Ever wondered why genuine perfumes are sold for a quite high value? Or maybe, ever thought why medication oils may cost us a lot? Well, basically the extraction of essential oils from the extracts for example fruits or such needs a long process for a tiny drop of oil.

Speaking of a scientific practical from the laboratory, the to-be-extracted (fruits or any flowers) are first crushed by the experimenter into small grinds, using a mortar and pestel available in science benches’ drawers. The sample is crushed to increase the surface area to volume ratio so that the extraction of the essential mineral oils could be done at a faster rate.

Once the fruits are sliced and crushed into smaller pieces, they are then slowly immersed into a round bottomed with boiling water in it, the set-up of which is similar set-up to the distillation process used for the separation of water from sea water. High blue flame is flashed under the flask and the boiling is ready to roll. Aromas will then be sensed, depending on the sample you’ve used. Drops of water and oil will roll drop by drop out of the condenser into a small test tube.

Only a small portion of oil will float on the collected output. The large amount of fruits used may only contain little amounts of oil which was an assumption why perfumes and oils are comparatively higher in price due to the complicated process and it is also time-consuming.