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.
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 might have missed this… can you tell me if NAN are distilled more than once?
No, they are not redistilled. A few oils have additional things done to them for good reason – they let the peppermint age to get rid of some of the herby smell, for example.
Hi, I just wanted to say a huge thank-you for all the brain cells you expelled to research this HUGE subject. I’m pretty sure my brain would have exploded by now , if I had tried it myself. Ever time I “tried” looking up stuff on the internet, there was just to much information , you get way to overwelled if you don’t know exactly what your doing.
You brought up some very good points . I would have never thought about the native plants in their own country’s thing. Not sure why….it makes total sence.
I only wish I had found your blog sooner. I just signed up under YL.
But I’ve bookmarked your page, and I will be trying out Native American Nutritionals to be sure.
Well, at least you didn’t buy as much as I did. And sign up with doTERRA too :)! thanks!
“During the time that I have been talking to Paul Dean, Native American and Rocky Mountain have decided to merge and they are now working together. They hope to join together to offer more quality customer service and educational offerings in the the future.”
So, now there is an addition to this company, and you know nothing about them, or they were a company that you investigated and rejected? WHY would we now trust this ‘great company’ NAN, if it has been ‘adulterated’ buy another company and it’s practices? Not trying to be negative or judgemental, just want to know. You have researched NAN pretty well from this account, and either did the same for RM, but rejected them for some reason, or didn’t investigate them at all, meaning you have NO idea about them. Now they are merging, so that means that RM is now become PART of NAN, basically diluting it’s greatness.
Please explain. Up until that announcement, I was seriously considering NAN, even though I am EXTREMELY satisfied with my own MRH. But after that statement, I am NOt about to change.
Thank you.
Hi Carol. They haven’t been adulterated. They have the same oils. They are joining together b/c each has strengths that the other doesn’t. My understanding is that RMO was using NAN’s oils the whole time. I hope that helps.
I’m so glad I’ve read this! As someone who has been researching E.O’s but does not have the time to devote to all of the companies (almost one year for you, oh my!) I’m thankful to have come across this. I’ve looked into Y.L and doTerra, mostly because of the Rep’s and classes they offer. Also, because in my business (all things Birth related) knowing your blends is important and they offer so much in the way of blending oils for ___ issue. Their prices, however… well $100 a month for anyone is a bit extreme, in my opinion. Thank you for writing this and I will surely be giving N.A.N a look-through!
Thanks! Glad it helped!
And the fact that you are an affiliate for this company in no way influenced your decision to select this company as the one you recommend?
Hi Ann. I addressed this several times in the comments, but Native American didn’t even have affiliates when I talked to them. I had about 19 folks under me at Young Living at the time and was told I could make about $8000 per month with doTERRA, but I just couldn’t represent them any more. I kept investigating and thought I needed to go w/ NAN and asked if there was a way to make money with them and we worked something out. I will drop them if I find a reason to, but I haven’t. I hope that helps.
Hi there,
I found this very informative – thanks. I have a friend who is a rep for doTerra, and who has been encouraging me to buy their products. I am always put off when someone is a rep, so decided to do some investigation first. I tend to buy my essential oils from Whole Foods. They used to sell Tisserand oils, but they seem to have been replaced by Aura Cacia, and I have been buying those. I noticed you had a picture of an Aura Cacia bottle, but after reading through your Essential Oils blogs, I couldn’t find any mention of that brand. Have you tried Aura Cacia or Tisserand at all? I know Tisserand started in the UK (where I am from originally), so wondered if they had become cost prohibitive here in the USA.
Thanks again,
ELizabeth McEwen
I tried AC – It seems to me that they use experts to get their oils from what I read online but I can’t find that any more. I didn’t feel that their oils were as strong so that w/ the other is the main reason I didn’t go w/ them. I didn’t check Tisserand’s shipping but I think his personal care line is full of artificial stuff so that I found to be puzzling.
