Essential oils and the legislative landscape

Abstract

Essential oils (EOs) are vital to the world-wide cosmetics, fragrance and perfume markets as well as being central to Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) therapies. Many of the botanical sources for essential oils are not native to the U.S.A. and must be imported. Whereas a few EO companies maintain their own ecologically-beneficial farms overseas, most import their oils (and plants) from independent producers that may not practice environmentally-friendly farming principles. Accordingly, legislations such as the U.S. Lacey Act and the International CITES accord were instituted to conserve precious resources and maintain biodiversity. These legislations are briefly reviewed together with various contraventions as they relate to essential oils and other imported plant-based products. This article also discusses the importance of natural EOs and the differences in composition and properties between them and synthetic essential oils.