AROMAPROFILES

Frankincense Resinie - Boswellia Carteri

CHARACTER;
Elevating, Spiritual, Meditative, Wisdom

USE TO COUNTERACT THESE NEGATIVE ATTRIBUTES
Fears, Grief, Blockages, Over-attachment, Burn-out, Exhaustion, Insincerity, Panic, Anxiety, Disconnection, Repression, Resistance, Self-destruction, Apprehension, Despair.

USE FOR THESE POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES
Comfort, Healing, Emotional stability, Enlightenment, Protective, Introspection, Courage, Resolution, Fortitude, Acceptance, Inspiration.

FRANKINCENSE PERSONALITY PROFILE
Frankincense people are compassionate and interesting and something of an enigma in that they often display an air of mystery and secretiveness, even hinting at an understanding of the nature of the universe. There is a driving forcefulness about this personality, a strength and fortitude supported by maturity, conscientiousness, confidence and efficiency. At the same time. Frankincense can be impetuous, compulsive and generous.

Frankincense personalities are often geniuses and may well have invented practical contraptions for use around the home and work. They don't rely on others to do things for them, preferring to use their own initiative, and are sometimes called eccentric . Frankincense will deliver fast on dangerous mountain roads, ski down runs nobody else would dare , and swim in shark infested waters without turning a hair. It's not that they're reckless but they believe that they are protected in ways that the rest of us are not. 

The Frankincense personality , has what one might call parapsychological tendencies - they're very sensitive to atmospheres, sensing unhappiness or evil in a room or house, although this wouldn't necessarily be mentioned if they didn't think you would understand.

Although no particular personality has more psychic experiences than another, some notice them more than others, and Frankincense notices the most. They also sense the intention of other people, which is a very useful tool for them to have.

Frankincenses are very steady, upright citizens and are often found in jobs that command respect and even honour. In business, their ability to sense accurately whether a deal will turn out well or be a waste of time is a very useful tool for them to have.

Although this profile may make them seem rather cold, Frankincenses are very kind, warm hearted personalities with a knack of making people feel both confident and secure. They'd make good counsellors as their advice is often very down-to-earth and practical, not impossible for mere mortals to carry out.

The Frankincense person may not think of themselves as religious and may avoid places of worship , but they carry a profound love of God in their hearts. Frankincenses question thin gs in terms of good and evil and have a love of all things spiritual, which give them a deep wisdom. They are often excellent speakers, clear and eloquent, but are inclined to be somewhat blunt.

If they're negative, the Frankincense personality can be destructive and bitter, full of scepticism and cynicism, inclined to become guilt-ridden, insecure and uncertain , liable to suffer anxiety attacks and stress, also become short tempered and agitated. However, this is such an enlightened personality they soon realize what's going on and make a concerted effort to change direction - into positivity! Frankincense is a well-balanced personality and remarkably gifted. They are terrific communicators and are friendly, warm and loving.

Maureen Farrell, MRPharmS, MIFA Reg, MISPA, aromatherapist and teacher:

'Frankincense - the traveller, the pilgrim on the Way of Life [ a steadfast companion in a journey through grief and in letting go fear or supressed emotions. For me, the resins and resinoids, most frequently used in aromatherapy, come into the category of Wounded Healer.'

Reference: The Fragrant Mind: Valerie Ann Worwood 

Quality and Purity - AromaProfiles

It used to be the case that you could be pretty sure where a particular species of plant was grown and from where the essential oil came - lavender used to come from either England or France, for example, Lavender still comes from England and France but now it also comes from China, form where it is sometimes shipped to France - and re-exported as 'French.

It used to be the case that French Lavender was grown under clear skies, fresh and clean. Now you can see lavender growing in fields adjacent to motorways, under skies thick with the smoke rising from nuclear plants.

It now makes a great deal of difference from where, exactly, in France the lavender comes - the high Alps are preferred partly because the air is cleaner there . For an Aromatherapist it is important to know whether a Helichrysum, for example, is grown in Corsica or the former Yugoslavia, because the two essential oils have different therapeutic qualities.

It used to be the case that some essential oils were sold at auction. Nowadays, wholesalers tend to have a more direct access to the source - the field in which the crop is grown , and the farmer - often through a middleman. This gives purchasers more control, which is necessary, because there are more factors to consider.

Aside from the question of which country, and exactly from where in that country the oils come, aromatherapists who use essential oils for clinical use want to know which, if any, chemical pesticide, fungicide or herbicide is used on the crop. Bear in mind here that we are talking about tiny quantities of biocide residues.

These things also exist - in very much large quantities - in the foods we eat every day. Plagued as they are by insects, insect eggs, snails, rodents, weeds and fungi, farmers are tempted to use chemicals (known as 'biocides'), and it is the job of the middleman or direct buyer to make sure they're not. Just how much biocide residue is left in any particular essential oil depends on the integrity of the line of supply.

For serious aromatherapists, this is the thing they look for when choosing essential oils. The various aromatherapy oil trade organizations recognize the public's desire for purity and as the acceptance of biocides grow less, growers are responding by trying to cut down on them, or omit them altogether.

