Qualificação de amostras comerciais de óleo essencial de Lavandin Abriallis: identificação de adulteração

Abstract

With the growing search for more natural and sustainable cosmetics, essential oils have become an important marketing tool for the cosmetic industry, attracting customers both for their olfactory characteristics and for their widespread therapeutic properties. In contrast, their high price compared to synthetic fragrances and their scarce market make the scenario conducive to tampering by manufacturers. In this context, suspicions of tampering with a company-acquired lavender X essential oil were raised, thus compelling itself to carry out stricter quality control of the sample. Chromatographic techniques such as Mass Spectrum Coupled Gas Chromatography (GC-MS) are still the most effective, however, as this technique is an analysis that requires a high investment in instrumentation, it is necessary that the company hires the service from third parties. Thus, both X supplier oil and three other national commercial samples (samples A, B and C) were chromatographed to assess which would be the best quality alternative. The results showed that the sample X presented 26.46% of glycolic contaminants and the sample C 24.01% of benzyl salicylate, demonstrating how essential is a sample qualification in the purchase. At the same time, samples A and B showed no apparent tampering, and B was considered the best alternative. Nevertheless, a physical technique, Salting-Out, was performed to separate contaminants from sample X, thus achieving a recovery of 40% of the sample volume.