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.
Hi Adrienne, based on your recommendation, I purchased some essential oils from Native American Nutritionals. However, when my order arrived, it came from Rocky Mountain Oils. Their websites are very similar, too. Are they different companies, or the same? Thanks.
Hi there. Here is the response from the owner of NAN. They are waiting for new labels and are using the RMO labels for now.
Just a question: If NAN and RMO are the same company, why the two branches?
They joined together to help each other and then thought they would merge completely but didn’t. They both have strengths that the other doesn’t but decided to keep the companies separate. The oils are the same – thanks!
Dear Adrienne,
Thank you for your research. I had never heard of NAN before visiting your site, and placed an order with them on June 8th for $131 worth of oils. For me thats quite alot more than I wanted to spend, but because I live in Hong Kong it made sense to order more and get more in one shipment. Now I have the oils here, I have a problem. The oils really do not smell good. In fact some smell terrible. I purchased REVITALIZE, MIGRAINE RELIEF, TUMMY RUB, JOYFUL MOMENTS, FLU-TIME, MEDITATION, EUCALYPTUS, FRANKINCENSE.
I thought maybe the problem was with me, until I opened the FRANKINCENSE. It smells absolutely nothing like the heavenly smelling Frankincense from Young Living. I only have two oils from YL – Frankincense and Lavender and both smell good. But from NAN the majority of the oils I got are kind of unbearable to use because of the terrible smell. How can the same oil from two different companies smell totalllllly different. And how is it that YL smells like 100 times better? I feel cheated…to be honest – completely 100% cheated.
NAN are also not replying my emails to get a refund. Therefore my advice is not to continue with this company and not to recommend them to innocent consumers like me, who trust bloggers like yourself a lot but then get screwed by companies like NAN. I am not blaming you because perhaps your experience is different. I have sent them three emails regarding a refund, and have had no reply to the last two emails in the last 7 days. Doesn’t leave a good taste in the mouth for someone who order US$130 on their first order.
Nick
Hi Nick. I just contacted the company about your situation and they can’t find any orders to Hong Kong under the name of Nick. Or for an order for that amount going to Hong Kong – so is this a legitimate complaint and a real order? I don’t know what to think. If so and there are just crossed signals, here is the owner’s response:
*****************
Please give me your invoice number and they can look it up that way. Your story is really outside the normal with most people loving NAN’s oils over YL’s.
I am SO grateful to have found this blog and your review of essential oils. I was just about ready to invest $$$ with DT and now I believe I’ll take your advice instead. This article also helped me understand why the cheap stuff I see on Amazon may not be such a good deal. Thanks!
Thanks Lavon! Hope to see you around again – more coming on oils when I get the chance :)!
I live in Minnesota and found an oil company in this state.
It’s called Veriditas Botanicals.
I checked their website and they only sell to retail stores. I did find the oils at my local store and tried them.
They do have one person that you can order online with, in case you don’t have a local store.
Do you have any info on them?
Thanks for all your research, it is very helpful.
Liz in MN
I’m sorry but I got so burned out talking to all of the companies. I had to stop. If you check out the points in this post you can go to them and ask about their practices. Then, of course, you need to trust what they say. :).
wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/toxic-overload-health-concerns/essential-oils-testing-is-it-reliable/
I would be very interested in a “TOP 10” list of oil companies from your findings. Because I’m also a bit of a skeptic, I have a hard time going ahead with a certain company just because you said so. Since you have done so much research on so many different companies, I would love to see a short list of companies that you would consider to have great quality oils, so I can look into them myself and choose from among the best you’ve found which ones feel like the right choice for my family.
