I don't think refrigeration of these oils would be a good idea either. From my own experience with rose oil and so on when you use the oil and take it out of the fridge their is condensation and this could damage the oil but maybe if the oil has no air space and is not being used maybe it would be alright but not 100% percent sure. I just wanted to put a quick edit in hear that if the Rose oil is left with no air gap and not taken in and out of the fridge i don't see any problem occurring and indeed is the best way to store rose oil but i cant speak for Oud oils. Please anyone else give your thoughts on this.
Sorry for jumping in a bit late.
I pretty much agree with John here. Storing oils in the fridge is a good idea, so long as the bottle is tightly sealed and its for long-term storage only. If you'll be opening and closing the bottle frequently, I personally wouldn't recommend refrigerating.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: oud is very VERY hardy. Compared to other essential oils, oud can be rough handled much more and still be fine. Just think about the contamination that usually takes place with mainstream oud filtration (using bare sweaty hands), force-oxidation, prolonged (and deliberate) U.V. exposure, and the list goes on... and the oils are still alive after all that. Do that to a delicate Ispartan rose otto, and you'd kill it.
And so... even going in and out of the fridge, in and of itself, is okay for oud. But there's the condensation problem, which arises with repeatedly doing this. Water inside the oil will
really affect the aroma of the oud negatively.
Now there's in fact a curing method, the French 'ice-curing' method, and I use it sometimes, particularly in the case of any distiller's biggest nightmare: sinking oil. i.e. the oil doesn't form a nice clean layer on top of the water, as all oils should, but rather some of it sinks below and some even to the bottom of the container. In this case, the ice-curing method magically gets the sunk oil globs to rise up and join their brethren. After that you can pour out the oil easily (the ice, solid water, remains behind in the beaker and only the oil gets poured out.
My point is: the oil in this case not only undergoes refrigeration, its actually exposed to
freezing temperatures. And its fine.
After the separation though, the oil still needs to be cured further (e.g. dry curing, anhydrous sodium sulphate bed, etc). Most consumers don't know how to do curing, plus it would be a pain to have to do this regularly... and this is why I don't recommend refrigeration if the oil will be in and out of the fridge regularly.