Hi, my name is Hannah and I’ve read through all of your series on the best essential oil. I’ve been using Now brand just because it is affordable and easily accessible for me although the price kind of fits into the “too good to be true” category. I have trusted Now Foods for a lot of things and wasn’t using it for internal use. I read through tons of the comments on Part 7 of your series and kind of got bogged down – there are TONS of comments!!!! Anyway, I could be missing something, but the only thing I saw against MRH was that the company doesn’t recommend them for internal use. I thought that that issue was explained as really not being viable because of the insurance involved in being able to label something for internal use. I like what I see with NAN, but it’s on the pricey side for my budget. MRH is kind of in between Now and NAN, but if it’s a similar quality to Now, I might as well stick with the Now (even though I do like that MRH has so many organic options). I’m needing to make an order, but I’m torn because I want to have the “best” for my family, but the “best” of anything is almost never in our budget. Also, I’m still kind of in the experimental stage with essential oils. If someone in my family had a major health concern that we were trying to treat with EOs, then I would totally get the NAN, but we don’t, so I’m trying to decide what to do. Maybe to break it down, I pretty much know what you’re criteria are for an EO, so maybe if you don’t mind just listing the specific areas that MRH and Now don’t match up to that, that would help with my decision. I’m sorry I’ve been so lengthy, I’m just trying to make the best decision for my family while realizing that this is a HUGE controversy, and there is no possible way for me to do all the research myself. So, thank you in advance and thank you so much for all the footwork that you’ve put into this. It’s been so helpful finding that someone has done what I would like to do, but can’t! -Hannah
I am sorry but am so swamped. I started talking to MRH again and got stuck on some questions. I might get back to it. NOW appears to use experts which I am not keen on – at least I am pretty sure they do. Thanks!
awesome job with all the research on these oils!!
I am just starting my essential oils journey. I have heard TONS about YL (it seems to be the latest “in thing” right?) I am always suspicious of popular gimmicky things (and pyramid scheme type things) I appreciate all the information found in your articles and want to try out NAN…I have friends that are die hard YL fans and I was looking at one of their info books the other day, they say their stuff is grown all over the world. Is this “new” compared to the info in your studies? Wondering how YL stacks up against NAN now two years later?
It is grown all over the world, but from what I gather the majority is in the US. They have HUGE farms here. I am still much happier w/ NAN. Did you read this post? https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/toxic-overload-health-concerns/essential-oils-testing-is-it-reliable/
Are there any “essential oils for dummies” type books out there that you could recommend?
Overwhelmed with EO information and now that I’ve read all about the companies and testing methods I’m just wanting simple how to type instruction (what to use for this or that)
Sorry if this has been addressed already in other comments – there are just way too many to read!! A full time job just replying to all of us!!
I am sorry for the delay! That’s a hard question. So many books out there! This book is one that was recommended to me by some in the industry, however. (affiliate link)
Hello,
I just wanted to take the time to say a big THANK YOU!
I am very similar to you in terms of scepticism and “detective type” personality.. All in all Ive been researching this stuff for 3 days and even then its difficult to figure everything out when you have zero knowledge. THANK YOU!
Hey thanks! Hope to see you around again. Did you subscribe to my blog :)? https://mad.ly/signups/97092/join
I’m just now jumping onto the oily bandwagon. I too have asked questions and researched. I’ve asked to the point where some companies have kindly told me to order or basically leave them alone! I appreciate the research you’ve done. What caught my attention was the fact that the Native products are organic or essentially organic. I do understand the difference- although basically means the same- organic. My family eats organic, I only want organic oils. I want to help our bodies, not make them detox from unnecessary pesticides. I’m the skeptic, but organic is organic. Other companies, I looked into Young Living quite heavily, seemed to dance around the organic question. They seemed to tell me what I wanted to hear based on my questions. I’m a huge foodie, I know organics, no one is going to pull the wool over my eyes 🙂 Thanks again for posting your findings. Like I said, I’m still the skeptic, but if in fact the statements are true above, them it seems I’ve found my oil source as well. I fully understand and appreciate no middle man and organic farming.
I think it’s very important as well. And even if they get the pesticides out, like I believe doTERRA claims they do, the organically grown plants should have more health qualities in them. Thanks so much! Hope to see you around again. 🙂