How To Choose An Essential Oil Brand

I love my lavender essential oils and the plethora of benefits that this essential oil encompasses. My favorite lavender essential oil benefit is the ability to calm me and help me sleep.

But wait! If you are new to essential oils and trying to separate the good and the bad essential oils on the market today. This article is going to be an excellent one for you.

Those Fox of a Scoundrels!

Lavender essential oil is the most popular and purchased essential oil in the world. Whether you have two bottles or 100 bottles of essential oils, Lavender will be one of them more than likely. For this reason, many people and companies find ways to take advantage of the consumer and expand their margins. 

They do this by diluting the oils with synthetics or fragrances or offering only a general label—i.e., “Lavender” and omitting the botanical name. One might assume they are buying Lavender Angustifolia without understanding that there are other lavender plant species. 

Why does the botanical name matter?

Unlike the Angustifolia plant, Lavandula Hybrida ( Lavandin ) offers a higher yield of oil and is only one of many inexpensive lavender oils and typically doesn’t provide the same therapeutic benefits as Bulgarian. 

With a higher yield per plant and fewer benefits, this oil’s raw cost will have a dramatic price decrease. This combination is a gold mine for the less ethical seller. 

Essential Oils and Amazon

I love Amazon, and I love the convenience of using them. But, when it comes to essential oils, I’d buy from Wal-mart first, and that’s not an easy thing for me to say.

I just searched on Amazon for the term ‘essential oil,’ and the first one popped up I clicked on. 

19 5 mL bottles! 19! Including Ylang-Ylang and Tea Tree for $21.59. that’s like $1.13 per bottle. After a little snooping, I found a store name, and of course, I Googled it, and you would never guess what I found…

I found two offshore directories with their name in them, and that’s it. Go figure. 

If you were wondering if the labels stated “Pure Therapeutic Grade,” they did.

I’m not trying to associate “Pure Therapeutic Grade” with being a bad product. Just trying to help identify the statement that is trademarked by YL holds zero value with quality.

Eating, Drinking, and Direct Digesting Essential Oils of any kind

These are extracted oils, bottled in high concentration, and distilled to be used for the intended purpose of essential oil and not digested.

I know! It’s cinnamon, and Generally Recognized as Safe by the FDA; how can that be wrong to digest?

Food ‘type’ essential oils are not Generally Recognized as Safe by the FDA. These types of essential oils are deemed as indirect additives. And you can probably assume and be pretty close to being right to say that directly digesting essential oils of any kind isn’t using it as it’s ‘intended purpose.’

Oils distilled for the food industry are the same oil, except the food industry requires multiple distillations of their oils. Each time the oil is distilled, the process changes the chemical makeup of the oil.

Multiple distilling process creates flavoring for the food industry. 

All essential oils are single distilled, and digesting them makes no sense.

What does Organic Essential Oil mean?

Organic is the process of not using synthetic chemical pesticides, fertilizers, and no GMO anywhere to create essential oils for consumer use. This includes growing, harvesting, and extracting.

Unlike “Pure Therapeutic Grade,” Organic farming is regulated under the USDA National Organic Program (NOP).

It is illegal to label a product ‘Organic’ that isn’t organic.

Being qualified as Organic essential oil does not mean it is digestible.

What Does Pure Essential Oil mean?

Adding 100% to the word Pure is a bit redundant, being that is what Pure means. Adding therapeutic to Pure says that you offer a remedy, treatment, or therapy for a disease. This is not true.

Pure essential oil expresses that the essential oil you are buying has no added fillers, synthetics, or perfumes. What is extracted from the plant through the distilled or pressed process is solely the oil in the bottle that you have purchased.

Summary

We all want to be more healthy physically and naturally in one form or another, and essential oils can make a difference in moving us closer to our goals. We just need to be smarter about how we go about inviting these oils into our lives.

• Remember, the botanical name should be somewhere on the label. 
• Therapeutic Grade offers no value in the quality of essential oils.
• Don’t shop for your essential oils on Amazon. 
• Essential oils aren’t made for digesting
• Organic labels mean organic growing and harvesting.
• Pure essential oils mean no additives to the oils extracted from the plant.