Question:

Great post, thanks! I have a couple questions that I’m hoping you may have an answer to: I bought some Essential Oils a couple weeks ago from the store. Since I already had the same oils already open, I figured I’d put these oils in the refrigerator to hopefully preserve them, since I won’t be using them for awhile. After reading more about EO’s, it seems extreme temperatures, whether it be hot or cold, can destroy some of the EO’s chemicals. Do you think that these essential oils I’ve refrigerated have now gone bad from being in the cold?

Question 2: I was at a pretty “high quality” health food store which carried a large variety of different kinds and brands of Essential Oils. They had a brand which sold there oils at really high prices. This brand was ‘XYZ”. Before I think about buying these, I was wondering if you have ever heard of this brand, and if they were a reputable company or not. I would just hate to spend that much money on low quality oils. Thanks for your help in advance!

Answer:

Thanks! And thanks for asking your question, it sounds like you’re someone who wants to learn a lot more so you can make the best choices on buying the best essential oils.

I have no idea if the essential oils you bought will be preserved or ruined in the refrigerator as it depends on many factors. Generally speaking though, most refrigerators are not cold enough to harm an essential oil. However, a superior quality essential oil will NOT have to be refrigerated – just keep them in a cool place out of direct sunlight.

Some companies say that refrigerating the essential oil will preserve it. This is typically said because many essential oils contain fatty oils which are also known as ‘carrier oils.’ All carrier oils are fatty oils that come from nuts or seeds (such as: olive oil, jojoba, sesame, grapeseed, vegetable, etc). All fatty oils turn rancid, and depending upon your indoor temp a fatty oil could turn rancid within 6-8 months – which means your bottle of essential oil will need to be thrown out and replaced every 6-8 months. This can be very costly and it is also one of the reasons why I stress the importance of quality – a superior quality essential oil will last indefinitely if stored properly.

You can learn more about the down side of buying an essential oil that contains fatty oils in Tip #4 (below).

Some essential oils, such as Sandalwood, Frankincense and Myrrh actually get better over time, much like a fine wine does. However, it can be challenging for the consumer to know if they are getting the best because of labeling and misleading advertising.

There is no one word or fast way I can tell you about how to determine if the essential oil you’re looking at buying is the best quality or not, so get comfortable and I’ll explain some things that will help the average person know if the essential oils they’ve bought, or are thinking of buying, is worth spending money on…

The first thing you need to know is that about 98% of all essential oils in the world are simply not the highest quality.

The second important thing to know is that companies are and can be very easily ‘duped’ by their suppliers (and they are!)

A company (the essential oil seller) who does not have, in-house, state of the art equipment to properly test an essential oil coming in from a supplier has no way at all of knowing if what their supplier claims and tests are true. Additionally, most essential oil and aromatherapy companies do not send samples of oils coming in from their suppliers to independent labs for evaluation as this is extremely expensive and thus a step many omit.

Unfortunately, I am sad to say that the number of suppliers/distillers who ‘add’ compounds to their essential oils so they look good on paper are out there in abundance.

Another unfortunate regular occurrence is that many distillers simply do not have the background and years of records (used for comparing) necessary to be able to determine if their essential oil is of the highest quality. So even if they believe they are doing something good (like growing organically, or using ethically wild crafted plants) they can so easily ruin the essential oil in their methods of distillation.

To give you an idea how easily an essential oil can be ruined in the distillation process you need to know these things…

• The time of day the plant is harvested

• The time of year the tree is harvested (this makes a huge difference in the evergreen and tree essential oils)

• How long the plant sits on a truck before it reaches the distillery. Imagine how many beneficial properties of the plant are lost when it sits in a truck for longer than 30 minutes in the heat of summer, or worse yet when the truck simply sits in the sun. Heat literally fractures the molecules of an essential oil, it’s those molecule that contain ALL of the beneficial properties.

• The pressure and temperature can mean the difference between junk or not

• If the distiller uses chemicals to extract the oil from the plant in the distillation process

• If they have taken the ‘time’ to learn precisely how long (time) and which pressure is best to get the optimal amount of beneficial compounds out of the plant without compromising quality. This is where having a database of decades worth of results can make a huge difference.

• If the supplier ‘adds’ compounds to their distilled essential oil when it falls short in testing (they add compounds, which are chemicals, so test results are higher and so they can get more money). This is where many essential oil companies are duped into believing the essential oil they just bought from a supplier is better quality and they take the test results from the supplier as being honest.

• If the plant grown that particular year is even up to par with previous years when perhaps the crop was superior. Climate factors greatly determine the quality of the plant grown that year, which also determines where the final product, the essential oil, falls on the quality meter (so to speak). Year to year, the same farm growing the same plant can produce varying results in quality. And to know if the plants of that particular year are up to par requires specialized equipment and decades worth of results in a database.

• Are the trucks, tractors, and other automated equipment used at the farm and in harvesting using regular grease (from petro chemicals) in their fittings? If yes, you can very safely assume that distilled essential oil is going to be contaminated. Do you think most essential oil companies are going to test for that? Not likely.

So you see, this is just a sampling of what ’should’ go into the creation of producing the absolute best essential oil possible. This translates into a tremendous amount of time, money, knowledge, and devotion to produce only the best. This is why 98% of all essential oils in the world are low quality. It’s rare to find an essential oil company that goes above and beyond what is necessary to even know if their suppliers are bringing them something superior.

Let me ask you… with aromatherapy products being so popular today, how many of those companies (advertising their product contains ‘ pure essential oils’) do you think care, or even know about the about the above short list? None is probably the right answer. The same is true with many essential oil companies, they either just don’t know, or they don’t care about quality. Right now, “you” are more knowledgeable than they are.

Let me also ask… how likely do you think it is that the buyer for an up-sacle health food store knows about the items on the above list so that when they are determining which brand of essential oil to carry in their store is the best? Near zero is the right answer (no offense to buyers out there). Again, right now, “you” are more knowledgeable than they are.

To me as a consumer, I WANT to know the answers to the above list. I want to know that my essential oil was not grown downwind or downstream from a chemical plant, I want to know that the plants got into the distillery within 30 minutes of being harvested, and that they were harvested at the right time during the right season, I want to know the supplier to my essential oil company doesn’t have a 55 gallon drum of linalyl acetate sitting out back (because they added it to my lavender essential oil so it would produce a higher number on a GS (Gas Chromatography) test fooling someone into thinking it was a high quality oil, I want to know that axle grease from the tractor isn’t also included in my essential oil, I want to know that ‘tap water’ was not used for distilling my essential oil, I want to know my essential oil was distilled at the right temperature and at the right pressure. I want to know all of these things and more because it makes a huge difference in the results I get when I use the essential oil, and over time, it makes a huge difference in my health from using that oil.

So you see, there is a lot that goes into producing the best essential oils, and I have only scratched the surface. It can easily be considered an ‘Art of Devotion.’

Let’s look into this further, and I’ll give “you” the knowledge you will need to know to make the best possible choice when you go out to buy essential oils. Simple knowledge you need to know to make smart choices.

A recent story sheds much light on what typically happens in this industry…

I happen to know that about a year ago a supplier brought in a sample of Helichrysum, the entire batch valued at over a million dollars, into Young Living. The supplier brought in all the necessary paperwork/results from testing, Young Living was fully prepared to buy this Helichrysum. Young Living tests in-house and uses independent lab testing to determine if a supplier has what they say they have, so testing began. The sample of Helichrysum tested good and the supplier brought in the million + dollars worth of Helichrysum. Young Living tests all essential oils again before they are bottled, and it’s a good thing they do!

This second testing failed and Young Living returned all of the Helichrysum to the supplier. So what happened to this rejected Helichrysum? It ended up in the hands of another essential oil company, who took the word of the supplier and of the suppliers tests as truth, and bottled the essential oil for sale – they believe and are selling it as a high quality essential oil.

Young Living’s standards and testing are so high and good that about 85% of the essential oils brought in by suppliers are rejected. Yup, that means they too go back out onto the open market for other essential oil companies to buy.

In other words, the essential oils that are considered to be high make it to Young Living and when Young Living rejects them they end up all over in the aromatherapy oils and aromatherapy products sold throughout the world. Thus, when I see aromatherapy products and essential oils that are not Young Living brand I just see ‘Young Living Rejects’ all over the label.

Did you know that France produces 100 times more lavender essential oil than they distill?

Think about it, it’s kind of mind boggling. How can someone produce 100 times more of something than they actually distill???

The short answer is, chemicals or using something other than true lavender. Yup, we could go into the lab right now and produce a liquid that smells just like lavender and it will NOT contain any Lavendula angustifolia at all (this is the species of lavender used to produce the skin healing, beneficial essential oil you see spoken about in many places).

So what happens when you know lavender is good for burns and you go to the health food store and buy a bottle of lavender oil (which may or not be a lot cheaper) and keep it in your kitchen to use as First Aid when you get burned?

