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Where to Buy the Best Essential Oils

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I used to think that essential oils were a scam, but I ended up finding out that they are a great resource for your natural medicine cabinet for issues such as headaches, ear infections, tummy aches, viruses and bacterial infections, and more. But I eventually felt I needed to figure out where to buy essential oils that I could trust and that I could reasonably afford.

I spent a ton of time calling companies, asking questions, sampling oils.  Literally, it was a ton.  And it was very exhausting.

I've learned a lot with all the time I've spent researching oils companies and I've covered a lot of what I learned here in this essential oils series, some of which I wrote while I was still trying to figure out which company I was going to be using and recommending.

Where to Buy Essential Oils you can trust

In this post, I'll talk about the company that I decided to purchase our oils from.

It's also the one that I recommend to you as having the best essential oils for the money, with natural healing qualities and no additives or adulterating.

Confused about essential oils? What this blogger found out will surprise you. She tried to find out which essential oils company is best and found out some VERY interesting things about oils and the companies that sell them, including Young Living and doTERRA.Pin

How I Chose Where to Buy Essential Oils for My Family

This all started with my not being happy with the way questions were (or were not) answered by Young Living and doTERRA. So I started contacting a bunch of other essential oils companies and asked a lot of questions.

If you remember, when I started trying to figure out where to buy essential oils, I mentioned the following about Native American Nutritionals (now Rocky Mountain Oils) in Part One of the series.

“Looks like they carry good products, but they are a bit expensive.  Their prices, for a number of oils, in fact, are almost identical to the MLMs in this group, Young Living and DoTerra.  And I don’t see any difference on the surface in the quality department.”

In this post, you can see that I ended up recommending them, but this was really a surprise for me. After thinking that I was writing them off, I got a call back from the owner of Native American Nutritionals, and I talked with him for a few hours, which turned into many hours after that, and I felt that he really knew his stuff.

I was intrigued by what he had to say about his company and the oils industry in general.

We had countless conversations from March 2012 – January 2013, and I literally grilled him about his company and others to figure out which company I wanted to recommend, and if his, was in fact, good enough for my family and for all of you.

I now can say that I feel very comfortable recommending this company to you and am now using their oils almost exclusively (only because I have a few bottles of other brands left over).

I hope you check them out and I'd love to hear about your experience.

(Disclaimer.  I did not choose this company because I was able to become an affiliate for them, but I am one. I decided to work with them and then we made an partnership agreement. I was the first affiliate for the company.)

Why I Chose Rocky Mountain Oils

Please note: since this series was written, Rocky Mountain Oils purchased Native American Nutritionals. Native American Nutritionals was the original company, then the two companies had a partnership. Then Rocky Mountain Oils (RMO) purchased NAN. I am even more confident in the quality of oils now that this all has taken place.

Here are some of the qualities that make Rocky Mountain Oils a solid place to buy your essential oils from.

1.  Experience

The owner of Native American Nutritionals Paul Dean, was in the oils industry since 1997, being first introduced to essential oils about 30 years ago.  He started his first full-time essential oils business in 1998.

Rocky Mountain Oils was founded in 2004 by two essential oil enthusiasts, Michael and Leah Vincent. With years of experience in essential oils, the acquisition of Native American Nutritionals, and 14 years of company growth, RMO has become one of the leading direct-to-consumer essential oil companies in the world.

2.  Purity

Quality Oils – all oils have been third party GC/MS tested.

Certificates are available upon request by easily entering in the batch number from any bottle.

Almost all of the oils come from plants grown in remote locations where no pesticides, herbicides, or harmful chemicals are used and only natural fertilizers are used.

3.  Indigenous Plants

All oils come from plants grown in their indigenous locations (where they grow naturally).

4.  Oils from Small Farms

Almost all oils from NAN were sourced directly from small farms (many are from third-world countries).  Mr. Dean contracted with locals in the countries from where he sourced the oils, finds a quality farm, sets up a distiller, and extracts the oils.  The oils are then sent to Native American, then sent for testing, and bottled.  The only oils at NAN that are not from small farms are mainly the organic citrus oils.

Since Rocky Mountain Oils purchased Native American Nutritionals, some of the sourcing has changed as the company felt they had to make some changes to put a higher priority on the purity and quality of the oils sold. They source from small farms and also from leading experts in the industry.

5.  No Solvents

They use no solvents for distillation except when necessary, as in the case of absolutes like vanilla and jasmine (since the cost of those essential oils is otherwise prohibitive.)  Update 2015: they now sell a vanilla extracted with CO2.

6.  Affordable Pricing

They have affordable prices (not as expensive as the multi-level marketing companies, but not “too good to be true” either.)

7.  Quality Pure Oils

I have a lot of standards for quality and making sure that you are purchasing quality oils. See this post on pure essential oils for that information.

