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.
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.
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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.
I steer clear of the EO from MLM’s mainly because I don’t want the marketing pitch – I already have a job! Plus I find them extremely expensive. Have you looked at New Direction Aromatics? I’m researching them now and am going to try a small order to see how I like the products. I’m also curious what you’d think about Saje products. I have some blends from them and I enjoy them but they are pricey compared to making your own.
Yes, I looked at both of those companies at various times. This is a new post w/ more information that should be of interest: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/how-to-know-if-your-essential-oils-are-pure/
Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into this. Like all human beings, I love nothing more than having my own opinions validated, oh wait, hearing my grandchildren tell me they love me tops even that. LOL. I’ve been an RMO customer for years and any time I have tried other companies’ products I came away disappointed! Living as I do in a fly-in only area of bush Alaska access to stores is limited to a $200.00 round trip flight to Anchorage in tiny planes, so finding a company with fast and reliable shipping is Imperative. I reccomend RMO to anyone who wants reliable qualityand speedy service without any sales pressure other than the occasional sale notice by email!
I have used mostly YL oils and have noticed they now have Vitality which is labeled for internal use. Your thoughts?
Hi Faye – thanks for reading. That new labeling is due to YL wanting to have a label that indicated food usage. However, the oils haven’t changed and haven’t gone through any additional testing to my knowledge. It’s merely a result of the FDA regulation that they will not allow a label to be on a product for more than one use and the original YL labels already indicated 2 uses. I maintain that these guidelines are good for knowing if your oils are pure or not. https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/how-to-know-if-your-essential-oils-are-pure/
I will be writing more soon – stay tuned!
If you’d like to not miss a post please sign up for my newsletter here: https://wholenewmom.com/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-essential-oils-before-you-buy/ Thanks!
Yes yl has vitality line labeling. They paid for it. They did the work. All others will try to follow suit. Now you know the leader
Hi Trina. I think that YL has done a lot to bring essential oils into the mainstream but it isn’t a logical conclusion that the first in an industry is necessarily the best. Nor is it logical to say that if others follow that it was a good thing to do. Many people copy bad things and many companies that aren’t the first are top notch.
I’m a real stickler for honestly in advertising and have left many companies b/c of statements that don’t make sense.
Thank you so much for all of your time and research! As someone with a lot of health issues that really affect me mentally, I just cannot do much research and so rely on people like yourself to do it for me. I was searching for a good EO company (had my doubts about YL and DoTERRA) and am so excited to try Rocky Mountain Oils! Young Living introduced me to the world of essential oils, and I will always love their Digize (I think we all have an oil (or blend of oils) that made us fall in love! ) . But, like you, I just wanted to make sure I was getting the best. I hope you are profiting from this and good for Rocky Mountain… they deserve all of the new customers! I also really appreciated the way you handled the conflict (sorry you had to deal with that!). I’m glad I found you. You have a new follower!
-Christina
Thank you and welcome!!! Hope to see you around again. If you are so inclined you can sign up for my newsletter here: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/natural-remedies/announcing-the-best-essential-oils-company-and-a-great-sale/
I liked the Digize too. There are other great digestive blends out there too – you might be surprised :).
Hello there, I remember reading your series on Essential oils and was obsessed. I’ve been using Rocky mountain oils and for some strange reason Im looking for a change. I thought I remember you listing another company as you began using after you completing the series. Thanks so much!
I mentioned this one that has been adding more oils to its offerings. https://wholenewmom.com/neals-yard-remedies-nyr-organic/
This is a very informative read and I would be interested to see how they fair against the bp monographs to validate the ability to use them for therapeutic purposes. Without this essentially it can not be used against any clinical evidence. While I strongly applaud this company for its strong stance on accurate acquisition of oils including co2 extraction, I would be interested to see if it can meet the bp monograph in order to be therapeutic.
My understanding is that the BP Monograph is a published collection of quality standards for UK medicinal substances. Is there some aspect of it that you think that the purity standards in this post wouldn’t meet? https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/how-to-know-if-your-essential-oils-are-pure/
Hi All, I just want to ask if anyone ever tried using medical cannabis as an alternative meds? I have read many articles about medical marijuana and how it can help you in terms of chronic pain, glaucoma, eating disorder/anorexia, anxiety disorders and panic attacks, inflammation, even cancer and a lot more. Like this article about a marijuana strain:Phantom Cookies from:https://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/phantom-cookies/ . Cbd and thc are also new to me and I don’t even smoke. If this is true I cant find any solid conclusive evidence that speaks to its efficacy. Any personal experience or testimonial would be highly appreciated. Thanks
Hello Daniel -just going back through comments as I have been swamped! So interesting you asked about this. I just started using a hemp oil product and my son has seen amazing results. I would be happy to tell you about it anytime. Here is my post on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/WholeNewMom/posts/1379620622092215
My husband and I have seen results as well.
So much great information! I have studied oils for years and have used YL for ages. However… I’ve been thinking about making some changes and am happy to have all this info about Rocky Mountain Oils. I used Rocky Mountain Oils many years ago and have just started receiving their emails again. Must be time for me to try them again! Thanks!
You are so welcome! Look forward to seeing you around again!
Thank you!
You are welcome!
I’ve enjoyed reading the series. Funny thing, I was going to ask you what you thought of Rockymountainoils.com Ha ha! I’m using YL and found your blog when I thought, “I wonder if I can find pure oils at a cheaper price and with less hype.
