Ylang Ylang oil is made from the flowers of the Cananga odorata tree. This tree comes from Indonesia, but today you can also find it in the Philippines, India, Australia and other tropical climates.
The essential oil contains many antioxidants and sesquiterpenes. Sesquiterpenes help improve the absorption of oxygen in the brain. This helps to prevent fatigue.
Ylang Ylang essential oil is distilled into different "fractions" to create different types of Ylang Ylang oil, depending on which stage of the distillation process the oil is obtained in.
The different types are: Ylang Ylang extra/super, Ylang Ylang 1st 2nd and 3rd degree, and Ylang Ylang complete. Ylang Ylang extra is the first "fraction" and Ylang Ylang complete the complete distillation, which therefore contains a blend of all distillations.
Ylang Ylang extra is separated after 1-2 hours of distillation.
For Ylang Ylang 1, this is after about 3 hours, Ylang Ylang 2 after 5 hours and Ylang Ylang 3 after 10-20 hours when all oil has separated normally.
When making the Ylang Ylang complete grade, the distillation is not interrupted to separate the other grades, but the oil is only separated after 10-20h.
Ylang Ylang 1st grade generally contains more esters and linalool and less sesquiterpenes.