Natural Isolate Requirements in the Food & Cosmetic Industry

Fragrance plays a significant role in our perception of food, beverages, and cosmetics, helping to bring out the flavor of a dish or enhance a relaxing bath time experience. Manufacturers use many ingredients, including pure essential oils, extracts, and isolates, to build pleasant scent profiles for their products. These fragrance additives can make processed food and drinks more enjoyable and mask strong odors in cleaning products and detergents.
 
What are Isolates, and How Are They Made?
Isolates are natural compounds isolated from a plant source using biotechnology. We can extract them from essential oils – a pure essential oil contains thousands of isolates that work together to build the oil’s characteristic scent. Fractional distillation is the most popular method for isolating individual fragrance molecules (isolates) from essential oils. This process uses heat to evaporate the essential oil, separating it into various isolates and collecting them in liquid form.
 
Using Isolates in the Form of Natural Fragrance Oil
“Natural fragrance oil” is the term many cosmetics manufacturers use to describe an aromatic blend of various isolates. Although scientists formulate this fragrancing ingredient in a lab, it is still considered natural because the isolates come from pure essential oils derived from plants. A natural fragrance oil may contain numerous isolates in different ratios to create a unique scent profile, making them a popular ingredient for scented candles and soaps.
 
The Benefits of Using Natural Isolates as Fragrance in Cosmetics and Food

  • Naturally-sourced
    Using isolates as a fragrancing ingredient could help meet the growing demand for natural beauty products and perfumes. The International Fragrance Association defines a natural fragrance as one derived from aromatic raw materials that exist in nature – including isolates from essential oils.
  • Precision fragrancing
    Isolates are singular scent molecules that make up the complex aromas of essential oils. There are thousands of isolate combinations in nature, and using them individually can lead to original fragrance formulations and unprecedented olfactory experiences. Isolates offer more variety than essential oils and work well for crafting unique fragrance blends that emulate distinct smells.
  • No allergens
    Unlike essential oils, natural fragrance oil or an individual isolate has a simple chemical composition. An isolate is a pure scent molecule with no additional plant compounds attached to it that could pose an allergen risk. People with sensitive skin could benefit most from using cosmetics that contain isolates in place of essential oils.
  • Consistency
    A plant’s growing environment and genes often affect the quality and aroma of its essential oil – removing individual isolates eliminate this problem. Scientists extract isolates in a controlled environment, and every individual in a batch has the same chemical composition. Their homogenous nature means more reliable reactions in food and cosmetics formulation, making for more consistent products.
  • Affordability
    Pure essential oils can be expensive due to high extraction and processing costs. While some isolates may be costly to obtain, you can often emulate the scent of a rare essential oil using a combination of isolates from more affordable sources.
  • Longer lasting
    Manufacturers can use scent-anchoring isolates in a natural fragrance oil formulation to prolong the lifespan of the oil and enhance its scent, helping it last longer than essential oil.

Isolates are naturally-occurring scent molecules that make up all essential oils. Using them to fragrance food and cosmetics is more affordable and often more sustainable than pure essential oils. They also offer more consistency, variety, and precision and can help us create new scents that evolve with the perfume industry. Advanced Biotech is a leading supplier of natural isolates and essential oils for the food, beverage, and cosmetics industries. Please contact us for more information.