Shelf Life of Essential Oils – and how to make them last longer

Do essential oils last forever? Spoiler alert: no! The truth is, essential oils do have a shelf life – regardless of the brand. Listen in as Lea Jacobson, Certified Clinical Aromatherapist, walks you through the three main things that can shorten shelf life and cause oxidation, how to tell if your essential oils are oxidized, what to do with oxidized essential oils (throw them out?), her best tip for making essential oils last longer, and the shelf life for various essential oils.

Hey, everyone! I'm Lea Jacobson, And if you use essential oils, you come to the right place. As a certified clinical aroma therapist with over a decade of experience. I'll be guiding you with practical information without learning complicated chemistry. This will ensure that you and your family stay safe while enjoying the benefits of essential oils.

Enjoy Season 4 of the podcast as we read through my latest book, Using Essential Oils Safely.

This is Lea Jacobson, empowering you to use essential oils safely. I hope you learned something new! Tell a friend about our podcast so they can learn, too. All episodes are available at LeaJacobson.com/podcast

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Transcript

Podcast Intro: 1:00

Hey everyone! Do you use essential oils or maybe you're just curious about using them and you want to make sure you know how to use them before you get started? Then you have come to the right place! My name is Lea Jacobson, a Certified Clinical Aromatherapist, essential oil educator, speaker, author- and all of that good stuff- but most importantly, I am your go-to when you have a question about how to use essential oils safely- no matter which brand you use. Now, let's get started on today's podcast.

