Wintergreen oil

Oil of Wintergreen is an essential oil made of leaves from Gaultheria procumbens L., or at least its should be so. For years authoritative writers in the field of essential oils were complaining that the real wintergreen oil is not or hardly available.

S. Arctander (1961):
The once popular and well known essential oil of Wintergreen, also called Gaultheria oil, is about to become obsolete on the perfumer's and flavorist's shelf. More correctly, it has been replaced by synthetic Methyl Salicylate.

W. Poucher (1959):
The genuine oil is at present practically unobtainable, but an almost identical product, the oil distilled from the bark of Betula lenta, L., N.O. Betulaceae, is offered commercially as wintergreen oil.

Yes, quite old quotes. The reason for that is that very little good new literature on these aspects of fragrance materials is available. A more recent indication that something is rotten, is the (American) TSCA Definition (2008) of Wintergreen oil: Extractives and their physically modified derivatives. Gualtheria procumbens, Ericacenae or Betula lenta, Betulaceae.  

[Wikipedia (C): John Delano]

So either it is not made from the wintergreen plant, or it is synthetic. The real oil may be not available for over 50 years, unless of course the oil has made a revival. Nowadays even organic wintergreen oil is available, I really hope that checking of an oil is made of the right species is part of the organic certification procedure. So how rare is the real oil actually?

Meddling with wintergreen oil is rather simple: 90-99% of the oil is methyl salicylate, an easy to make ester, that is available in bulk for very low prices. Synthetic methyl salicylate might have a little methanol and salicylic acid in it (the two substances it is made of), but these might appear in the natural oil as well, due to hydrolysis. So how do you know it is the real oil?

The above makes clear what kind of problems smaller businesses and private persons have in determination of the quality of natural products:
- First of all you have to find out if there might be (still) some form of adulteration as a common practice.
- If that is the case: how would you know that your oil is the true oil?

To be continued...

Quality

A friend once told me, after he read Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, that quality was hard to define. In this blog I start by trying to define it anyway.

For raw materials quality is a combination of aspects. A high quality raw material has to meet the following demands:

1. It is what it should be
In case you purchase pure beeswax, you expect it to be beeswax, not a synthetic wax or vegetable wax.

2. Does not contain foreign matter
Unless specified the beeswax should be pure beeswax and not contain parts of bees, dirt, paraffin or other materials. Unless specified is important, for in some cases it is not uncommon to sell products with quite some foreign materials in it as a starting material for making a better quality.

3. Is not refined more or less than specified
In case a vegetable oil is intended for food use, or certain technical uses some refining may be suitable, but this has to be specified. Refining usually makes the product more expensive (for refining costs money), but there are exceptions, for instance in case refining makes the product more stable. That way it keeps longer and can therefore be cheaper in the end.

4. Is well described
Origin, production, refining, composition, organic status, but also physical and chemical aspects like melting point or iodine number should be described in a specification.

5. Is fresh (enough)
Not deteriorated, should keep for a reasonable time when stored well. Of course storing conditions should be specified.

6. Is stored and packed well
That way the quality will be better preserved.

High quality has two important enemies: price and availability. Assume you are a supplier of lavender oil and you have to sell it for € 100,00 per kg to get a reasonable profit, but the current market price is only € 80,00. The right thing to do may be to cut your cost, or sell your business, but it may be tempting not to cut your cost, but to cut your oil, for instance by adding synthetic linalool and linalyl acetate, that way lowering the price. Also: in case you have only 500 kg from the last harvest but your customers need 800 kg and offer a very good price: it is tempting, you want to please your customers.

Not only to get rich, but to keep your business that was founded by you great grandmother, to pay your debts, to make your customers happy: good reasons, but still a bad solution.