Essential oils are tested by gas chromatography, mass-spectroscopy. thin layer chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography, which are methods of separating essential oils (and other things) (GC) is basically a hollow column which is lined inside with a chemical resin.

A tiny amount of essential oil is diluted with a solvent and injected into one end of the column and then gas - hydrogen or helium - is forced through the column , under constant pressure, forcing the components of the essential oil to stick to the sides. The most sophisticated machines have columns which are just 0.25mm in diameter and 100 metres long.

A detector at the other end identifies each component as it releases from the resin and comes to the other end of the column, the most volatile being evaporated first. The column is heated, releasing more components, which are likewise registered, one after the other.

As they arrive at the detector, the components are burned, which causes electrical activity, which is recorded as a series of peaks on a piece of paper. The unique pattern of the peaks, showing the relative positions of the components, creates a 'fingerprint' of the oil.

Reference: The Fragrant Mind: Valerie Ann Worwood

Quality and Purity - 2 -  AromaProfiles

There are several problems with this, and other, methods of analysis. As we have already noted elsewhere, each machine response somewhat differently, and records differently, so fingerprints cannot be accurately compared one machine to another. That means that a library of characteristics fingerprint patterns has to be built up, for each machine, so that there are accurate fingerprints against which the tested material can be compared.

However what tends to happens that the fingerprint is compared with one of the set of 'standard' fingerprints used as a reference by the industry, so the idiosyncracies of each machine are not always taken into account, Also, interpreting the fingerprint is done by humans, who can take different opinions on the matter. Nevertheless, the GC can help to a certain extent to identify adulteration of essential oils. For example, a common adulterant is linalool, an alcohol found in many essential oils.

Linalol, produced artificially, contains traces of other compounds - dihydrolinalol shows up on the fingerprint, it shows the oil has been adulterated. However, it is also possible to add a naturally produced linalol, extracted from another plant, and this form of adulteration cannot be detected by this method.

Once the essential oil components have been separated by the GC, there are other machines which can further help identify them, including mass spectrometers and infrared spectrometers. However, essential oils contain hundreds of components and not all of them have been identified by science yet. Also, of course, it means that the complete essential oil cannot be reproduced exactly in a lab).

if one were to apply all the known technology to an essential oil to be analysed, although one couldn't get a complete picture, a fair enough picture would emerge - of its age and chemical composition. Albeit limited. However, this process would be very expensive. What often happens instead is that a substance is tested for the main constituents that are supposed to be in it. 'Eucalyptus essential oil' will be tested to see whether it has the correct proportions of eucalyptol and 1,8-cineol for example. However, this doesn't tell us much about the tested material, which might even be an entirely man-made composition.

The term 'essential oil' can, be applied to a liquid that has nothing whatsoever to do with nature. Also, bottles can be labelled 'essential oil' but bear no relation to what description is given on the bottle - 'tuberose absolute' could, in fact, be a mixture of other absolutes and essential oils cleverly blended to smell like tuberose. It is also possible to buy bottles labelled 'aromatherapy essential oils' which have a few drops of essential oils blended in with carrier vegetable oils. In some cases these mislead people into thinking they are buying undiluted essential oils.

Most essential oils are distilled from the plant material which is placed in a still and exposed to steam, forced through them from below, which makes the volatile aromatic molecules detach from the plant. These rise with the steam and after condensation, turn into liquid form. At this point, the essential oil is separated from the water - as it is lighter than the water it is siphoned off the top.

Citrus essential oils are produced by another method known as expression which involves highly-sensitive machines extracting the essential oil from the rind, without using heat. In this process, whatever biocides were used on the fruits are inevitably included with the essential oils.

All these aspects of cultivation and extraction have to be considered by wholesale purchasers of essential oils, who are more and more coming to the conclusion that it is better to lease your own fields, so control over growing methods can be maintained, and the biocide eliminated. Ultimately, they all-know the end user would prefer to use organically grown essential oils, and by collectively pressing this point home we, the consumers, can pressurize suppliers to aim for the highest purity.

Professor George Dodd at the olfaction research department at Warwick University has developed an electronic nose capable of picking up and identifying small components of aroma. Perhaps in the future this will be a tool in essential oil analysis but u8ntil then, despite all the latest technological developments in essential oils analysis, the human nose is still the most sensitive aroma-detector going, and it is sometimes still used instead of a machine, at the receiving end of the GC column.

The best way to assess an essential oil is to smell it but, like the GC machines, each of us has to build up our own library of aromas. Obviously this takes time, but the powers of discrimination should soon build up providing you have access to pure fresh essential oils. 

Reference: The Fragrant Mind: Valerie Ann Worwood

ChemoTypes - AromaProfiles

The same species of plant, grown in different growing conditions, produces a different essential oil with unique properties.

Altitude, water quality, soil fertility, the magnetic pull of the earth, methods of growing and weather are all factors which have an effect on the way the plant develops, and thereby influence the properties a particular batch from a particular country produces.

Think of it like a wine. People transport vines with them as they emigrate, and produce a wine related to, but not exactly the same, as that produced in the valley from which the vine came.

The word chemotypes describes these branches of the same family, which can do somewhat different jobs, and gives another indication of the broadness of the possibilities inherent in essential oils use. 

Reference: The Fragrant Mind: Valerie Ann Worwood