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.
Hi, thank you for your blog information. It led me to choosing NAN products (my first experience with EO companies) and I’ve been happy with them so far. A couple of questions:
1. Are you at all concerned with the quality of the oils since NAN’s merger with Rocky Mountain Oils? Are the oils still from the same source, distillation process the same, etc?
2. Do you have a second and third choice for oils that you cannot find through NAN or Rocky Mountain? Sometimes I come across a recommendation for a specific species of an oil, e.g. Scotch Pine, White Fir or Fir Balsam. Likewise, there are other oil recommendations such as Palo Santo, Goldenrod, Ledum, Camphor and many others that are not available through NAN. I’m not interested in YL or DoTerra products.
Your help is greatly appreciated.
Hi there. The oils are the same. In fact, if you would prefer to shop with Rocky Mountain for some reason, here is my affiliate link: https://wholenewmom.com/RockyMountainOils They were going to merge entirely but decided to keep the companies separate for business reasons.
As far as 3rd, I am not sure. I know what you mean about things you can’t elsewhere. I didn’t look into any other “3rd choice” enough to say but there were plenty of companies I wouldn’t personally choose. What’s tough is 2 companies that I would consider don’t have many of those oils. I would consider Mountain Rose Herbs and Nature’s Gift personally but I haven’t looked into them in enough detail to promote them here and they don’t have all that you are looking for. I take it you are trying to find subs for YL’s oils b/c I was looking for Palo Santo for awhile after using YL’s. I reached out to NG but didn’t hear back if my recollection is correct. I really got so exhausted with the whole process which I am sure you can understand :). I could reach out to the owner of NAN if you like.
Just caught the link to your article on thieves oil in an google search and then proceeded to read this whole series too. Thank you it was very informative. I wondering what your experience has been comparing Thieves Oil (that miraculous stuff!) and Native Americans immune strength. Thanks!
Hi Michelle. I like both of them. I now make my own blend, however, and like it just as well :). https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/homemade-anti-bacterial-thieves-essential-oil-blend/
Thank you so much for these articles and all the work you did. I am a licensed massage therapist in Florida and trying to add in more essential oils in my practice, plus a limited line of home made products – salt & sugar scrubs, beeswax candles, lip balm, massage oil combined with blended essential oils. I have been going crazy trying to figure out who to buy from – as you know even better than me, this is a long, tedious, confusing process at best! I will check out Native American Nutritionals and thanks again for your help.
You are so welcome! Sounds like a great business you have going there!
FYI, as of spring 2014, doTERRA now credits shipping costs back to your account in product credits. Dollar for dollar.
Hi. I just found this via google as I am looking into different companies. Did you do any research/comparisons using Spark Naturals? I am curious about them. Thanks.
I did but I can’t talk about specific companies any more. I would look at this list to see if they measure up. I didn’t choose to go with them. https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/toxic-overload-health-concerns/essential-oils-testing-is-it-reliable/
what is the differences on NAN’s oils when they have two types to order they show essential oil and then essential oil neat and the neat is much higher in price
Hi there. NEAT means without added carrier oil. They have a lot of customers who want the oils preblended so you can have the essential oil diluted to use right away. That is good especially for “hot” oils so you don’t burn yourself or sting. I prefer blending my own w/ whatever oil I have and also b/c then I can use a higher quality oil like organic coconut oil. I hope that helps :).
I am just getting into the EO movement and I really appreciate all your leg work and research into the matter. I read all 7 posts tonignt and have learned a lot. (It is almost 1am and I am still up reading, haha). The thing I am most puzzled about now is the local grown vs foreign/native grown. I have always heard that when using honey to help with allergies, use honey that is local to you because of the pollens used to make that honey – made sense to me. But I also see your point about where the botanicals grow naturally and getting the best benefit from soil and all. My husband’s boss’s family is very homeopathic and they recommeded only using herbs and oils local to our region vs foreign. I was wondering if you had any thoughts to these two conflicting schools of thought. (If you have blogged on this matter, just send me the link and I will read that, sorry, haha)
Hmmmm….I believe that the owner of Native American Nutritionals and others have told me that when a plant grows in its native habitat it is necessarily healthier b/c that is where it’s meant to grow and is happy growing. Honey is different b/c you are going for the native honey b/c the pollen is like an allergy shot for the person eating it as it is a little bit of the pollen to which he is allergic. Does that help? Thanks for the kind words!
