There are too few legal requirements in terms of oil quality on the market.
Hence the importance of knowing at least 3 basic criteria before buying your first essential oil. I say “at least” because there are other criteria that can be taken into consideration.

Here are 3 criteria below that are important enough to guarantee the good quality of the oil you are about to buy.

1) Botanically and Biochemically Defined Essential Oil (BBDEO)
This is the criterion to look at first.
A good essential oil must include information on its chemical content and its origin and everything must be on the bottle.

x The botanical name of the plant is its scientific name, written in Latin. It allows to precisely identify which plant it is. This is important because two similar plants can have very different active substances. This Latin name first indicates the genre, as Mentha; the second, the species: piperita. Which gives Mentha piperita. Not to be confused with Mentha Viridis (Spearmint). When reading the bottle, you must be able to differentiate them.

x The part of the distilled plant: this is the part of the plant from which the essential oil has been extracted. For peppermint, one should expect flower heads.

x The lot/batch number: it is a code in figures or in letters which makes it possible to identify a manufacture.

x Origin: at least the country must be on the label. The best being the geographical area and the country. For example: Drôme, France.

2) 100% Pure and Natural
This is the second most important criterion.
You must get 100% natural and 100% pure essential oils. They must not under any circumstances be cut, lengthened, diluted or denatured by additives, vegetable oils or synthetic molecules.
If the words “Ethylparaben”, “BHT”, “Oxybenzone”, “Benzopnone-3”, “Polyysorabte-20” or “artificial flavor” are written on the bottle, I recommend that you do not buy them.

3) The organic label
This label guarantees production without fertilizers and pesticides. Since oils are concentrates, nobody would like to apply a pesticide concentrate to the skin, to ingest it in the lungs and in the body.
Of course there are wild plants that can not be labeled “organic” and so it is not a sign that the oil contains pesticides (I’ll talk about it in a future message).

For now, simply remember that the most common oils such as lemon, lavender, mint, eucalyptus, must absolutely include this label: