Lavender (L. angustifolia Mill.) is an important essential oil-bearing and medicinal plant with high commercial value. Lavender scent components can be derived not only as an essential oil but also as lavender concrete or absolute. The development of reliable analytical methods for origin assessment and quality assurance is of significant fundamental importance and high practical interest. Therefore, a comprehensive chemical profiling of seven industrial samples of Bulgarian lavender absolute (L. angustifolia Mill.) was performed by means of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID). As a result, 111 individual compounds were identified by GC/MS, and their quantitative content was simultaneously determined by GC-FID, representing 94.28-97.43% of the total contents of the lavender absolute. According to our results, the main constituents of lavender absolute (LA) are representatives of the terpene compounds (with the dominating presence of oxygenated monoterpenes, 52.83-80.55%), followed by sesquiterpenes (7.80-15.21%) and triterpenoids (as minor components). Coumarins in various amounts (1.79-14.73%) and aliphatic compounds (hydrocarbons, ketones, esters, etc.) are found, as well. The acyclic monoterpene linalool is the main terpene alcohol and, together with its ester linalyl acetate, are the two main constituents in the LAs. Linalool was found in concentrations of 27.33-38.24% in the LA1-LA6 samples and 20.74% in the LA7 samples. The amount of linalyl acetate was in the range of 26.58 to 37.39% in the LA1-LA6 samples, while, surprisingly, it was not observed in LA7. This study shows that the chemical profile of the studied LAs is close to the lavender essential oil (LO), fulfilling most of the requirements of the International Standard ISO 3515:2002.
Keywords: GC/MS; Lavandula angustifolia Mill.; aromatherapy; chemical profiling; lavender absolute.