When many people think of a still they probably associate it with the illegal operations set up to produce alcohol or moonshine as it was more commonly called during the days of prohibition. A similar process is used to extract essential oils from their plant form. Essential oil stills are the most popular way to make essential oils from the flowers, herbs or twigs of the original substance. The process used by essential oil stills can be similar to moonshine stills, but no matter how attactive it smells this liquid produced definitely isn't for drinking!
Is There Still A Need For Stills?
It isn’t just the smell of an herb or flower that gives oil its medicinal properties; it’s the cells of the plant or herb itself. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple to just reproduce the scent. If you want to use the essential oil for health or mood changing reasons, you need the real deal, the spirit of the plant. It’s like the difference between your favorite kind of tea and the blander varieties. Sure, tea bags look mostly alike and may even smell alike, but there is a vast difference in taste from one bag of dried leaves and another.
Still Crazy After All These Years
Although the roots of aromatherapy are lost in antiquity, the modern practice can be traced to a 1920’s French chemist by the name of Rene’ Gattefosse’, who also came up with the name “aromatherapy”. He often used essential oil stills to make the oils he did research on.
There are two types of essential oil stills – steam stills and water stills. Both types are used today not much altered from the 1920’s. Steam essential oil stills are used more often because they are quicker. You put the fresh flowers or what have you in a container, which is then heated. The steam under pressure strips the oil – the spirit of the plant – away from the flowers. But some flowers and herbs cannot handle the pressure of steam distillation, so then water essential oil stills are used. Their vacuum-sealed containers are heated in water until vapor forms. This vapor cools and drips the prized essential oil into yet another container.
There are small essential oil stills for the home that are sold, but they are only for those with a lot of patience and access to huge fields of herbs or flowers. It takes a tremendous amount of organic material to make even one ounce of therapeutic grade pure essential oil. Each flower petal or herb can only give off a minute drop of the oil.
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