Essential oils are produced by plants and many people know about the incredible benefits of the different oils. From aromatherapy massages, bath soaks cream and essential oil diffusers they are used in so many ways. Everyone has their favorite oil and one of mine is definitely Neroli Oil.
Have you ever wondered just how much plant material is needed to make the one bottle you buy? Wondered why such a small bottle costs so much?
Different amounts are needed depending on how much oil is in the plan and which part of the plant is used. Flower petals have a very low amount of oils versus the leaves of the plant. If you rub lavender leaves you already get the strong smell of the oil coming through, but you don’t get quite the same effect if you rub rose petals.
Here are a few examples to give you an idea of how much is needed for a bottle of oil.
Lavender oil
1.5 kg of lavender flowers are required to produce 15ml of oil
Peppermint Oil
3.9 kg of leaves are required to produce 15ml of oil
Lemon Oil
50 lemons are required to produce 15ml of oil
Tea Tree Oil
12.5 kg of leaves are required to produce 15ml of oil
Rose Oil
50 kg of rose petal is required to produce just 5ml of oil
50kg of petals might be hard to imagine, so let’s look at it in terms of how many roses do you need for that. This is not an exact equation, but it gives us a rough idea. Not all the petals will be used from each rose, so on average, it takes about 20 – 25 roses to give enough petals for 30 grams. The biggest bouquet of roses you have ever been given would not be enough to make even one small drop of essential oil.
Let’s work on 20 roses per 30 grams. We would need about 33 320 roses to get 50 kg of petals! Depending on the size of the bouquet at the florist, that’s over 2000 bouquets.
I think this year for my anniversary I’m going to ask my man to get a bottle of rose oil instead of flowers. What do you think?