Hi There Adrienne!
Am impressed with your research into essential oils. As someone who studied biochemistry at Virginia Tech (at that time the only university offering biochem as an undergrad degree, it’s normally a med school course) I’d be happy to help you with the technical aspects of chemistry.
I think you did an amazing job for someone who is not a chemist and you worked hard at being unbiased and extremely honest. I’ve smelled Mountain Rose oils and they are fantastic. I was just doing research this morning on how to make rose water. Someone told me that the best way to blend the oils is to hold the bottle and roll it between your two palms to warm it rather than shake it, just FYI.
I didn’t know that YL sourced all its oils in the USA. That, imho, as someone who does organic gardening is ridiculous. Different soils produce different types of flowers. There are summers here where some flowers go crazy and others don’t grow at all and vice versa. Some flowers need rocky mountain soil – e.g., saffron – and others need rich, loamy soil. Some need acidic and some need alkaline and limey soils. Not all the environments required for flowers exist in the US.
Again, I’d like to thank you and encourage you to ignore the “nay-sayers,” especially those with vested interests, that’s just water off a duck’s back 🙂
Kuddos and good luck with your health concerns. I’d encourage you to stay completely organic and non GMO.
Peace and Light,
Annette
Thanks for your kind words! I’ll keep you in mind – anything you’d like to share?
Interesting about the blending – thanks!
They don’t source all of the oils in the US but quite a few.
I am doing as much organic and non GMO as possible – thanks!
I very much appreciate the fact that you did this research with an open mind, and I did in fact make several purchases from active American Nutritionals based on your recommendation.
I have subsequently been spdoing a lot of research myself, and have some additional information to throw into the pot regarding how to choose an EO company.
Firms should make it easy to find the latin name, the country of origin, and the dilution percentage (if the oil is intentionally sold pre-diluted, such as in a roller applicator). In addition, customers should be able to request the chemical test results of the batch of oil they are considering. Even if you don’t know how to read the report, the companies that are transparent in this regard earn extra points in my book.
None of these points is particularly novel. What I have come to prize even more is whether qualified advice is available. Too many companies provide advice, but it is actually dangerous! As you noted yourself, ingestion can be dangerous. I have chatted via Facebook with several people who have permanent esophageal scarring from drinking EOs dripped in water.
So when I add the criteria of professional advice by certified aromatherapists, available to every customer, Plant Therapy rises to the top.
It is extra appealing that they have fair prices and free shipping and amazing customer service, but the easy access to qualified advice is an extraordinary benefit.
I don’t have any connection with the firm other than being a customer.
Sorry for the delay -trying to catch up here :).
I hope the NAN oils worked well for you. I do find it interesting that Plant Therapy only recently had artificial fragrances in their selection including the blended Lavender 40/42. I wonder why they made a change. I am more comfortable w/ a company that has consistently not sold that kind of stuff. Thanks so much!
Can Immune Strength be put directly on warts and if not, with what and how do you mix and apply?
I would personally try full strength as long as it isn’t on a sensitive area, but I wouldn’t advise that to anyone else as it can be really strong. I would get this carrier oil or a similar one from Native American and blend first. I use coconut oil all the time and just use my finger and wash my hands afterwards but that isn’t medical advice :). https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JQFFCHG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00JQFFCHG&linkCode=as2&tag=whnemo-20&linkId=YMPRQPG7HXGWXVD4 (affiliate link)