Oils that improve with age - how, which, when?

I got a ten years old frankincense Boswelia carterii resinoid from my father and it smells like fresh lit church incense. Because it smelles so good, i bought several frankincense resinoids from different suppliers. I was very disappointed because of their fresh piney resinous smell, which is not bad, but doesn´t reach that from the ten years old i have. So i have no choice but to wait.
For me the resinoids smells much better than the harsher frankincense eo´s.

Conni

I have 4 ounces of Mysore Sandalwood that was packed by Dodge & Olcott in June of 1911... making it 100 yrs. old! It is beyond sublime. I also have some Spearmint that was packed by MM&R -probably in the 1940's ( no date on the bottle)... It has aged in a most wonderful way, a very standard spearmint aroma that seems to have greater volume and a bit softer impact than my new stuff. Both of these are ex-pharmacy oils, and had been well stored.... I would imagine that how they are stored has LOT to do with it!

I agree that storage probably has a big impact. However I also think that the evidence seems to be that sandalwood and olibanum (frankincense) and oils of that sort, will go on improving for longer than any of us can expect to live - I'm not sure there is such a thing as too old with these oils, only poorly stored.

Myrrh is slightly different in that the oil tends to thicken with time and will eventually crystallise: the scent continues to mellow and improve however you have to dissolve it in alcohol (or something) to make it usable. In my experience that process takes about 10 years [the crystallising process that is, not the dissolving in alcohol!]. I have some that is 30 years old and colour and scent are quite different from the fresh variety - darker colour, deeper scent without the sharpness.

As to how, what seems to be happening in the case of sandalwood (and probably other things) is that undesirable top notes are being lost. There may well be more fundamental chemical changes taking place too, probably involving longer chain molecules, but I'm not really qualified to comment on that. The most common description of the change seems to be mellowing - less harsh, more subtle and sometimes more complex.

I've not tried storing spearmint for a long time - fascinating to know it is beneficial - your description sounds like my experience of mint absolute (but of course that is both expensive and very dark green relative to the essential oils of mint species).

How about Rose Essential Oil, does it get better over time? Is there any complete list of EO's that get better over time without being crystallized?

Agarwood, Patchouli, Sandalwood what else?

I always heard Cedarwood (Virginia Cedarwood, maybe Atlas too but I don't know about that) gets better with age and in my limited experience that seems to be true.

Anyone?

I just asked that question to Taha, the owner of agaraura, as I noticed a frag I bought from him has changed quite a bit. Here is a quote from his response:

"Rose changes drastically every 2 years or so. The first couple years, Rose Taifi is super citrusy. It then loses a bit of the sharpness but maintaining the citrus. And after that, over the years it just keeps getting smoother."

Also, oud oils improve and change over time as well.

Thank you very much for this valuable information. Is it factually correct to assume that rose essential/absolute oils will not get deformed or crystallized over indefinite period of time [not just several years, but say 30 years or more] if kept inside a locked glass bottle in a dark place?

I don't consider rose oil one of oils that get "better" with age. rose oil doesn't crystallize as far as I know, nor does it get more viscous unless stored very improperly.

Oh yes it does.... this is approx 86 years old and still smells fresh like the flower albeit in a honeyed way

Thank you for this precious picture and info! Now the list of non-perishing and/or perhaps timely improving oils grown to:

1. Agarwood (Oud)
2. Sandalwood
3. Patchouli
4. Rose

Let's move on to Frankincense, Vetiver and Cedarwood; are they also improve or at least do not degrade with age?

mumsy, I don't know what's in that bottle, but if it's solely essential oil from rosa centifolia either it ages better than damascena or that it's a matter of preference.

at this point I'd like to say all oils change. some are considered universally for the better, some for the worse and some to different. while old patchouli is great, new patchouli is great as well. I also find younger rose oil better & more useful with its vibrancy.

In her article Kathi Keville says:


@sarıpatates,

Since you are from Turkey, would you mind answering following questions:

1. How does Daphne essential oil smell like and why is it difficult to find this oil? I know it is used in soaps as fragrant, but is it harmful to apply on skin in its undiluted form?
   
2. Hod do you compare Turkish roses to Moroccan and Bulgarian?

well, being from Turkey is hardly enough to proficiently answer your questions but I'll try

1- daphne essential oil smells like daphne. it's bay leaf. smells aromatic and green. probably a lot of terpene content. camphoraceous too. I can't say anything about its toxicity but I'd be cautious with the oils from green stuff. at any rate it has a strong smell so dilution would be necessary -if the smell is all you are after. why is it difficult to find it? don't know. it isn't expensive though.

2- Roses are tricky especially with the adulteration epidemic. I have only experience with bulgarian and turkish roses whose sources I'm positively sure of. They smell very similar. method of extraction is important as well. a certain rose oil I've smelled made of great roses smelled absolutely terrible. although inexperienced distillers are probably hard to come by nowadays.

