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An essential oil by definition is a concentrated, hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds from plants.  A hydrophobe is a molecule that is repelled from a mass of water.  Other names for essential oils are volatile oils, ethereal oils, and aetherola; a very simplified definition is the oil of the plant from which it was extracted.  Essential means that the oil carries a very distinctive scent of the plant from which it was obtained.

Most oils are obtained by the process of distillation.  In this process the flowers, leaves, bark, roots, seeds, wood, and peel of the plant are put in a distilling apparatus then placed over water.  The water is heated and the steam goes through the raw plant matter, vaporizing the volatile compounds...