AFNOR Standards for Essential Oils

AFNOR, or Association Francaise de Normalisation, is the French national organization for standardization. In English, it means Association of French Normalization Organization Regulation.

If you see an oil with "EC AFNOR" on its label, that means samples of that oil have been sent to France for testing to see if it measures up to the European standards for therapeutic grade oil. To figure that out, the oil has to meet a certain chemical profile as determined by a gas chromatograph.

For example, most lavender oils are fragrance grade and may be a high quality for that purpose, but not necessarily therapeutic. To be therapeutic, it has to have no traces of pesticides, herbicides, or other chemicals.

The AFNOR-ISO standard is the only one in the world that sets a measure for an essential oil to be therapeutic.