In addition, I prefer buying organic whenever I can, and that includes essential oils. Recently (Nov 2017), Rocky Mountain Oils has included an organic line of oils in their lineup and should be expanding it soon.

8.  Transparency

Details for oils are listed clearly on their site (including the Latin name and country of origin).

The company is working on how to indicate the growing method now that they sometimes have a variety of sources for some oils.

9.  Reasonable Shipping Costs

Rocky Mountain Oils offers Free Shipping domestically in the U.S. and reasonable shipping internationally, with free shipping over $199.

10.  No Adulterating

Oils are not heated, mixed with anything else, or adulterated in any way.

Unless declared on the label, the oils are pure. The only things added would be a carrier oil to make the oil or blend easier to use right out of the bottle.

What About Other Companies?

I often receive inquiries asking me what I think about other essential oils companies.

Please read this post on Essential Oils Testing and Quality and this report on 10 Things You Need to Know About Essential Oils to see if a brand measures up.

There are more and more companies out there on a daily basis. It truly seems that every day there is a new company selling essential oils and many are making claims that they are the only pure oils out there, which is not true.

My standards are high. I don't just want a company that says they are pure. When deciding where to buy essential oils, I want to make SURE I'm getting pure and not just a song and dance.

More Essential Oils Posts

Here are other posts that you might want to check out in this series on essential oils.

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6,991 Comments

  1. Native American Nutritionals (NAN – medicine woman Bevonne Birch, owner, and her son, Paul Dean) has long had a passion for providing the highest quality essential oils, but not so much for promoting them. Rocky Mountain Oils (RMO – Michael Vincent) has a passion for business and marketing, a knack for recognizing, hiring, and empowering experts, as well as a long-time passion for NAN oils. They’re each very good at what they do, and they’ve partially merged to take advantage of that.

    RMO has invested in a much more elaborate and useful web site especially for product information, a great “how-to” guide available free in PDF or printed for two dollars, and the online magazine, essentialhealth.com. Many of the NAN posts on their Facebook page link to RMO resources. Currently, both companies sell exactly the same oils using RMO labels. RMO is also reaching out to younger folks on Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+.

    On the other hand, NAN has been heavily promoted by many “Mom” bloggers, one in particular, 😉 resulting in almost double the Facebook Likes. A merged company couldn’t afford to lose that, since it’s a stepping stone from blog to RMO for readers who receive their first NAN oils with RMO labels. Despite the confusion, this may be the main reason they still present two faces to the public.

    Currently, orders for both companies ship from NAN’s small shop at 126 E Washington Ave, Ava MO 65608, and the folks there do an amazing job of packing well and shipping quickly.

    https://www.google.com/maps/@36.9521391,-92.6597349,3a,75y,354.2h,77.65t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s0MKVKr61wYbS0d0taPJvsA!2e0

    However, both RMO and NAN now publish a USPS mail address of a much larger building, at 15 E 400 S, Orem UT 84058. It looks built mirror-image as a two business duplex, including two loading docks out back. It won’t surprise me if all NAN/RMO stocking and shipping move there. Shirley J in the outdated Street View moved their headquarters to Lindon UT.

    https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2898128,-111.6952556,3a,75y,0.92h,89.56t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s6HzEkIVH94AOnJakA2tq6w!2e0

    Both companies are suffering from much faster than expected growth. This year’s Black Friday special took their web hosting to its knees, and apparently, they had great holiday sales. Currently, they’re out of stock on several popular oils. NAN has communicated they plan to go back to their own labels, so it’s confusing what the restocked bottles will wear, at least if purchased from NAN.

    Their customer service is also hurting. Responses to web site queries and social media contacts are sometimes sporadic, and they’re scrambling to hire additional support personnel. These issues may be causing some potential first-time customers to consider beginning their EO experience elsewhere, especially if they can’t buy all the oils they want in one purchase. I think that would be a mistake. This is a recovery time for many businesses, and I wish them well in that, and ironing out their growth and merger problems.

    Reply

    1. You sure have done your homework. Just a few corrections:

      Paul is Bevonne’s son. But Paul is the owner, not Bevonne.

      From the oils company, here is the information:

      Bevonne endorses us frequently and she will sometimes resell our oils to her connections, but she isnt part of the business. She is an independent reseller basically.

      We dont ship from that little building in Missouri anymore. About 8 months ago we moved shipping to a 20,000 sq foot building about a mile from that little storefront.

      We are building a state of the art bottling facility at the other facility in Utah that he addresses. More information on that will be released soon. Its currently under construction.

      Reply

      1. Thanks so much for the update, Adrienne! This is where I got the ownership info: Guess it’s wrong.

        https://www.linkedin.com/pub/bevonne-birch/2a/349/8bb

        Great news on the bottling facility. That explains why they hired a 20+ year experienced mechanical engineer. 😉 Like you, I like to know where my oils are coming from.

        https://www.linkedin.com/pub/james-francis/5/819/682

        I had a closing statement to the above post, but as I clicked the submit button I saw I forgot it… in slow motion, LOL It read, “I ask your readers’ patience.and understanding throughout this.”

