Essential Oils

Essential Oil FAQ’s & Info

With so many varying prices, it can be difficult to understand why. Here's a guide to breaking down what goes into each bottle of essential oil and why it's worth your investment.

WHY ARE SOME ESSENTIAL OILS EXPENSIVE?
Essential oils sell at various price points. Many factors contribute to why some are more expensive than others. These factors include the ease of harvesting the plant, botanical amount needed to produce the oil, plant time sensitivity, purity of the oil, rarity of the plant, shipping costs, and more.

HOW MUCH PLANT DOES IT TAKE TO PRODUCE AN ESSENTIAL OIL?
Some plants produce less oil than others when distilled. As a result, more of some plants are needed to produce the same amount of oil. For example, a quality Rose essential oil is very valuable due to all the effort it takes to cultivate the flowers and all the raw botanical material it takes to produce the final product. It takes approximately 5,000 painstakingly harvested pounds of fresh rose petals to make just one pint, or 16 ounces, of Rose essential oil. A 5 ml bottle of this oil is 0.17 fluid ounces.

EASE OF HARVEST AND PLANT TIME SENSITIVITY
Certain botanicals can be extremely sensitive and need to be harvested at a specific time of day to yield the highest amount and best quality of oil. Melissa is a great example of this. Distilling it is a time-intensive process that must take place at the right time of day and precise moment of blossoming to harness its full potential. The difference between an early-morning cutting and a late-afternoon cutting can be critical enough to decrease oil production by as much as 90 percent. This leaves a very small window to get any meaningful yield. Additionally, less than 1/1,000th of the bulk plant is likely to end up as condensed oil. Plant material must be taken from the field to the distillery immediately. Any drying of the plant material can destroy or severely limit the amount of oil obtained through the distillation process.

SHIPPING COSTS
The plants used to produce essential oils originate from different places all over the world. Shipping them from different countries adds transportation costs to the price of oil production. Helichrysum is native to coastal France, Italy, and Croatia. Its delicate flowers bloom in rocky soils before a painstakingly careful harvest. When you buy oils, it’s important to research where the botanicals were grown. Farming the plants in their natural environments or in habitats that replicate their native environments is crucial to producing the best-quality oil.

WHY ARE SOME ESSENTIAL OILS SO CHEAP?
If you’ve browsed through the different essential oil options offered from various sources, you’ve likely seen a wide range of prices. Have you taken a deep look at what the ingredient list and company background of each of these oils looks like? Companies with lower-end pricing often use poor-quality oils and dilute them with harmful additives to achieve those cheap price points.

RARITY OF THE PLANT
Plants like lavender and lemon are extremely common, while others are much scarcer. Blue Tansy is a rare, exotic plant that originates on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco. Thousands of its little flowers are required to obtain this beloved, sapphire-colored oil.

When shopping for high-quality essential oils, double-check that they don’t contain any synthetic fillers. Oil singles should have only one ingredient—the single essential oil. When it comes to blends, there will be a couple ingredients listed, but make sure those ingredients are pure botanical oils. Of course, some high-quality blends may be diluted with a neutral carrier oil like jojoba or grape seed, depending on the product’s intended application. For example, some of our blends, like those in our KidScents® and AnimalScents™ lines, are prediluted with natural oils and/or glycerin to make them safe for use around children and pets. However, as a rule, you’ll want to avoid additives and dilutions—especially synthetic ones—entirely.

Essential Oil Sourcing

It comes down to quality. As we mentioned above, many companies—particularly those with unusually low price points—often compromise on their sourcing, formulation, process, or other elements of production. Conversely, Young Living focuses intensely on getting every element right; you never have to second guess whether you’re getting a high-quality product. This is why we chose to be a Young Living® Brand Partner. Young Living sets the industry standard for quality with its strict Seed to Seal quality commitment. This commitment to naturally derived, plant-based products means we oversee the making of our oils from start to finish—from growing the seeds to harvesting the plants to obtaining their oils to exhaustively testing the final product. This results in oils and oil-infused products you can use with peace of mind in every part of your life, and why we choose to partner with Young Living.

We’re passionate about using only the best ingredients, ones that are as pristine as they are effective. You can rest easy knowing that Young Living products will never contain:

• Formaldehyde

• Artificial dyes

• Petroleum

• Mineral oil

• Sulfates

• Parabens

Our oils from Young Living are made with the highest quality in mind. This takes out all the guesswork, allowing you to live naturally without a second thought.