Hi there. I don’t have a top 10 b/c I just stopped looking. Frankly I was exhausted. I started thinking Young Living and then doTERRA were “the way” and I found out that there were other options as I started calling companies and not getting the answers I thought I should have gotten from doTERRA and YL. I’m not saying that they have bad oils, but I wasn’t comfortable with the Thieves promo material from YL and the leadership’s responses to my inquiries about the peppermint oil at doTERRA. I think it’s likely best to use this post as a starting point and see if you think another company fits. I know that Native American does and I plan to have more posts about them. I understand your feelings but I tried to lay out what I think is important so that you can see what they do that fits w/ those guidelines. They are transparent, they don’t make exaggerated claims, they caution internal use, they work directly w/ small farms, they have high standards, and they don’t have exorbitant prices. Plus, and I haven’t talked about this yet (in a post), but they work to support those in third world countries. I just am very happy and I could spend countless hours calling more companies but I just can’t.
If I find something I don’t like about them I will start calling again :). wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/toxic-overload-health-concerns/essential-oils-testing-is-it-reliable/
I hope that helps.
Only recently have I become acquainted with EO variety available and their many uses. I was invited to a YL event and found the information very interesting. I found your series intriguing, so much I fact I read all posts one after another. This isn’t the end of my investigation but merely the beginning, but do feel I have a good understanding on which to base my search. Thank you for spending the time to put this together, and I hope it helps it enlighten many more as it sparked the desire in me to find out all I can before making these choices for me and my family.
Thanks so much – more to come hopefully.
Hi and thanks so much for the time you are putting into this. (I can’t believe you are taking the time to respond to each comment, but it’s awesome!) Here’s my problem: I am going to order from Native American but I do not understand the discussion about their non merging merger. What is the point of keeping the companies separate? And if they are keeping the two companies separate, then how can I be sure that the products are the same, and most importantly that the quality is the same? And, btw, why go to the expense of rebranding and repackaging IF the products are the same, just trying to confuse the consumer? It comes across as very odd. Many thanks again for your hard work.
Hi Claire – I just posted a response from NAN’s owner on this thread, I believe – did you see it? Their oils are completely the same. If you wish I can ask again. Thanks! I suspect they are keeping things separate for business or financial or legal reasons.
Adrienne – so excited to read your info on oils. I have a friend who is into YL and I almost signed on but NAN is so much more affordable. I would not have known which to go with so thank you for your time/effort in compiling this info. Now – wondering if NAN has any oils for sleep apnea? YL suggests their blends Valor and Clarity. NAN has similar blends but they do not specifically state any of their oils for apnea. Perhaps I should just contact NAN through their online form instead of going through you?
Thank again and I will be ordering through your link
Hi and sorry for the delay. This is from the owner of Native American:
I have heard that gut health is really important to deal w/ for apnea symptoms and you might wish to look at palate expansion.
This is all of course not medical advice. Thanks!
I am sorry to make another comment since you are inundated with so many but here is the scientific info on the titanium dioxide of which you mentioned about the doTerra On Guard toothpaste…I was trying to save you time and posting it–https://www.melisa.org/metals-disease/metals/titanium
Thanks for your research and attention to this for all of our safety and our wallets…
I appreciate that. It appears to only deal w/ those who have an allergy to it – not addressing whether or not it is safe to use. Am I missing something perhaps? Thanks.
My goodness, my goodness! All these comments–I have never seen so many! Way to go you little researcher, brainiac–from one to another.. I will def. check out NAN through your link but am about to purchase the doterra toothpaste in which you mentioned the titanium dioxide as a heavy metal. Of course, I went here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_dioxide as a starting point. If you scroll all the way to “Pigment” as a topic, you can begin to see what they are thinking about including it into the toothpaste for a white pearly smile. It is used in dye/pigment (red candy) but the other day, I saw a list of the natural elements (Titanium being one) found in food naturally. I hate my toothpaste and do not want to use baking soda so much….what to do? and what do you know? What about this heavy metal stuff? Is it really going to be poisonous I wonder?
I would prefer to use something else to whiten my smile. I am working on it now but titanium dioxide only makes the product white – I think it’s the silica that is supposed to help whiten teeth b/c that is basically sand and it would polish the teeth. I think it best to avoid the titanium but as far as what I have read about it the thoughts are equivocal.