Fragrance Oils, Essential Oils, and Plastic
December 2nd, 2008 by Ellen Peacock
A long time ago, I spilled some fragrance oil on the kitchen counter. It ran and dripped down the front of my dishwasher. It left a streak down the plastic part of the control panel where the plastic had melted away. Luckily the dishwasher was old and soon to be replaced, so I didn’t go around kicking myself too hard over it.
Some but not all fragrance oils will eat plastic. Usually the fragrance oil turns the plastic gooey first, but some fragrance oils eat plastic faster than others and some will not eat plastic at all. What happens is far too molecularly technical and over my pointed little head to get too deep into it.
From experience I have learned there are some orange/citrus and some almond or almond based fragrance oils that are serious plastic eaters. And some like some plastics and not other plastics. Some of the PET/PETE (polyethylene terephthalate) eaters do not like HDPE (high density polyethylene. And PS (polystyrene) just about disintegrates and doesn’t stand a chance.
It’s not just fragrance oils that eat plastics; some essential oils will eat plastic too. So in this case natural or synthetic doesn’t really matter. When you’re measuring out fragrance materials and set them aside to be added to your soap at trace, use a container that is not PET/PETE or PS.
It makes you really think about things. It makes you wonder if this is something you really want to sniff, much less put on your body. And, this is one of the many reasons you never want to use undiluted fragrance or essential oils on your skin.