ESSENTIAL OIL

CERTIFICATION:
Expression and
Other Extraction EXPRESSION OR COLD-PRESSING

Methods Did we mention there are a lot of ways to ex-

tract essential oils? This next method is called
expression. It’s mostly used for citrus oils and
Expression or Cold-Pressing is pretty straightforward. You take, for example,
an orange and put it through a machine that
Steam Distilling Citrus Oils squeezes out the essential oil from the peel.
Citrus Oils and Photosensitivity Unlike steam distillation, expression doesn’t
need heat. That’s why you’ll often hear it re-
A Zero-Waste Process ferred to as cold-pressing.
Other Extraction Methods
• Extracting with Solvents
Let’s imagine life hands you lemons, and you
• Absolutes want to make lemonade—no, actually lemon
essential oil. The first step is putting the lem-
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Extraction
on into the expression machinery. It’s rolled
Enfleurage across cylinders that pierce the peel and break
the small sacs where the essential oil is con-
Comparing Different Extraction Methods tained. Then you spray the fruit with water,
which washes the essential oil out into a con-
tainer. What you get is essential oil mixed with
particles from the rind. To separate the essen-
tial oil, you filter and centrifuge the oily mix-
ture. And voila! You have lemon essential oil.

Expression produces potent essential oils that

smell nearly identical to the fruit. It’s no won-
der that everyone loves citrus oils. Honestly,
they smell fantastic.

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STEAM DISTILLING CITRUS OILS

Expression is the most common method for extracting citrus essential oils, but you can
steam distill citrus fruit too. You’ll get a slightly different oil when you do. Because ex-
pression is a physical process, it can extract heavier compounds along with the aromatic
molecules. When you compare expressed orange oil with a distilled orange oil, the ex-
pressed oil will be a light orange in hue because it contains some orange pigment. The
distilled orange oil, on the other hand, will be clear. In general, steam-distilled citrus oils
smell slightly sweeter than the tart cold-pressed citrus oils.

Expressed essential oils can also have some minor chemical differences from their dis-
tilled versions. For example, distilled bergamot essential oil usually contains less linalyl
acetate and more linalool than expressed bergamot. This is because some of the linalyl
acetate in steam-distilled bergamot oil is exposed to heat and converted to linalool.

CITRUS OILS AND PHOTOSENSITIVITY

Another difference between cold-pressed and steam-distilled citrus oils is the presence
of furanocoumarins (say that 10 times fast!) in expressed essential oils like lemon and
bergamot. Furanocoumarins are a type of chemical constituent that reacts with ultravio-
let rays. They’re found in trace amounts in some expressed citrus oils. Distilled citrus oils
generally don’t contain furanocoumarins, because they’re some of those heavier mole-
cules mentioned before that don’t come through in distillation.

You should be mindful of using cold-pressed oils topically, especially bergamot, and
then exposing your skin to UV light, whether from the sun or a tanning bed. When these
chemicals are present on the skin and exposed to UV light, a chemical reaction takes
place that causes the skin to be photosensitive, which means it’ll be extra sensitive to
the light. This can result in a sunburn, discoloration, or even blistering of the skin. While
we’d all love to be smelling of sweet citrus in the summer sun, it’s better to play it safe
and only apply citrus oils to your skin at night when you know you won’t be going into
the sunlight for at least 12 hours.

A ZERO-WASTE PROCESS

One final thing about expressed citrus oils is that they’re a zero-waste product! Citrus oil
is frequently a byproduct of the juice or food industry. Millions and millions of pounds
of fruit are grown to create fruit juices, but only the flesh of the fruit is needed for juice.
Many of these companies cold-press the leftover rinds to make citrus essential oils. Af-
ter the process is complete, the excess rinds and pulp usually become fertilizer or help
feed cattle.

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Every bit of citrus fruit is used, and, in the end, you get at least three useful products: the
juice or fruit itself, the essential oil that comes from the rinds, and the leftovers for fertil-
izer or feed! No waste is a way of thanking Mother Earth for her gifts.

OTHER EXTRACTION METHODS

Steam distillation, hydrodistillation, and cold-pressing are the most common ways of
extracting essential oils, but there are some less common ones, such as solvent, carbon
dioxide, and enfleurage. Let’s take a quick look at these specific methods.

EXTRACTING WITH SOLVENTS

While solvent extraction can be used on most plant materials, it’s most often used for
delicate plant materials like flowers that cannot otherwise endure the conditions re-
quired for steam distillation. What’s a solvent, you may ask? It’s a substance that can dis-
solve other substances. Some examples of solvents are alcohol, methanol, and ethanol.

With solvent extraction, plant materials are placed in a shallow tray and washed with a
solvent. This breaks the essential oil out of the plant. You then filter it to remove the plant
material. The result is a waxy substance called a concrete. The concrete is further pro-
cessed with another solvent, usually ethanol. Next, you need to reduce the pressure in
the equipment to allow the solvent to evaporate.

ABSOLUTES

What’s left is something called an absolute. Essential oils are volatile aromatic com-
pounds extracted from a plant. Absolutes are similar to essential oils, but they’re ob-
tained through a different process. Jasmine is a great example. Technically speaking,
what you may know as jasmine “essential oil” is actually jasmine absolute. Most essential
oils are produced through steam distillation or cold-press (expression) methods, but
Jasmine absolute is produced by solvent extraction.

Absolutes are different from essential oils because they usually contain both aromatic
and nonaromatic compounds. The easiest way to think of absolutes is that they’re aro-
matic molecules extracted using a solvent, where some of the solvent remains in the
end products.

CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2) EXTRACTION

Another uncommon extraction method is carbon dioxide (CO2) extraction. This process
of using carbon dioxide is also called supercritical fluid extraction (SFE). CO2 has the
unique ability of reaching a supercritical state—meaning it possesses the properties of
both a gas and liquid simultaneously—at relatively low temperatures and pressures. This

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is useful to preserve the important volatile molecules that are more sensitive to heat.

Before we go into the science of this process, here’s why CO2 extraction is cool:

1. It’s really clean. It doesn’t leave solvent residue in the essential oil.

2. It protects the chemical structure of volatile compounds, preventing them from
changing during the extraction process. No more turning linalyl acetate into
linalool!

3. Y
 ou have better control of extracting the aromatic compounds, so you can get
heavier molecules that otherwise might be left out, like diterpenes in frankin-
cense.

4. It produces a highly concentrated essential oil that smells like the original plant
material.

HOW IT WORKS

So, with CO2 extraction you get cleaner, more complex essential oils that are closer to
the plant’s natural composition. The equipment for this type of extraction is expensive,
but the overall process is pretty fast and efficient and often produces higher yields than
steam distillation.

Now, here’s how it works.

First, the CO2 is heated and pressurized, which turns it into an excellent solvent. Next,
you put the liquid CO2 in with the plant material. This pulls out the essential oil, and you
can get rid of the now oil-less plant material. Once the plant material is filtered out of the
mixture, the heat and pressure are turned off. When that happens, the CO2 turns back
into a gas, evaporates out of the oil, and is captured to use in the next batch. The result?
The pure essence of the plant in a bottle.

ENFLEURAGE

The last extraction technique we’ll discuss here is enfleurage. This is one of the oldest
methods known—it was used to extract aromatic compounds before distillation was
even invented. Imagine Cleopatra’s perfumer extracting rose oil for her to use. This is
how he did it.

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HOW IT WORKS

He used lard. Okay, that’s a little simplistic. There’s some interesting science behind it.
Enfleurage really highlights the lipid-soluble nature of volatile aromatic compounds.
You’ll remember that if something is lipid-soluble, that means it dissolves in fats. With
enfleurage, the plant material is crushed and pressed into animal or vegetable fat.
The lipid-soluble compounds—that’s to say the essential oil—of the plant dissolve into
the fat. After you’ve pressed the plant materials you’re left with a greasy, waxy mixture
called an enfleurage pomade. Sounds nice, right? The pomade is then further pro-
cessed with a solvent (usually hexane) to separate the fat from the essential oil. The
finishing touch is washing the product a second time, typically with alcohol.

In the end, you’re left with an absolute . . . but not a really clean one. Enfleurage produc-
es impure products, so it’s not considered an acceptable method for producing thera-
peutic-grade botanical extracts. While enfleurage is historically important, there are so
many ways of extracting essential oils that are way more efficient, so it’s not that relevant
today.

Enfleurage

Glass sheet
Plant material
laid into the fat

Alcohol

Wooden frame

Fragrant
oils/absolute

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COMPARING DIFFERENT EXTRACTION METHODS

So, which extraction method is the best? Well, it really depends on what outcome you’re
looking for. If you’re trying to obtain essential oils for fragrance purposes, then abso-
lutes, expression, and CO2 essential oils produce the most authentic aromas. But when
it comes to therapeutic-grade essential oils, having the optimal ratio of key volatile
molecules is what matters. To determine the best method for producing the right ratio
of aromatic compounds, you can compare different methods of extraction on the same
batch of plant material.3 You probably don’t have time to do this, so we took a batch of
roses and did it for you:

Rose Extraction Method

Comparison

STEAM SOLVENT
CO2
CONSTITUENT DISTILLATION (ABSOLUTE)

2-Phenylethanol 1.7%–10.0% 28.3% 5.0%–67%

Citronellol + Nerol 26.1%–36.6% 3.8% 10.0%–11.4%

n-Nonadecane 10.0%–15.0% 15.2% 3.9%–7.8%

2-Phenylethyl Acetate 0.2%–14.8% 2.4% 0.3%–7.5%

Geraniol 0.0%–17.0% 0.0% 0.0%–4.2%

N-Heneicosane 1.7%–5.0% 12.0% 0.1%–3.4%

Another big thing to consider is pesticides. If the plant matter was sprayed with pesti-
cides, the solvents tend to carry and concentrate those pesticides into the end prod-
uct—obviously not a good thing. If you’re using a solvent extraction method (including
CO2), you have to make sure the plant matter is free of pesticides.

In the end, qualified scientists and health professionals need to carefully evaluate and
compare the various extraction methods for each plant to determine the preferred ex-
traction method. Going the extra mile to do this maximizes the efficacy of the essential
oils produced so you can expect consistent and reliable results.

(3) Johnson, S. Supercritical Essential Oils: A Companion Resource to Medicinal Essential Oils. Scott A Johnson Professional
Writing Services LLC: Orem, UT. 2017. 6
NOTES: