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 know you have a lot going on Adrienne but, I just wanted to take a moment and say think you! Thank you for your hard work, your professionalism, and your kindness to others (especially when they aren’t). I have been using doTerra and NOW but, after reading this series (and all the comments – or at least a good portion of them) – I’m going to be checking Native American out and give them a try. Like you, I have an autistic child, a very hipper 5 yr old and a 1 yr old. My 1 yr old had been on 3 different antibiotics (in a 3 month timespane) for the same problem (it would go away for a while and then come back with a vengeance). I didn’t like that one bit and I am thankful for the essential oils…. Now to learn, learn, learn…. :).
Thank you!!! We’ve been going through a lot. This is so appreciated. Blessings!
I love NAN oils! Been using them for about 8 months now and I’ve been adding a few new ones each month because the outcome of using the first few I purchased (peppermint, lavender, and eucalyputs citriodora) was outstanding. I was curious that in your reasons for choosing NAN over the other companies you didn’t mention anything about the bottles the oils are packaged in. Only NAN (at least that I’m aware of) uses blue cobalt bottles vs the typical brown glass bottles. Here is what Paul Dean says about the bottles:
Most companies bottle their essential oils in brown glass. The advantage to this is the cost of the brown glass bottle is about half the price of the more expensive cobalt blue bottles. The downside to this is the brown glass will hold a frequency and the oils can easily be altered.
I prefer the cobalt blue or the more expensive violet glass bottles. I have found that these bottles will not hold the energy manipulation frequencies. When a frequency is placed on the oils in these bottles, within twenty-four hours the energies reset to the natural resonance of the essential oil. This eliminates the need for Natural Practitioners to constantly reset the essential oils to their natural frequencies. I have found that the energies of the Therapeutic Essential Oils are like a symphony rather than just a single instrument. To specifically categorize an essential oil under a specific frequency is not the best way to understand them.
I really appreciate your bringing this up. I do remember hearing some of this. I hope to write more soon. Thanks again!
Adrienne,
I’m just looking to start using EO’s on a more primary basis for our overall health and I am still in the research phase I’ve had success with Peppermint Oil and Lavender Oil. After a skin infection last month I read many things on commercial deodorant and was amazed that the chemicals are so bad for you that even the containers are non-recycled. While using Tee Tree Oil to heal it I decided to dilute some in a spray bottle and use it as deodorant instead of the store brand. Living in South Louisiana you can imagine that a person can’t go ½ a day without something. Both my husband and myself have been amazed at how much MORE effective this is over anything else we have ever tried. There’s no going back for us so I’m all about the knowledge and building my personal oil arsenal now.
So you used diluted tea tree for a deodorant? What did you dilute it with? Wow!
Great info, just getting started useing oils and love them
I admire you for not condemning other oils, but it am going to try native oils
Hope you like them!
Thank you so much for this review! I really appreciate it and am thinking of using NAN now. I was going to use Florihana, distributed by Tropical Traditions, but now I’m a bit cautious and wondering if you could look into them. Their prices seem a bit to good to be true and I’m wondering if it’s because they use multiple distillations perhaps? I wrote to them to ask if their oils were adulterated and they were somewhat unclear, saying they were 100% pure and natural (alcohol or coconut oil can be 100% pure and natural). I wrote again, and they said a particular Lavender of theirs was only essential oil, but I might want to check about the others, but it should be the same with most. I heard a few good things about them, but wanted to mention them to you!
Hi there. I’m just swamped and can’t look into all the companies anymore – you can look at this post and contact them to see if they measure up. Thanks! wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/toxic-overload-health-concerns/essential-oils-testing-is-it-reliable/
Did you check out Fabulous Franny oils? My daughter uses that company and it’s the only personal experience we’ve had so far.
Sorry but I can’t comment on all the companies – I’m just swamped. You can check out this post and see if they measure up – I hope to write more about choosing a company soon. wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/toxic-overload-health-concerns/essential-oils-testing-is-it-reliable/
As a newbie to EO’s I came across Adrienne’s’ blog. I emailed her and she directed me to this series. I am impressed with her objectivity and quite frankly don’t know how she has the time to do her investigations but, bravo. Thank you so much for willingly sharing this knowledge. I am looking into using EO’s personally and I am not promoting or affiliated with ANY company. Knowledge is power so please keep it coming.
Many thanks to you,
Shelly
Thanks so much, Shelly!!! I am swamped – trying to keep up. :).
I recently found out about EOX – Essential Oil Exchange. According to the information I’d seen on some website, their oils were reported to also be a high quality. Better than YL and others you tested. Does anyone know anything about the quality of their oils. You can also join for $10 monthly to get half off retail prices. I can say that of the 5 or 6 different lemon and lavender oils I have, they smell a lot better. The drops of lemon oil I place in my water actually tastes like lemon and is refreshing. All of the others are difficult to use in this manner. I have some lavender oil I can’t even use as fragrance in my toilet. It just plain smells like diesel. Any insight on EOX would be appreciated.
Sorry but I just can’t comment on all the companies – I’m swamped :). I would check out this post to see if they measure up and I hope to write more soon. Thanks! wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/toxic-overload-health-concerns/essential-oils-testing-is-it-reliable/
Hello Adrienne,
Thankyou for this website and all the testing on companies you did ! Very informative & educational. There are so many oils to choose from & a bit confusing at times.
Thanks much!!!
Could you help me? I am interested in the NAN brand, but do I need to sign up or just order on their website for the best deal? Also, what does it mean when some of the oils say “neat” and are a lot more money? What is special or different about this label?? Thank you so much!
You just order. NEAT means no carrier oil. Otherwise they are the straight oils. Hope that helps!