What happens is this, your first or second degree burn becomes a third degree burn and you end up rushing to the emergency room!

Yes, it has happened and does happen.

This is precisely why I say “when you hear me talking about using essential oils, I am ONLY referring to the usage of Young Living.”

I am dead serious about this. Sure, some people may think I say this because I’m being pushy and only want them to buy Young Living oils. No, I’m NOT saying it to make the sale, I’m saying it because it is true. I do not want you to risk getting hurt. All I’m saying is “buyer beware” – if you’re going to use essential oils you absolutely need to know all of this.

OK, so Young Living rejects over 85% of the essential oils brought in from suppliers because the essential oils fail Young Living’s testing and the testing of independent labs. That means there is an extremely high percentage of essential oils on the market (like over 95%) that are easily considered junk.

I think what consumers, and many essential oil companies don’t realize, is that there are dozens of ways to ‘make’ (adulterate) an essential oil ‘appear’ to be high quality.

Other things that can help you to determine if the quality is the best

These are some of the terms on labels that the consumer must be aware of in order to not waste their money and possibly cause harm to their health…

100% Pure, Pure, Organic, Authentic, Genuine, Wild Crafted – all of these terms mean absolutely nothing in the industry when it comes to purity and superior quality. And, I DO mean these terms mean absolutely nothing.

A superior quality essential oil is above and beyond 100% Pure, Organic and Wild Crafted standards

Currently, there is no US regulation on essential oil quality. That means that anyone can go out and put the above terms on their bottle of essential oil even if it is lesser quality. Which is why I said the above terms on labels mean absolutely nothing in regards to quality.

8 Tips to Becoming an ‘Empowered’ Essential Oil Shopper

These 8 tips will help the average consumer easily determine if they’re wasting their money, or not…

# 1. Are they comparing their oils to Young Living’s? Young Living absolutely does set the world standard in essential oil quality, thus anyone who believes they have an oil as good will compare theirs to Young Living.

# 2. On the back of the label, on such plants that are used in cooking (oregano, thyme, basil, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, orange, lemon, etc) is it clearly stated ‘how’ the essential oil can be used internally? If the answer is no, then the quality is low. The FDA will not allow you to ingest something that is not considered (at the very least) ‘food-grade.’

I should also point out that Young Living does not consider food-grade quality to be very high at all and is far beyond food-grade in quality. Let me put it this way, if the FDA considers a peppermint ‘flavoring’ (made out of god knows what) to be acceptable in a food you can imagine how bad a peppermint essential oil is if that label states “not for internal use” – they’re telling you flat out that it’s not acceptable, even though the essential oil came from a plant that is edible. Therefore, you can very safely assume ALL of the essential oils in their line under their brand are low quality – no company is going to have ’some’ edible plant oils that are safe for internal use and others not. This is an all or nothing thing.

# 3. Is the latin name of the plant on the label? If not, you can very safely assume the so-called essential oil is junk. However, do not use this alone as a gage, it must be used in conjunction with the other 7 things in my tips.

But let’s say the latin name is on the label (because this also happens) of a bottle of Orange essential oil and so are the terms 100% Pure and Organic, but on the back of the label it states ‘not for internal use’ – that alone is enough to tell you that essential oil is of low quality. Why? because Orange essential oil ’should’ be edible if it is handled properly and great care is taken in every step of the process.

I can go into any health food store and simply look at the label of a plant I know to be edible and tell you instantly if the company sells a high quality essential oil. Here’s my simple and effective trick using Frankincense…

Frankincense, is a very useful essential oil, it also happens to be edible. It also happens to be one of the essential oils that is frequently adulterated (it’s adulterated because it’s quite expensive in it’s most superior state).

So, if I’m looking at labels and the back of the label of Frankincense states “not for internal use” that is a dead give away that the company overall does NOT sell the highest quality essential oil. If they can’t manage to sell you a superior grade of frankincense, they certainly are not going to sell you superior quality anything else.

# 4. Does the label of a ’single’ essential oil also contain other ingredients? Like jojoba oil, sesame oil, apricot oil, etc? If it does, then you’re lucky if you’re getting one or two drops of essential oil in the entire bottle. So that means you are paying a fortune for a couple of drops of real essential oil. Actually you’re paying far more for it than you are paying for a couple of drops of a Young Living essential oil – FAR more per drop.

You should also know that these types of essential oils have a shelf life of about 6 months. So even though the price is less you WILL be spending a lot more money in the long run because you will have to replace your essential oils at least twice a year. This makes buying a Young Living oil FAR cheaper in the long run.