The only thing I will say in which I differ from your school of thought is that, to me, there’s nothing wrong with ingesting certain oils in small quantities (for example: 1 drop off peppermint oil to 32 oz. water), or ingesting oils for use in recipes (oregano or garlic oil, etc.) I believe that people with health issues should most certainly research everything they are ingesting including the horrible junk the FDA approves. It’s risky business otherwise. Medicine givers, I mean doctors, have a great purpose in stitches, setting broken bones, and surgeries, at times; but they aren’t God. Sometimes, getting back to basics and truths of old provide greater relief and even a better quality of life. The best doctors listen to patients, admit when they don’t know, and are willing and continue to learn.
On another note, I’d love to get you’re take on blends you have tried from RMO.
Finally, ignore the critics who say you “ramble.” They are just a different type of personality and communicator. Me, I can take a two minute conversation and turn it into a fifteen minute story. (That’s called creativity.) Logical minds see things from all angles and perspectives then find the best possible solution based on what they have learned. (It’s the same reason we can load the dishwasher with twice as many dishes or the trunk of the van with all the luggage and still have a window to see out of in the back. ?)
All that to say…Keep learning and telling! Thanks!!!
My phone stinks for proofreading. Add my missing quote mark and fix my mistakes, please. Lol
Thank you!
About blends – sorry I forgot to mention that. I’ve tried a lot. Interestingly, one of my faves is Lymph Support. I find it to be very calming. LMK what you are interested in and maybe I can help but the reviews are very helpful online.
I just want to thank you for all the time you put in. I also tend to research all things my family and I use, or eat. I am also a natural medicine gal and was very happy to read your info! Thanks again! (Keep up the good work!)
Thank you so much!
Oh wow! I just found this blog. Thank you so-o-o much for all of your research. I am a stay-home, homeschooling Mom and have used YL since 2012. Not as a distributor. I don’t like MLMs. (I have done many). I just bought the kit to get the discount. It has helped my family, most of the time, but the cost has been a lot due to automatic monthly shippings. And I was just thinking the other day if I should look into DoTERRA since my doctor’s office switched from YL to DoTerra etc…Your research has helped a lot and I am going to click on your link to Rocky Mountain Oils. (Oh and I am a former Pharmaceutical sales rep so, I was way-y-y-y skeptical about essential oils and alternative medicine in general. Now, I am a cheerleader).
Thanks so much and welcome! This is a new post that might be of interest :). https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/how-to-know-if-your-essential-oils-are-pure/
Thank you for taking the time to write this series. You covered an amazing amount of ground and write with a voice that is much more genuine than flashy videos. Hope you do get rewarded from affiliate links because you are providing a great value to readers.
Thank you so much for the kind words. I don’t know how to make flashy videos. Yet. Maybe someday. But my voice will not change. Hope to see you around again.
Hi Adrienne; thanks so much for this post (and the whole series!). I’m coming back to it after reading when it was first posted. I’m curious, have you looked into Plant Therapy? Their prices are great, they share information from experts, and seem very transparent about their sourcing and testing… I will be sure to check out your post on oil purity, too, but figured I’d ask about this company specifically in case you had any info.
Yes, I have looked at them – thanks for reading!
Thank you so much for this article. I’ve been doing a lot of research. I have a friend that sells doTERRA, but I wanted to make sure I was making the best choice before buying. I decided I liked Rocky Mountain Oils the best (possibly because their website is the best), and this post makes me feel really good about it. As a researcher/writer, I understand how much time and effort you’ve spent on this series. I don’t usually leave comments, but this article is very much appreciated! Thanks.
Thanks for taking the time. Much appreciated and more to come. I’ve written more since as well like this post: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/how-to-know-if-your-essential-oils-are-pure/
It has been a long time since I have read a blog series that has actually grabbed my attention. Thank you for the information. It really is amazing to see others make choices outside of money…. Thank you for taking the time to put this series together and sharing it with the world.
Many blessings to you
Thank you so much, Jose. I will admit that it continues to be hard for me and I can’t keep on top of everything, but I have had to remove 2 companies from my site due to ethical issues. I lost a lot of time and money doing that. I appreciate your kind words. They mean so much. Hope to see you around again.
Hi, I think I posted this before (or tried to) but it didn’t post. I also wanted to know if the GC/MS testing (and also, what is QC testing?) is really necessary in general, or perhaps only for certain species which tend to be adulterated. Is there an argument to be made that boutique EO companies cannot afford such testing. One I contacted about seeing whether hexane could be present in their rose absolutes told me that no reasonably affordable test would detect any of the trace amounts that could conceivably be there.
Hi there. Sorry for the delay – trying to catch up! Hopefully this post will help: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/pure-essential-oils-testing/
Thoughts/knowledge about Melaleuca oils? I have been a rep for 10 + years and was excited to see they added oils.
Hi there. I looked into them. This post should be of help. https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/how-to-know-if-your-essential-oils-are-pure/ I didn’t really spend much time b/c the company has artificial colors and fragrances in their products.
I’m curious to know about goDesana oils? Have you researched them?
Yes, I did look into them. This post should be of help: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/how-to-know-if-your-essential-oils-are-pure/
What about Dr. Mercela’s essential oils? Have you ever heard of or researched them?
Hi there. Thanks for reading. I didn’t know that he had them but just went over and poked around. I would read this. https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/how-to-know-if-your-essential-oils-are-pure/ I will say that his bottles are very large. Typical bottles are either 15 ml or 10 and these are 30. For the most part I prefer smaller bottles to reduce waste, the temptation to use too much and the possibility for oxidation. But if you are going to be buying a lot then a larger bottle is helpful.