Vegetable oil extraction dates back millennia with the invention of the first oil press during prehistory. The first oils to appear were olive oil and sesame seed oil. Then the modernization of the process saw the birth of walnut, hazelnut, rapeseed oils… Vegetable oils will experience a boom with industrialization. We will thus obtain soybean, grape seed, sunflower oils, etc. The oils will move from confidential and expensive status to a common consumer product.

How to obtain vegetable oil?

There are two methods of producing vegetable oils:

• Mechanical extraction: This is cold pressing. The fruits or seeds are cleaned, peeled and/or crushed, heated with steam (50°C maximum) if necessary, then pressed using a screw press. After centrifugation or filtration, we obtain first cold pressed virgin oil. This is the method used to obtain “noble” oils, olive oil, walnuts, hazelnuts, etc.
• Industrial extraction: Pressing fruits or seeds involves heating to high temperatures and adding solvents. The oil obtained is then refined with a succession of chemical processes. Extraction yields are high. This is the method used to obtain common oils (sunflower, soya, rapeseed, etc.)

What is the difference between vegetable oil and essential oil?

Both vegetable oils and essential oils have their origins in nature, but their chemical compositions differ quite widely.

• Vegetable oil, a real oil:

vegetable oil like olive oil, almond oil or almond oil sunflower, is a fatty substance with an oily texture. It can be extracted from dried fruits, seeds or flowers.

Containing vitamins and fatty acids, vegetable oils have nutritional, protective, softening and regenerative properties beneficial to the skin. They are therefore popular in the field of cosmetics where they can be used without contraindication. They can be used and/or consumed pure.

Edible vegetable oils are used to enhance, among other things, our summer salads. Vegetable oils can also be used as fuel (rapeseed oil, etc.) or combustible</ a> (oil lamps, etc.)

Vegetable oils serve as a basis for diluting essential oils.

• Essential oil, a misleading term

Essential oil is actually, in the chemical sense of the term, not an oil. This is how we imperfectly call a concentrate of volatile substances from flowers, stems, roots or leaves of plants, which is often obtained by distillation.

The essential oils present therapeutic properties (tonifying, digestive, soothing, etc. ) which vary depending on their origin. They generally need to be diluted – in vegetable oil.

What is the use of vegetable oil?

Vegetable oils are essential complements to essential oils. They make it possible to optimize and strengthen their actions and benefits.

To get an essential oil into the body through the skin, it is most often mixed with a “carrier oil”. The best “diluents” for essential oils are vegetable oils, because they are indeed lipophilic just like essential oils. Their particular affinity with the epidermis gives them this excellent power of skin penetration.

Vegetable oils play a triple role: they can facilitate the penetration of essential oils, such as Omega 3 oils (e.g. camelina); they reduce the irritating side of essential oils such as lemon eucalyptus, for example, and are excellent skin beauty treatments thanks to their richness in essential fatty acids (Omega 3, 6, 9) which promote regeneration and hydration of the skin and protect it thanks to the lipid film with which they envelop it. They are also rich in fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) and trace elements.