Lea Jacobson: 1:00

Hey everyone! I am so excited to be back here with you for another episode and this time we are going to be talking about the shelf life of essential oils and how to make them last longer. So you may have heard that essential oils don't expire. I am here to tell you that is a myth and I'll explain to you exactly why that is a myth and why essential oils do have a shelf life. I don't know, but maybe you're surprised to hear that. Maybe this is the first time that you've ever heard that. Yes, essential oils do expire. A lot of people are often surprised to find that essential oils have a shelf life. You may have been told that they don't to justify a high price tag, but regardless of the brand, essential oils can and do expire. Now because essential oils are volatile, they have the potential to oxidize. Now, chemically speaking, volatile substances like essential oils, they evaporate. This is why we can smell them and how they work. Essential oils are made up of a variety of constituents or chemical compounds which collectively make what we call an essential oil. The lighter constituents are most volatile and will evaporate first, and these we generally refer to as top notes. The base notes, or the heavier constituents. Those will be the last ones to go. The lighter constituents are often the ones that are the most gentle for the skin, so when these leave or evaporate from the bottle, the risk for that essential oil to cause redness and irritation increases. Sensitization risk is also increased when oxidized essential oils are applied to the skin. This is why I recommend diluting essential oils before applying to the skin- and that will be discussed in another podcast. According to Essential Oil Safety by Tisserand& Young.'Contaminants or adulteration, may increase toxicity and degradation can lead to increased hazards. Degradation comes from three main ways, and those are oxygen, heat and light.' Oxygen that gets into your bottle and reacts with some of the constituents is called oxidation. This oxidation can affect the therapeutic properties of the essential oil as well as render it more hazardous. The biggest hazard is increased risk for sensitization. Heat causes the more volatile constituents to evaporate more quickly. CO2 extracts are more prone to damage from heat than steam distilled essential oils. Light, specifically ultra violet light, promote free radicals. Amber colored bottles are best at keeping UV light out. Cobalt bottles- blue being the opposite color of brown- do not do a very good job of keeping UV light out, but they actually allow the light to pass through the glass more readily and therefore into the product. Now, let's talk about how to tell if your essential oils are oxidized. Now the easiest way is to go by a distillation date(which a company can provide right on the bottle to determine the shelf life) or if you don't have this information, if you don't know when it was distilled or bottled, you can keep track of when you purchase it or when you open the bottle. Now keep in mind there could be several months or longer between when the essential oil was distilled or bottled and when you make your purchase, so if you are left in the dark, there are a couple of ways to tell if your essential oil has been oxidized, and these are aroma and adverse reactions. If you are able to make yourself familiar with the aroma of the essential oil when it is fresh, you will begin to notice if it smells off. Once it has oxidized, a change in smell can alert you that it may not be safe for topical applications. Now I realize this is going to take time. You are going to need to be familiar with what a fresh essential oil smells like versus when one is oxidized, but if you can kind of keep in your memory bank when you are opening that essential oil, what it smells like and reference that each time you open the bottle, over time your brain will recognize, Okay, this may not be quite right. It may not be precise and may not be like, Yup, this is oxidized, but if you have that sort of sense, You know this just doesn't smell right, and you've had your bottle for a couple of years and you've opened it a few times, then listen to your body. Now that's a little bit arbitrary, that can be a little bit more difficult to define, but then we have our second option that is adverse reactions. Once an essential oil has been oxidized, the potential for the essential oil to cause redness, irritation, itching, etc. increases even when diluted. If this starts happening to you, stop using the essential oil topically. Continuing to use oxidized essential oils in this way will greatly increase your risk for sensitization. It's very important to listen to what your body is saying to you. If it is getting red or irritated or itching, don't consider this as a detox- essential oils do not detox- this is an adverse reaction. If you ignore the signs, your body is showing you that it is not happy with what you are doing, you could put yourself at rIsk for sensitization, which is an immune system response, and sensitization is something that we will go over in another podcast. If you ignore those signs and continue to apply the essential oils, you may never be able to use that essential oil again. Now, you may be wondering, Okay, if my essential oils are oxidized and I'm not really sure, but let's just say I've decided they have oxidized. Do I have to throw them away? Is there something that I can do with them and the answer is yes. Oxidized essential oils are not recommended for use on the skin- you know, once they have been oxidized because of the redness and irritation factor- but they can be used for cleaning. You can diffuse them if you want to, but I really recommend you just keep them for cleaning in case of mucous membrane irritation. Now, when you do clean with essential oils, just like any other commercial cleaners, you do want to make sure to wear gloves when you use essential oils in your cleaning recipes. Now, if you're simply adding a few drops to your laundry or to your wool dryer ball, you probably don't need to wear gloves. Now before we get into some specifics about essential oils and their shelf life, here is a tip for you on how to make your essential oils last longer so you can avoid having them become oxidized. You want to make sure when you have them stored that you keep them in a cool place away from light and closed tightly, when not in use. My best tip of where to store your essential oils is in the refrigerator. Now when I first started out with essential oils, I was able to put my selet few essential oils that I had right in my refrigerator, right where the butter is supposed to go. That little container, that little area in your refrigerator I had just for my essential oils and that quickly evolved to a vegetable drawer and then when I finally got too many and they were all over my refrigerator, I decided to invest in a mini refrigerator, a wine cooler actually, and this is able to keep my essential oils nice and cool without kind of getting the aroma over my food. Because even with the bottles being tightly closed, they somehow find their way and they just make your refrigerator smell amazing. So my wine cooler that I currently use, it smells so good when I open my door. I cannot pinpoint exactly what it smells like. It's just a delicious blend of all my essential oils and it smells absolutely amazing. Now I realize not everybody is as geeky as I am when it comes to essential oils and if you just want to throw them in a container with a lid and put those right in the refrigerator, that is totally fine. If you don't have any room in your food fridge for essential oils, just keep them in the coolest area of your home. You basically don't want them lining your window shelf next to your heater because as we learned, heat is not your friend when it comes to essential oils. Although yes, most essential oils have been steamed distilled, they have gone through the heating process. Keeping them in a warm environment is only going to accelerate those top notes from evaporating right out of the bottle and oxidizing your essential oils. There are some essential oils which are more prone to oxidation than others, and these are generally going to be the ones that contain more top notes and have a shorter shelf life in general. In general, these are going to be your citrus essential oils like Bergamot, Lemon, Orange, Mandarin, as well as like the tree essential oils- Firs, Pine, and Spruce. Generally speaking, shelf life is determined by the chemical composition of the essential oils, some of which oxidize or evaporate more quickly than others. Essential oils which contain a lot of monoterpenes or oxides, have the shortest shelf life of approximately 1- 2 years. Essential oils which contain a lot of phenols and may last up to 3 years where essential oils which contain ketones, monoterpenoids or esters have a shelf life of 4- 5 years. The potentially longest lasting essential oils contain lots of sesquiterpenes and sesquiterpenols, which can last up to 6 years, and these are just approximations. Opening the jar frequently, leaving caps off for a length of time, placing in sunlight or artificial light, keeping in a warm place, and getting water or other things in the essential oil bottles can drastically shorten shelf life. Basil essential oil has an estimated shelf life of# years, sodso does Bergamot and Blue Tansy. Cardamom has an estimated shelf life of 4 years and so does Cinnamon Bark, German Chamomile, and Clary Sage. Cedarwood has a shelf life of 6 years and so does Copaiba. Elemi, Fennel, Juniper Berry, and Melissa have a shelf life of 3 years where Frankincense has a shelf life of 2 years and so does Lime. Most citrus does have a shelf life of between one and two years, where Helichrysum, has a shelf life of 4 years. Myrrh has a shelf life of 6 years, Patchouli more than 10 years. Pepper has a shelf life of 6 years. Peppermint has a shelf life of 4 years. Rose and Sandalwood both have a shelf life of more than 6 years, where Spearmint, only has a shelf life of 4 years, just like peppermint. That was kind of funny- did I seriously just say"only has a shelf life of four years?" Because come on, we're probably going to use these essential oils before before they expire, but this does give you an idea and sort of opened your eyes to the fact that essential oils do expire, they do have a shelf life, and it varies. If you are interested in learning more about shelf life of essential oils, I do have profiled in my Essential Oil Profiles resources- I do have a print book an app and an ebook over at EOPbook.com- and I list the shelf life for 60 essential oils. Did you learn something today? I hope so. I would love to hear from you on how you are using your essential oilsonce they've oxidized. You can find more information about the topics covered in this broadcast by goIng over to my website UsingEOsSafely.com/003

Podcast Outtro: 14:15

Thanks for listening to this week's podcast. If you'd like more information about using essential oils safely, you can visit my website over at UsingEOsSafely.com. Have a suggestion for another podcast episode or have a question for me about using essential oils? Go ahead and shoot me an email. My personal email is Lea@UsingEOsSafely.com.