        Thanks for all you do here and on your mailing list. We love it.

        Reply

  2. I would love to know if you had sucess treating adrenal failure with EO’s?
    I have Hashimoto’s and Hypothyroid disease…with probable endometriosis and I just started buying EO’S. I have Lemongrass, peppermint, OnGuard, Breathe easy-I always have stuffiness.
    While I am on meds for the Thyroid….we are working to optimize my levels. I would love to be able to use EO’s for many of my symptoms.

    Reply

    1. Hi Shannon. I have done just a little w/ EOs and adrenals. I have used clove and rosemary on my adrenals and I do think that they work. What have you been thinking about? I think that adrenals are a big deal. In my personal and not medical opinion, there is a lot to do and that EOs alone will not solve it. But I could be wrong. What do you think?

      Reply

  3. Thank you for this series! Quite helpful! I wonder if you have looked at all into Plant Therapy essential oils?

    Reply

    1. Hi there. Yes, I did look at them and didn’t choose them for a number of reasons. When I did look at them they had the lavender 40/42 that is considered to be adulterated by many in the industry. I can’t go into the other reasons, but I am sticking with Native American. They did have an oil test non compliant and then replaced it and had the oils tested again. I hope that helps. You can read more about the 40/42 lavender in this guide. https://wholenewmom.com/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-essential-oils-before-you-buy/

      Reply

  4. Completely stumbled across this post today and I’m so glad I did. I’ve been curious about using essential oils, and use a few, but really didn’t want to do all of the huge amount of legwork that you did. 🙂 I’ve worked at the home base (not sales) for MLM companies before, and that’s actually a reason I didn’t want to look into EO’s more- because I know enough to not trust a lot of what people say since they are trying to earn a paycheck off their information. I like that you supported your reasoning, which leads to a greater understanding of how you came about your answers. I knew that anything you posted related to MLM would generate a lot of angry comments, so I have to admit that I went through the comments and pretty much crossed off each person trying to sell their own product or finding it necessary to attack your methods in favor of theirs. Just a little passive aggressive reasoning. 🙂 Thanks for the information!

    Reply

    1. Hi there. So you worked in the corporate office for and MLM? But not an oils company? Thanks so much!

      Reply

  6. Hi! I was hoping you could share your findings on the essential oils produced by Mountain Rose? Thank you for all your hard work and time well spent!!

    Tristan

    Reply

    1. Hi there. It was hard to figure out that company. I was told that they produce their oils in a non food facility and so they didn’t recommend internal use. After I published my series they said something else – that it was for safety reasons. At that point I had decided on whom I was representing. I am just swamped w/ the blog and life and could maybe go back and look again in the future but I am so happy w/ NAN on a number of levels that I don’t have a reason to personally. NAN works really hard to pay farmers more than typical wages which is one thing that I really like about them. Hope that helps!

      Reply

  7. Thank you for doing all of thise research! My eyes were starting to cross trying to figure out who to buy from and then here’s your blog. 5 Stats girl! Pinning you site for later reading and sharing with others.

    Reply

  8. I am looking at a few of the basic oils from DoTerra and Native American and they are the same price. Some of the NA blends are a little cheaper. Is there something I am missing? Have they recently raised their prices?

    Reply

    1. Hi there. There are a few things going on. First of all, NAN’s oils are almost all wild crafted and/or organic. Secondly, you don’t need a membership to get the RMO / NAN pricing – I assume you are comparing it w/ the wholesale pricing there, right?

      Some of the oils appear to be closer now – assuming perhaps doTERRA lowered their prices? Many of the oils NAN is about $5 – $10 cheaper than doTERRA and Frankincense is a big difference.

      Also, NAN and RMO have sales whereas you will never get a cheaper price on doTERRA.

      Does that help?

      The blends are a little hard to compare b/c of course the formulations are not identical. In some cases the NAN oils will be more expensive oils. I would have to go through them all to tell.

      If you have a specific concern about a particular oil I can address that for you – thanks!

      Reply

    2. One more thought – you of course save regardless b/c as a member of doTERRA you are buying every month. It’s been a very long time since I purchased oils. I am about to do so again, but I don’t feel “pressure” anymore. I buy when I want.

      Reply

  9. Great Informatiom I have started using some NAN oils. I am a believer in injustion of oils. Would like to hear any new information you come up with.

    Reply

  10. Hi, Adrianna! where can I get hold of you, are you in South Africa or America? i found ur article via Google search, I spoke/ e-mail Katja from YL since last week, want to buy some essential oil, pls send me more info Thanx. Regards Briana

    Reply

    1. Hi there. I am sorry but I don’t understand. I don’t sell oils but you can buy them online. Thanks! They do ship overseas.

      Reply