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<!--- plant photo, e.g. Ylang Ylang -->
Indeed, Madagascar offers a wide diversity of all life forms: micro-organisms, plants and animals. 12,000 plant species, 3% of those on the entire planet, thrive on the island of Madagascar, also known as the Fifth Continent! Many are endemic. They exist only in Madagascar. Over centuries, Malagasy people having have studied this plant richness and gained knowledge of the active agents of countless medicinal plants and how to extract their hidden wealth, sometimes with miraculous powers: the essential oils.
'''How do you get this aromatic substance?'''
In most cases by water steam distillation at low temperature and low pressure. This technique allows to extract most of the active substances from the plant. Before distillation they are called essence. After it is called essential oil. Only 10% of plants produce an essence. And if the latter and although the essence can be found throughout the plant, it is mainly concentrated in ''a single organ, such as root, rhizome, wood, bark, leaf, stem, flower, seed or fruit. These are the organs from which essential oil is obtained.''.
Distilled are ylang-ylang flowers, cinnamon bark, niaouli leaves or vetiver roots. Please note, the composition of the essence of a plant differs slightly from that of the essential oil of the same plant, because the distillation process cannot entirely extract the properties within the plant.
* Finally, these oils support another part of the Malagasy culture: massages. At a time when it has become fashionable to have all kinds of exotic body therapies, the Malagasy offer the ''classic massage, a palpating and rolling massage, energetic and gentle, whose effects are increased by massage oils consisting of up to 10% essential oils''.
* It goes without saying that this palpate and roll massage will be more beneficial than the simply an exchange between the person being massaged and the masseur who will be rich.
* Giving a massage is art. Also receiving. This is often forgotten. What do the hands which treat you with essential oils have to give? The art of Malagasy living.
