a real rose is minuscule too!

Does this rose EO really smell like roses? In a word, no. EOs do not contain the water-soluble portions of a scent, and those tend to be the floral, sweet components of the overall scent. Most EOs are not as floral as the plant from which the EO comes -- the scent of lavender EO is a prime example that most people would have experienced.

 

[rparrny]

I thought some might find this interesting and useful. Years ago I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Jim Duke at his home and "green pharmacy" and during that trip he told me about the database he created on herbs and although it's not classified or anything, it's not advertised to the general public but anyone with the web address can access it. I find it very useful. Here's the link: http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/duke
And here's a search on eucalyptus: You can click on hyperlinks to learn all kinds of stuff like actions ect...
For those of you wanting to learn more about herbs but not knowing where to start, I highly recommend "The Green Farmacy", Jim's most famous book...but honestly they are all great. He is basically the reason herbs are now being taken seriously by "modern medicine"...a wonderful man with a great sense of humor...
Years ago, I wanted to start a very malnourished patient on some alfalfa extract but the pharmacy wouldn't approve it because "we don't know what it's composed of" I replied "I do" and sent them the list like the one below...they still denied it but when asked why they were very embarrassed to admit they didn't have a reason...

Dr. Duke's
Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases

Chemicals in: Eucalyptus citriodora HOOK. (Myrtaceae) -- Citron-Scented Gum, Lemon Eucalyptus, Lemon-Scented Gum, Spotted Gum

Chemicals


1,8-CINEOLE Leaf 50 - 3,580 ppm DUKE1992A
7-O-METHYLAROMADENDRIN Plant: DUKE1992A
ALPHA-PINENE Leaf 5 - 380 ppm DUKE1992A
AROMADENDRENE Leaf: DUKE1992A
AROMADENDRIN Plant: DUKE1992A
BETA-PINENE Leaf 20 - 300 ppm DUKE1992A
BETULINIC-ACID Leaf: JAD Plant: DUKE1992A Root 166.7 ppm; JAD
CAMPHENE Leaf 1 - 20 ppm DUKE1992A
CARVONE Leaf: DUKE1992A
CARYOPHYLLENE Leaf 15 - 780 ppm DUKE1992A
CITRAL Leaf: DUKE1992A
CITRONELLAL Leaf 50 - 18,020 ppm DUKE1992A
CITRONELLOL Leaf 230 - 4,000 ppm DUKE1992A
CITRONELLYL-ACETATE Leaf 20 - 130 ppm DUKE1992A
EUDESMOL Leaf: DUKE1992A
EUGENOL Leaf: DUKE1992A
GERANIOL Leaf 250 - 1,000 ppm DUKE1992A
GUAIACOL Leaf: DUKE1992A
GUAIOL Leaf: DUKE1992A
HYDROXYCITRONELLAL Leaf: DUKE1992A
ISOPULEGOL Leaf 35 - 5,960 ppm DUKE1992A
LIMONENE Leaf 20 - 1,420 ppm DUKE1992A
LINALOL Leaf 15 - 180 ppm DUKE1992A
MYRCENE Leaf 1 - 120 ppm DUKE1992A
NEO-ISOPULEGOL Leaf 20 - 680 ppm DUKE1992A
P-CYMENE Leaf 10 - 180 ppm DUKE1992A
TERPINENE Leaf 1 - 180 ppm DUKE1992A
TERPINOLENE Leaf 5 - 160 ppm DUKE1992A
URSOLIC-ACID Plant: DUKE1992A Ubiquitous chemicals not included in analysis
ppm = parts per million
tr = trace

Sat Sep 5 10:31:18 EDT 2015
Please send questions and comments to:

James A. Duke
Green Farmacy Garden
8210 Murphy Road
Fulton, MD 20759

or Mary Jo Bogenschutz (E-Mail: [email protected]) Dr. Duke does not recommend self diagnosis or self medication. Please see the disclaimer for more information.

 

[galaxyMLP]

Interesting. I don't have permission to view it though. Ah well, its ok. Thanks for the additional information!

And Dee, considering 2000 lbs of roses make 1 oz of EO, I was guessing that very, very little rose EO goes a long way. It's also interesting that rose hydrosol and other plant hydrosol also contain so many components of a flowers fragrance but that we don't have access to them since they are water soluble and don't enter the oil. I think that's a case when FOs really are great.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...I was guessing that very, very little rose EO goes a long way..."

That guess is spot-on in my experience! I have heard that CO2 extracts are often more true to the real scent than a solvent or distilled EO. I have no experience with this, so just passing on what I've read from reasonably reputable sources.

On a related note -- I did a hydrosol and an oil infusion of sweet grass (Hierochloe odorata) this summer. I've made infusions before, but this was my first try at making a hydrosol, and I know I have a lot to learn about that art, but I didn't do too bad for a first timer. I learned the odor of the sweetgrass is split between the fat soluble molecules (more of the hay-grass odors) and the water soluble ones (more of the sweet, spicy odors).

Nothing of the sweetgrass scent seem to come through when the infusion or hydrosol is used in soap. I didn't expect any success, actually, but I needed to try it once to confirm. I'll stick with using a sweetgrass FO to get an appropriate scent in the soap. Now that I know what the hydrosol smells like, I realize the FO, which is sweet, green, and slightly spicy, smells much more like the hydrosol than the overall scent. The hay-grass undertone of the real sweetgrass is absent in the FO. That's not all bad -- I can live with that.

ETA: Try this for the Duke database: http://www.ars-grin.gov/duke/

 

[Dr.J]

For my fellow nerds who find this topic interesting:

I recently acquired a textbook that greatly details the chemical composition of many EOs, with lots of other great info that I'd like to recommend to you:

"Essential Oil Safety", 2nd edition, by Robert Tisserand and Rodney Young. ISBN 978-0-4430-6241-4.

(Wow, its jumped $20 since I bought it just before Thanksgiving - still well worth the price, IMO. Also available on Amazon.)

Chapter 13 contains an alphabetized list of ~400 EOs (incl some absolutes) and gives their compositions as determined by GC-MS, and chapter 14 is an alternative way of organizing this info - its an alphabetized list of individual chemical compounds, with lists of the EOs in which they are found (and approx compositional ranges).

I also recently watched some YouTube videos on EO Chem, recorded from live classes given at Indiana U. For those with a chemistry background, the videos can move slowly at times. Once he gets into the different compounds it gets interesting. Good way to kill a rainy Sunday.

 

[Saponista]

Thanks Dr.j I will have a look

 

[Arimara]

I'll have to buy the book after the holidays are over. I have The Green Pharmacy Herbal Handbook and since my late teens/early twenties, it's been one of my favorite references.