Are any of your products tested on animals?
No, none of our products are tested on animals. Only humans have tested and used our products.
What is an Essential Oil?
An Essential Oil is a highly concentrated, volatile,
aromatic extract from an herb's flowers, leaves, bark, roots, fruit and/or resins. For example, you'll find essential
oil in basil leaves, in ginger roots and in the petals of the lavender flower.
How
is Essential Oil processed from the plant?
There are seven (7) ways that essential oil is extracted from
plant material, but we will focus on the primary four (4).
Steam
Distillation:
This is the most common and many "old timers" favor this method because of the quality of oil
it produces. It starts in a still (like moonshine) where fresh (or dried sometimes) herbal plant material (see "What
is an Essential Oil" above) is placed in the plant chamber of the still while pressurized steam is produced in another
chamber and circulated through the plant material.
If the steam is too hot, it will destroy the plant material
and ruin the essential oils by burning it. This steam opens the plant material's "pores" to release its oils
and, along with the steam molecules, travel through a tube into the condensation chamber of the still. The steam cools and
condenses into water with the essential oil becoming a film on the surface of the water.
The essential oil is then
skimmed off of the surface of the water and decanted. The remaining water (the byproduct of this process) is known as flower
water or hydrosol (see "What is the difference is an Essential Oil and Hydrosol?").
Cold Pressing:
Also known as scarification, this method is used to extract essential oils from
citrus fruits. The fruit rolls over a trough with sharp projections that penetrate the peel (where the oils are stored). The
fruit, in its entirety, is then pressed to squeeze out the juices leaving the essential oils to rise to the surface of the
juice. This mixture is then spun (centrifugation) at high speed and the essential oil is collected.
Solvent Extraction:
This process is less expensive and yields more oils than Steam Distillation and is used on delicate plants. In this extraction
method, a chemical solvent saturates the plant materials and extracts the aromatic compounds or "concrete". The
Concrete is then introduced to alcohol, which dissolves the solvent and the essential oil remains. As you can figure, some
chemical solvent residue can remain with the essential oil.
Carbon Dioxide Extraction or CO2 Extraction:
This
method yields the greatest number of aromatic compounds of any of the distillation processes. Plant materials are placed in
a stainless steel tank and CO2 is injected as pressure builds. The CO2 turns into a liquid under the high pressure and acts
like a solvent to extract the essential oils from the plant material. As the pressure is decreased, the CO2 returns to
its gaseous state and leaves no residue behind with the essential oils. There are many essential oils obtained by this method
that cannot be obtained through the steam distillation method.
Enfleurage, Turbo Distillation
Extraction and Hydrodiffusion Extraction are the other three methods for obtaining essential oil.
What is the difference in an Essential Oil and Hydrosol?
Essential oil (which we
use exclusively) is obtained from steam-distilled plant material (except the citrus essential oils which are cold pressed)
and is highly concentrated oil. Hydrosol (which we do not use in our cleaning products and is usually found in body or facial
products) has similar properties to essential oil, but is much less concentrated. Hydrosol, or flower water, is usually a
by-product of the production of essential oil, but the highest quality of Hydrosol comes from distillers who steam the floral
and plant material strictly for this purpose.
Are your products "organic"?
Many of our essential oils and ingredients are organic. When ALL the ingredients
in a product are organic, it will be labeled "organic", but if only a portion of the ingredients
are organic, then it will not be labeled "organic". Our insect repellents, bite
soother and our eye pillows are totally organic and are labeled as such. All other products have some organic ingredients
in them, but are only labeled "all natural".
Can I get
the abrasiveness of the Rosemary Scrub Paste in another fragrance?
Yes, you can. As each and every
order is made and packaged upon receipt of the order, your favorite essential oil can be made with the abrasiveness level
you like best! Not every essential oil is available, however. Please write info@allsimplynatural with your fragrance request.
Do you do gift baskets?
Yes.
If you have a special occasion, or just want to introduce a friend to All Simply Natural, a gift
basket can be made in about any price range. Again, contact infor@allsimplynatural for a quote.
Will I have to scrub harder using your products?
Since we do not include any strong chemicals in our products, you will have to use
a little extra "elbow grease" with our cleaners, but since you probably have been using those harsh chemicals to
clean with, your surfaces should be easily cleaned with our products and actually be shinier because of the lack of residue
left behind. The transition from harmful chemical cleaners to our fragrant pure cleaners will be easy!
If it's "all natural", why do I have to keep it out of my kids' reach?
As in everything in life, too much of a good thing can be harmful and our cleaning products are no different. If
a child ingested large quantities of some of our cleaning products, it would be harmful to him. Out of an abundance of precaution,
we put this on our label!
What makes your Lemon Soft Scrub so sudsy?
Is it phosphates?
The Lemon Soft Scrub is so sudsy because it contains pure, organic castile soap. Castile
soap is a mixture of: water, saponified organic coconut and organic olive oils (w/retained glycerin) organic carrier and essential
oils, citric acid and vitamin E. The are no phosphates in this product or in any other of our products.
How secure is your website?
Very...we use Authorize.net for advanced protection.
This means you can feel very safe when you use your Visa or MasterCard to place your orders on-line with us because you are
automatically connected to the credit card processing bank. We use the latest in encryption and security technology including
128-bit encrypted Secure Socket Layer (SSL) to verify your identity and receive payment authorization. All Simply Natural
does not see or store any of your credit card information.
