Essential oils only get trickier as the years go on. While the definition of an essential oil remains essentially the same, “…any concentrated, hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds from plants, which are called aromatic herbs or aromatic plants…” the nature of that liquid continues to raise arguments because of contamination, advances in distillation technology and those cases where you can get the oil but only if you take something else with it, like another oil or alcohol. This does nothing to take into account the chemicals sometimes used to extract those volatile (fast-evaporating) oils or what chemicals contaminate the oil either deliberately or by accident.

Rather than spend hours ferreting out what may or may not be lurking within the chemicals we know (for the most part) have botanic origins, I thought it might be helpful to provide a list of common fragrances that usually are not available as essential oils or as absolutes. This is not to say that extraction is impossible in all cases: some fruits and hard to process flowers give up their scents to alcohol tinctures and oil infusions reasonably well, and those perfumers experimenting with glycerin extracts may discover yet more fragrance extracts not available by the prior methods. In the case of the list, if a manufacturer says something named on it is an “essential oil” be skeptical. While it’s possible the scent may come as a CO2 extract, C02s while botanic are not essential oils, and it’s much more likely that the named fragrance is a synthetic.

Note: this is in no way a complete list. If you haven’t seen it before or if it seems too cheap it’s probably not a natural-source material. This does not cover natural materials that are also produced as fragrance oils.

Commonly Mislabeled Fragrance Oils
Musk – True musk is illegal in many countries nowadays, and it’s difficult to extract. A fragrance oil imitation is generally seen as preferable to the real thing because true musk requires killing an endangered species. Some naturalists simply design perfumes without musk notes.

Civet – The real thing is also illegal because obtaining it usually involves torturing a jungle animal.

Ambergris – Whale purge. This is banned in many western countries although ambergris is usually obtained without any action upon the whale. This fragrance is often confused with amber. If you smell ambergris and then smell amber, you will never experience such confusion again.

Amber – amber can be natural or synthetic, but either way it is not a true essential oil. When it is all-natural it is a composite of rich wood fragrances and sometimes spice-based incense scents best termed an essential oil or absolute bouquet. I absolutely love the all-natural amber produced by Eden Botanicals.

Apple (and just about every other non-citrus fruit) – this may change soon, but to date there isn’t a way to extract an apple essential oil. In fact, most non-citrus fruits including pears, mangoes, cherries and raspberries don’t really render essential oil. While there are occasions where flavoring oils can render the scent naturally and there are considerable advancements in C02 extraction, these do not qualify as essential oils.

Coconut – there is an elusive coconut absolute floating around the market, sold by a Bulgarian manufacturer. However, all coconut scents commonly available for less than $80/ounce are synthetic. Nag Champa – Nag Champa is a blend that can include essential oils and rare absolutes. According to about five Indian students I attended college with there is only one true Nag Champa blend and it is not exported. That recipe belongs to one family in India, and they’re not sharing. When I asked if I could smell a sample, I was laughed at. The versions floating on the market are a blend of essentials or synthetics and are someone’s best guess at what the original nag champa should be.

Orchid – there is no orchid essential oil. Vanilla comes from the vanilla bean, which can be used to grow a vanilla orchid, but it’s difficult to extract any lasting scent from the orchid flower itself, and it’s not going to render essential oil in any usable amount. I am woefully unversed in orchid intricacies; I would love it if an orchid enthusiast might step forward and tell us more about these lovely plants.

Wisteria/Lilac – if ever there’s a temptation for a naturalist to cheat and add a synthetic, it’s for this floral. While tincturing can render the scent in a very strange way (smells great at the end but often smells rotten at the beginning, at least for me), theses flowers do not give up essential oil. A good strong tincture may take several years and several crops to produce.

Gardenia – that smell you’d get from Mr. Bubble? That’s gardenia. It also doesn’t extract to essential oil. In the rare event that it’s obtained naturally, it’s either an essential oil blend or a maceration/infusion that took a whole lot of gardenia flowers to create.

Violet Flower – Violet leaf absolute comes from the leaves, but the actual violet flower is so small that it would take overharvesting them to the point of extinction to get even a few drops of essential oil from them.

Honey – While honey is a great fragrance, it can’t be rendered as an essential oil.

Honeysuckle – This is another case where the flowers are so small that they simply can’t amass enough volatile oil to be usable in essential form. They do work reasonably well in infusions and tinctures.

Freesia – I love the smell of freesia, but I have yet to find a way to come by it naturally.

Lily/Muguet scents – Thus far, I have found one ginger lily essential oil that behaves like it’s a natural when tested, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t if I had someone run it through a gc. Lilies have such small stamens that it’s incredibly difficult to extract scent, and it definitely rules out extracting an essential oil.

Rose – Rose is a popular perfume staple in natural and synthetic form, and it gives up its scent from the flower easily enough although it takes a lot of roses to make a strong scent. That said, rose essential oil is not common, and while I’ve seen rose absolute, I’ve yet to find a true natural rose essential oil. While extraction seems possible based on the size of the flower, I suspect that given the considerable cost because it takes so many pounds of roses to get a scent that the absolute is the only way to bring it down to a price where it’s affordable to mortals.