Companies add nut oils (also known as ‘carrier oils’) to extend and cut costs. If a company is doing this you can also be certain they ARE using cheap quality essential oils… because all they are concerned about is cost and making the sale. Anyone is is primarily concerned with cost will only produce low quality products for their customers. I personally think this is an unethical way to conduct business because they are selling to unsuspecting consumers a product that can potentially be quite harmful.

Let me show you how much more an ‘extended’ and low quality oil can cost

Young Living Lavender wholesales for $20.75 for a 15ml bottle (I highly recommend becoming a wholesale customer if you choose YL, you can learn how to do that here.)

The bottle contains about 250 drops of Lavender angustifolia (the good lavender).

So, $20.75 divided by 250 equals .83 cents per drop of YL Lavender

Let’s also say, when you saw a 15ml bottle of YL Lavender that you said, “yikes, that’s too expensive!” and you went over to the health food store and bought a bottle of Lavender oil (we will assume it at least has three drops of a real but low quality lavender in it) and let’s say that bottle of lavender was also a 15ml size (250 drops) and it costs $10. Wow, that means you’re getting a great deal, Right? Not so fast…

Upon doing the math… $10 divided by 3 equals $3.33 cents per drop of a very questionable quality of essential oil because the label states “not for internal use.” Then, in 6 months you’re going to have to replace that bottle of oil because it’s gone rancid because it contains fatty oils too (fatty oils are extremely cheap which is why I didn’t even bother to do the math on the costs of it, in a 15ml bottle the cost of the fatty oil might be as high as one cent, and that’s severely pushing it).

I’m certainly NOT going to pay $3.33 a drop for junk, when I can get the real deal for .83 cents a drop!

# 5. Other things to look for on the label of a superior quality essential oil are: AFNOR, ISO, GS, MS – if those acronyms are not on the label, the essential oil is low quality. These terms have FAR greater importance than Pure/organic/wild crafted/etc. – why? Because they (AFNOR, ISO, GS, MS) actually ‘mean’ something. As does “Therapeutic-grade” – a new term Young Living has established because of the abuse of terms that should be reflective of the quality.

# 6. Read the label! I cannot stress this enough. If you want to know you’re getting the best, you will have to read the label – there’s just no way around it.

# 7. Know the company and the suppliers if the company itself doesn’t grow the plants themselves and distill their own oils.

To give you some idea what other companies are up against in this industry… Young Living is the largest farm in the world distilling their own essential oils. I think Young Living now has somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,000 acres of land for the cultivation of their essential oils.

You might be interested to know what happens to the essential oils Young Living distills when they are not up to Young Living quality standards… they get dumped on the ground. Young Living will NEVER sell a lower quality essential oil to anyone for any reason. Even our own rejects will not make it to the open market, if we won’t use them we wouldn’t want anyone else to use them. That’s something you will never see another company or supplier doing.

# 8. Anyone in the world who knows about essential oil quality (companies included) ’should’ also be able to say when asked who produces the best quality oils… that they answer ‘Young Living essential oils are the best.” This is true, and anyone in the industry should be able to state that even if they are a competitor – NOT defend their brand, or poo-poo Young Living.

Knowing all of the above WILL put you in a much more empowered position when you’re in the market for essential oils.

Regarding the company you mentioned in your question… I personally would not buy and use their essential oils – the quality just isn’t there.

Are they better than some? It looks like they might be, but I would certainly never use their oils the same way I use Young Living. If I cannot safely ingest someone’s frankincense, or ylang ylang (etc.) I certainly do NOT want to be applying their essential oil to my body, or inhaling them for the matter.

I spent 12 years of my life looking for the best quality essential oils and I found them – I spent the time because it makes a difference on all levels. And since finding them, I have not found any that even come close in my experience.

I also happen to know that Young Living tests their competitors essential oils… the results are not good. Therefore, my advice is – apply my tips above and be very careful, there is a lot of junk out there. And NEVER use an essential oil the same way you would use a Young Living oil. I don’t want people reading my blog and then go out and use an essential oil the same way we use Young Living’s oils.

This blog is solely about the use of “Young Living” essential oils, no other brand, period. If you use another brand in any of the ways I discuss here and have unfortunate results it’s a risk you are taking.

I can easily say, there are other brands that are extremely risky to use and I personally would not consider for a second ever using them for any purpose whatsoever. The choice is entirely up to you. I hope this answer, even though it is long, puts you in a more empowered position.

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