Thank you sarıpatates for your answers. Would you mind sharing these reliable suppliers with us? How about rose oils from Eden Botanicals, have you tried them?

This is beyond my expertise, but it might be helpful to add that the balance of rose to oud was the major change and not the quality of the rose so much. The oil is called Tropica, it is rose, borneo oud, and real ambergris. It started out being mostly oud with a touch of rose and a decent dose of ambergris. Over time the rose has become a lot more prominent, to the point where it's now well balanced with the oud. Taha said that his opinion is that most natural oils, or at least the oud blends he makes, change for the better over time.

I think we need to draw a distinction here to help make sense of this.

There are essential oils / absolutes which, when properly stored in their pure form will improve and others that will deteriorate - still others that are stable and dont change much with time. At least some of those that improve are known to do so over years, decades and even centuries. [a side note here - we dont know how the keeping qualities of absolutes will work out over very long time periods because weve only been making them for about 100 years, whereas essential oils have been distilled for far, far longer].

Then there are blends - fragrances - normally diluted in something (usually alcohol) to a skin-safe level. These almost always improve with time for a period of weeks, often for months, sometimes for years. They may start to deteriorate after years, will often do so after decades and we dont know about centuries because we dont have enough examples to test but we can extrapolate that most will fade in that timescale.

This thread started by discussing the first category and has now drifted into the second without acknowledging the difference and I think thats liable to confuse the issue.

So, that being said, in my experience rose otto and rose absolute are both in the category of oils that deteriorate over time. This does not exclude the possibility - indeed likelihood - that when blended with other ingredients of great longevity like oudh and sandalwood the rose elements would improve. But the pure oils, in my view, become faded and dull over too long a period of keeping - though they still keep well for several years if stored cool and dark.

I don’t have any daphne oil and as far as I can remember have never smelt any, but I have grown daphne plants and the smell of the flowers is spectacular, so I can imagine that an essential oil of those would be very interesting. I’ve also grown bay trees over many years and they are very different indeed (and I have smelt bay-leaf oil).

So it seems likely that we are using the same words to mean different things. Here is what I understand by daphne:

One of several related species of mainly winter flowering shrubs, but most usually Daphne odora

And bay leaf:
The tree grown throughout Europe and elsewhere for it’s leaves used as a flavouring Laurus nobilis

The wiki article does not mention it, but I’m certain that every part of Daphne odora is very poisonous - in fact I should really look up a good reference source to cite and add that to the article because it could be rather an important thing to know. And makes me think that any essential oil made from the plant would need to be used with some caution. EDIT: Wiki now updated.

So - which of those did you mean? Or was it another plant altogether that I’ve not thought of? And if it is Daphne odora - where can I get some essential oil?

When it is asked to a Turkish person, I answered it with the Turkish definition of daphne, which is our laurus nobilis with variations/cultivars. The greek daphne is also this version.

Ah OK thanks. Id no idea that the term daphne was used to refer to Laurus nobilis in Turkey or Greece - another useful piece of learning. Since one is a common flavouring and the other a nasty poison it really wouldnt do to mix them up!

But the bad news is - no extract of those lovely smelling flowers, which is a shame.

Yeah and I didn't even know about the other one. Considering daphne is greek in origin and daphne herself turned into the laurel tree, I thought it was a safe bet too.

Id forgotten all about that classic Greek myth - she was escaping Zeuss attentions at the time as I remember - and youre right it should have been obvious; were it not for my horticultural perspective I doubt Id have known about Daphne odora, though I still think it would be interesting to try to capture (or imitate) the scent . . . but now Im drifting even further off topic so Ill shut up!

...

Thanks to you guys I finally found this lovely Daphne here:

http://www.edenbotanicals.com/essent...us.html#laurel

Laurus Nobilis was the keyword.

Chris, I prefer your speech to your silence. Indeed, your input adds to the discussion tremendously from any angle it might. If the original poster doesn't mind it, let's slightly acknowledge that this thread went broader now covering various essential oils/absolutes & their aging behavior.

Regarding Laurus Nobilis, EB says "Laurel Leaf has a strong, spicy-medicinal aroma". Does it mean it has similar notes that of Oud? Trying to discover Oud-like cheap oil

Sweet Bay oil is very nice stuff and it does have a spicy note to it and I can see why it would be described as medicinal too, but the notes are not very similar to oudh Im afraid, being much greener and fresher less balsamic and without the animalic qualities of oudh.

This is Arctanders description:


and this is what he says about oudh (Agar Oil as he lists it):


Hes writing about oil produced from Aquileria agallocha, while my description is based on oil from Aquileria crassna, which was not available outside Indochina in Arctanders day. Oudh was barely used in Western perfumery then at all.

Thank you Chris for all that valuable information. Aside that, what do you think about Nigella Sativa Essential Oil?

1. How does it smell like?
2. Can it be used directly on the skin in its pure undiluted form?
3. How does it age?

Kind regards.