Where to Buy the Best Essential Oils
This post may contain affiliate links from which I will earn a commission. Learn more in our disclosure.
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.
Thank you so much for all the research and work you have put into essential oil companies. We are currently looking for a company that provides unadulterated oils that we can trust. Because there is little regulation in the essential oils market it is difficult to determine which company to trust with your family’s health. I am grateful for you hard work.
You are so welcome!
Do you have the AromaCloud Home diffuser from Native American Nutritionals? Just wondering if you have it and if you like it?
I don’t have their diffuser but I am planning to buy it soon. I have the doTERRA one but I don’t care for it and plan to sell it. Mr. Dean is very picky about diffusers and I really trust him on that.
In my opinion, the best, purist and highest quality essential oils come from Living Libations. ALL of their beauty and health products are amazing and pure and effective. They are expensive, but you are getting the best. You can tell just by the smell. http://Www.livinglibations.com. I have no affiliation with them or any other company. I’m a satisfied customer who has been very impressed with every EO and product I’ve tried and have known Nadine personally for many years.
I contacted them but didn’t get the info I wanted from them. I asked for a bunch of info and just got a listing of oils w/ how you might use them – nothing about sourcing, etc. So I just wasn’t thinking I could promote them. Just my opinion. I did think that they were really nice folks though :).
No attacks from me. Thanks for your comparative research. I am new to essential oils. However, I chose to go with Young Living because they own their farms all over the world. Therefore, if something ever goes wrong with their oils they can go directly to the farm, harvest and maybe even the plant. I trust a company that leaves nothing to someone else to determine the quality of what I put on or in my body.
Thanks much :). Native American goes to the farms as well – I forget how often, but they do. Thanks for sharing.
I was wondering if you could recommend a good essential oil reference book for Native American Nutritionals.
You can use any book you like and just cross reference the oils. This book was recommended to me by some in the industry and there are now books at the end of most of the posts in this series. Hope that helps!
I just wanted to say thank you for all the research you’ve put into this. I’ve just recently got into the whole essential oil thing and I’ve never been sure which company to order from. After seeing the verbal attacks on you, I wouldn’t go with that company. It’s not very professional of them to be pulling stunts like that.
I’m now going to look into Native American Nutritionals. I feel like my thoughts are totally scrambled right now (silly migraine), but thanks again. I find that the best people to review things are those that are just in it for them and not for money.
Thanks much. I know it’s a muddle. I really did want to make money too (my blogging and alternative care bills are getting higher) …..but I felt it wasn’t the right way to do it. I just couldn’t stay w/ them but it was tempting.
Thank you, Thank YOU for the great info and ALL your meticulous research AND for finding an answer to the question: Which essential oils company is the best, safest, etc, etc.
I got approached by a DoTerra sales rep and listened eagerly to her spiel but when she did an essential oils “scan” on me and told me what oils I needed none of the reasoning was accurate or made sense at all! Fortunately she gave me a few mini sample to “try before I buy” and I came home with lots of info and their glossy brochure. As I read about their products, saw their high price list that locked you into “packages” and more and realized their company was a pyramid sales program I became much more hesitant. Started doing internet research on the company and essential oils in general and found a whole bunch of info. questioning the quality statements and usage of Do Terra products and some others like Young Living as well. Hard to sort out the true answers but your blog has been a GREAT help. Thanks, J
You’re so welcome. I hope you like the NAN oils if you try them.
Just read all seven posts in this series. Great information and thanks for doing all the research for me! Our farm started making & selling body butter using tallow from our herd at weekly farmers markets. Knowing nothing about EOs I purchased whatever I found at the local health food store thinking they’d done the same research. My goal was to simply mask the smell of the tallow (which is why I purchased to most pleasant smelling oils). Customers already clued into the value of EO politely informed me that there are difference from one brand to another. YL was mentioned more than once. Thanks for going into detail about your selection process and why you chose NAN. I look forward to trying them.
Thanks so much and I hope you like them. Your body butter sounds amazing!!!!!
Have you looked at NYR Organic essential oils?
Thanks!
I haven’t – I just got too overwhelmed by it all and didn’t hear of them ’til much later. I did hear they have a small set of oils available. I would see if they meet the criteria I talked about in this post: wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/toxic-overload-health-concerns/essential-oils-testing-is-it-reliable/. I hope to write more.
I had to comment because I feel like you were speaking to me directly so I wanted to share some of my thoughts. Let me start by saying I have no degree in Nutrition (I went to Art school for Interior design) but my Mom and I studied with a naturopathic Dr who also was an herbalist. After spending my early to mid-twenties rebelling and trashing my body I found myself pretty messed up physically. Six years ago I found a MLM company with an amazing product and lost 67lbs, eliminated my chronic migraines, IBS, Fatigue and allergies. I became a wellness coach because my personal results were beyond my wildest dreams so it was very easy to share with others. I’m skeptical by nature and an “over-researcher” but it worked and it was a way for me to make money and stay home with my daughter. But I felt tremendous pressure to move up in the marketing plan and stretch myself in the promise of making more money which my family so desperately needed. I was a leader in the company but I had some doubts and nagging questions and I couldn’t get answers too. After 5 yrs I decided I would take a 6-month step back to focus on my babies(I was pregnant with my 3rd!). This is when I opened myself to explore other possibilities. Essential oils found me. I had tons of friends doing Young Living but because of the shady things(what you mentioned in part 1-3) I passed on checking it out. I went to informational meeting on doTerra and walked away with a few vials to try stuff out. I had horrible sciatica and leg pain so I was given deep blue and aroma touch. It was my first time ever believing something would NOT work, and it working so fast!!! I also have anxiety and stress problems and I have found the citrus bliss to be a lifesaver(mostly for my family, saving them from my bitchyness) I am leaving my MLM company and will be blogging about the reasons why in the next month and had been considering becoming a rep for doTerra but you have raised some GREAT and thorough questions regarding the purity and quality of the oils. I was told peppermint was safe to use internally and topically for children. I put a few drops on my 4 month old on her feet and she was miserable, spitting up even more and having loose stools so I won’t be trying that again. Especially after what you wrote. I still love the Meleluca, a few drops and it killed a huge cockroach in my kitchen. I appreciate your research and I’m always a little distrustful of people who attack(If what you believe is right then you shouldn’t fear an “opposing”view).
God bless you and your family. I wish you health and blessings. I hope to find my exact path that I can believe in 100% and contribute financially to my family.
Thanks for writing. May I ask which MLM you are leaving? I really wanted to stay w/ doTERRA but just couldn’t. I can’t tell anyone what to do but I would consider trying NAN’s oils and seeing what you think. It’s so hard to know but I felt that those at the top really should know about their peppermint oil and if even their scientist doesn’t know….that really bothered me.
Take care and hope to hear from you again. Maybe there’s another MLM you could join. Just an idea….or another path like being a VA for a health blogger :).