This year alone, I started reading about them a lot. Since I wasn't a distributor, already hesitant, and owned no oils at the time I feel like it made me a fairly objective researcher.
I read a lot of blogs, emailed some professionals, got statements from different companies, looked at the research in what these oils even are, before making a decision to try utilizing any of them.
First, I think aroma therapists get over looked in this area. It is their profession. So, if you're not taking their opinions seriously, then it's like ignoring your doctor's advice over the random person selling medical equipment/medicine.
Secondly, every single company I looked at basically has false information put out. Example: "Pure Therapeutic Grade."
These are terms that these companies literally have to go get trademarked because they're not true on the basis of testing. The FDA nor any other national organization runs organized testing on oils, thus not 'grading' them. So, just ignore these statements.
One aroma therapist told me directly, and this statement was found in numerous other AT blogs I read: "Essential oils are not intended to be ingested."
Some research even suggested ingesting citrus oils, can later cause scaring in esophagus and stomach lining. Because, yes, these oils are that potent. And they really should only be ingested with the guidance from a physician, and not the guidance of a company selling the oils.
I compared the distilling process between: Young Living, doTerra, Mountain Rose Herbs, Eden's Garden, and Plant Life.
According to the information available from each of these companies, the process was basically identical.
I read in an AT's blog that you actually do not want to see the same exact oil being the exact same every time you order it. Because, this is plant life and it's never going to be identical twice. So, if your oil is 'identical' in every batch, then clearly the company is doing something to make it so.
The best resource I found was from a 3rd party testing organization in France, who is trying to study the quality of essential oils. They got several EO companies to participate. They sent in their oils sealed and packaged exactly as they would be to a buyer. Someone then removed company labels and sent the bottles to their chemist being labeled with only numbers. Results are on nourishingtreasures.com and learningabouteos.com. It was nice to be able to look at these very unbiased results and see that all of these companies produced basically the same quality of oil (with like a .2% differential). The oils tested were Peppermint, Myrrh, Tea Tree.
The companies that participated (in one study or another) were:
- Bulk Apothecary
- doTERRA
- Eden’s Garden
- Essential Oil Exchange
- Heritage
- Mountain Rose Herbs
- Nature’s Gift
- NOW
- NYR Organics
- Scena Essentials
- Spark Naturals
- Young Living
"Beyond the basics of Latin name and chemo type, we need to see GC/MS tests to verify the contents of the bottle and the quality of the contents." (learningabouteos.com)
So the compositions as per ISO were ran with GC/MS testing.
With Tea Tree oil, the only company "Not in Compliance" with recommended levels was: Spark Naturals.
With Myrrh, all of the oil samples sent in were in compliance with recommended levels.
With Peppermint, the only companies that were in compliance were: Essential Oil Exchange, Nature's Gift, and NYR - and all of the companies listed above participated in this one. So all of those other companies were not in compliance with recommended plant percentages.
Pretty solid quality evidence, in my opinion. Also, pretty solid evidence that the batches of oils between these companies really do not vary all that much. I'm not saying there isn't any variance, because clearly there is. Also, clearly there are really terrible oils out there. So, just do your research. I'm of the opinion that most of the popular ones you're going to come across are perfectly acceptable oils.
As far as organic goes: "Ensuring organic status throughout the entire production process [of essential oils] is problematic and requires further investigation. At this time, testing of the end product is not required and is rarely done. Intentional and non-intentional contamination can occur at several points in the production process. Studies on Organic v. Non-Organic Essential Oils To date: there are no studies indicating that organic essential oil is superior to non-organic essential oil." (57aromas.com)
Per suggestion of numerous aroma therapist blogs, I focused on companies like Mountain Rose, Eden's Garden, and Aromatics International (they have archived and current GC/MS testing right on their website!).
If you're worried about costs, because I did read comments like, "They're cheap, they must be low quality," that simply isn't true. If you don't believe me, do the research yourself. MLM companies have money going to several different people, and that's why they're expensive.
Some companies cut out the middleman. Since my research provided valid (enough) evidence that the quality of these oils, between the companies I was looking at, were of extremely similar ranges, I just decided to go with not paying more when I could pay less for the same thing.
I know a lot of people are pretty hard-core about the company they buy from, but I'm pretty open and will probably buy from a few of the ones suggested by aroma therapists.
I'll keep you posted on some of my topical experiences though and if I feel I've benefited from the magical oil powers of plants ;)
http://www.learningabouteos.com/index.php/2013/08/04/why-we-perform-3rd-party-gcms-testing/
