How are fragrance oils made?

Fragrance oils can be tricky to make.

The first step in the process is to extract natural oils from the plant or tree that are to be used for fragrance. The good news is, there are several methods of plant extraction. 

You can boil the plant in water, which will release fragrant oils into the water, and then let the water cool and separate out the oil.  This method is a simplified form of distillation or solvent extraction if the plant material is soaked in alcohol or carrier oil. 

Then there is proper steam distillation using a copper or metal distiller, like the Ukranian Copper Pro our Founder enjoys experimenting with.  It involves adding boiling water to the base of the distiller, then raw materials to the cylinder and finally capturing the oil infused steam in a container filled with cold water; when the steam condenses into liquid again, it will have separated into oil and plant infused purified water, or hydrosol.

Fragrance labs work with chemicals like CO2 to extract oils from an aromatic plant, these are called absolutes.   They also use similar methods to extract specific fragrant molecules of a plant to create a more intensified version or something all together new.