Finishing oil Finishing oil A finishing oil is a vegetable oil used for wood finishing. These finishes are a historical finish for wood, primarily as means of making it weather or moisture resistant. Finishing oils are easily applied, by wiping with a cloth. They are also simply made, by extraction from plant sources with relatively simple processing. Historically, both of these were considerable advantages over varnishes, that depended upon exotic imported plant resins, complex preparation and careful application with expensive brushes. The two most important finishing oils, to this day, are linseed oil and tung oil. Linseed oil is extracted from the
Essential oil Essential oil An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing volatile (defined as "the tendency of a substance to vaporize") aroma compounds from plants. Essential oils are also known as volatile oils, ethereal oils, aetherolea, or simply as the oil of the plant from which they were extracted, such as oil of clove. An essential oil is "essential" in the sense that it contains the "essence of" the plant's fragrance—the characteristic fragrance of the plant from which it is derived. The term essential used here does not mean indispensable as with the terms essential amino acid or essential fatty