What are Botanicals and Essential Oils?
Botanicals
A botanical is a substance obtained from a plant which offers medicinal, cosmetic, tea and distilling use, amongst others.
Botanicals include herbs and spices. Herbs are typically thought of as the leaves, flowers or stems of non woody plants that can be used for flavouring, food, perfume or have health benefits. Spices are predominantly seeds, fruits, roots or bark. They are principally used in the seasoning or preserving of food but some also have health benefits.
Spice seeds are the tiny aromatic fruits and oil-bearing seeds of herbaceous plants such as anise, caraway, cumin, fennel, poppy, and sesame. Herbs are the fresh or dried aromatic leaves of such plants as marjoram, mint, rosemary, and thyme.
Essential oils can be extracted from these herbs and spices and can offer a wide variety of benefits. The oils are often sold simply as the oil of the plant from which they were extracted, such as Eucalytus oil.
Essential Oils
Essential oils are naturally produced by plants. They consist of natural, aromatic, volatile, and complex mixtures of compounds. They consist of substances formed when plants metabolise. They tend to be antibacterial but can also be antifungal, antioxidant, antiviral and/or anti-inflammatory. Each plant will produce a range of essential oils, some of which will be more pharmacologically active than others. For example worm wood produces a dozen or so metabolites. The chemical composition and pharmacological activity of an essential oil derived from a plant will differ depending on the time of year, location and soil condition at the time of harvesting as well as how the essential oil extract was made.
Examples of Essential Oils include the following
Thyme and Oregano (actives Thymol, Carvacrol)
Turmeric (Curcumin)
Garlic (Allicin)
Cinnamon (Cinnamaldehyde)
Peppermint (Menthol)
Eucalyptus (Eucalyptol)
Black pepper (Piperin)
Clove (Eugenol)
Capsicum –Pepper ( Capsaicin)
Worm wood (Thujone)
Plant Metabolism
Plants, like us, need to metabolise in order to survive and grow.
Primary plant metabolism governs all basic physiological processes that allow a plant to grow and set seeds by translating their genetic code into proteins, carbohydrates, and amino acids.
Secondary metabolism produces a large number of specialized compounds (estimated 200,000) that do not aid in the growth and development of plants but are required for the plant to survive in its environment. The full breadth of the functional spectrum of this specialized metabolism is still not fully understood.
There are 3 main plant metabolite categories of interest;
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Mainly involved in plant defence from parasites and consumption.
Include a variety of pharmacologically active products such as morphine, strychnine, atropine, colchicine, ephedrine, quinine, caffeine, codeine, cocaine, capsaicin and nicotine. Also included vincristine and vinblastine chemotherapeutics.
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Mainly phenols involved in colour.
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Mainly aromatic substances involved in plant defences.
Essential oils consist of any or many of these types of metabolites.
Coming soon… how to identify a quality essential oil product
