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 am glad to see your findings of the best oils. A friend introduced me to YL and swears they are the only pure ones out there. But another friend reccomended rockymountainoils i checked them out and their prices are far more affordable than YL. When i look at the site of Native American Nutritionals and rocky mountian oils they look identical and looks like the same oils as well. And i also like that they are not MLM so you are not paying a premium to buy them thru a distributer. And i just orderd 4 oils and paying less than $3 shipping. I also like that they do offer the option to buy some blends “neat” where YL doesnt have that option on compairable blends. And of course i love that they offer 2 different sizes of oils where YL does not offer the same option on most oils
They are the same oils. I like the size options too! May I ask if you ordered through my link? It really helps support my blogging expenses and keep writing. Thanks so much!
Can you send me the link i should use to order.
Here is for Rocky Mountain. https://wholenewmom.com/RockyMountainOils
hi, do you know if Native American uses distributers or ambassadors to sell their oils and products?
thanks!
They aren’t accepting affiliates right now. No distributors. Sorry about that :).
Thank you so much for all the wonderful information. I am new to the EO area. I was wondering if you knew of a blend that is good for Asperger’s. I have known a lot of people to see results with Jeddys Blend but I was wondering you thoughts. Thank you again for sharing.
Hi there and welcome! Are you looking for something to help focus or calming? If calming, I would try this one: (Tranquility) https://wholenewmom.com/TranquilityEO
or this one for Focus: https://wholenewmom.com/FocusEOBlend
Those are all affiliate links. I hope that helps!
Thanx for the quick response.
Which reference guide do you recommend?
Can I continue to use my aura cacia & now oils? I’m ok either way. I don’t have that much
I think for now I would look at the books at the bottom of each of my oils posts. Each book has plusses and minuses so start with one or two and go from there. I personally chose to use the lower priced oils just for laundry and such and not for health issues. I hope that helps.
Hey! I’m REALLY late to the oils game, but I just KNEW there had to be more affordable oils than the MLM companies you discussed. I did a bit of research and came across Native American Nutritionals. On a little bit more than a whim I ordered a sample pack a few days ago and it should arrive tomorrow. I just happened upon your blog posts and I am THRILLED that this is the exact company you are recommending! Cant’ wait till mine arrive!
Yea! Great minds, eh? I hope to hear back what you think about them.
Hiya. Thank for all this amazing info! Question; now that it’s been awhile what are your comments on Native oils?
Do you still hold they are the winner?
Hi there. I still completely recommend them. Very happy. I hope you like them and thanks!
Hi Adrienne! I’ve REALLY enjoyed and appreciated reading all your articles concerning your Essential Oil ‘investigative reporting’ lol….I’ve never used oils (well, a couple of times but many years ago) but have read A LOT about them in the past few months, and it’s been in interesting journey. I’m at the stage where I really want to try them out, but have been feeling extremely confused by various passionate (perhaps a little pushy) reps I’ve come across from various companies, all very eager for me to join them for what seems like A LOT of money and – if I’m honest – a lot of hype (I’m not really into hype!). Also I’m a Christian, and couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable at how so many people seem to put all their faith and hope and draw all their strength from oils…..my faith, hope and strength comes from Jesus, and I don’t really want to put myself in a position where a substance becomes my go-to for emotional, spiritual or physical help! So your articles have been a real breath of fresh air…..you want to know does this oil work? Will it break my bank account? What are the ethics and heart behind the company? And are they insanely obsessed with oils or do they merely use them as a useful health supplement in everyday life? Basically you’ve made my job of working all this out A LOT easier, so thank you!! 🙂 I had a look on the Native American Nutritionals website and so far I love what I see (although I’m still not sure how a smell can make you feel confident etc, but like you I guess I’m a bit of a skeptic and will have to try these things out for myself!) I have one question – you said you’ve become an affiliate, but I can’t see anything about selling on the website. Whilst this is extremely refreshing, I was just wondering if you have a link so I could have a look at what you do? Many thanks!! Becki xx
Hi Becki – what a sweet comment – thank you so much!
I hear you on all of this. As for the feelings I think that smells and such do affect emotions so I think that is where they are coming from. There are studies showing that certain scents affect moods. As for the affiliate question, you just click through my link to their site and I get credit for the sales. Just simple and just like it works for other companies that I am an affiliate for. Hope that helps! If you need anything else let me know.
Ahh that makes sense! So it’s an affiliate thing like Google affiliates…..I’m still learning about how to do these things so that’s really interesting 🙂 I do have on more question – NAN don’t seem to have any booklets etc on how to best use their oils and what for. How did you learn 🙂 ? xx
I am not familiar w/ Google affiliates. It’s like other companies where if you click through and make a purchase the blog owner gets paid depending on how soon after clicking you purchase. I recommend looking at the books that I have at the end of the posts in this series and I hope to have a post on more essential oils books in the future.
By the way, I contacted Rocky Mountain, as I assumed you could receive affiliate perks from bot (you should add/edit that NAN and Rocky Mountain are one and the same now (all of Nan’s oils have changed names to match RM) They said they would give you credit. I had registered with them before I knew you were an affiliate. I have read the articles numerous times and kind of found RM on my own, then figured out they were also NAN and made my choice with the help of your research.
As for Paleo, not specifically but I am essentially gluten free ( I buy non processed spelt flour which I use sparingly) I use very little sugar and its only raw. Honestly, sugar seems to affect me the most and high fructose corn syrup is awful. I am actually an herbalist and graduated with my Master’s in Acupuncture the year I was diagnosed. I have created some amazing oil blends of my own!!!!! I am a healer my nature and my knowledge of herbs just expands what I do with oils. It’s a slow process for me for some reason. The disease is very progressed. : ( I am trying very desperately to get off Western Medicine, ugh is all I can say) I pray oils can be my answer but I always run out and my YL orders take so long that I go way too long after starting to feel better) Anyway, it’s a long process and I am just praying it works soon.
Thanks for telling me. I have heard amazing things about the AIP diet so I would highly recommend it. I was told by one practitioner that “eating a little bit of gluten is like being a little bit pregnant–there is no such thing”.
Hope you continue to heal :).
You have well over 2000 comments. As someone who had already signed with YL but was overwhelmed by cost and needed oils I can take internally for Rheumatoid Arthritis, I was blown away by your research. I loved my YL oils but can’t handle cost and I am not keen on getting a divorce because I spend so much for Frankincense!!!!! Then there is the fact that things go out of stock all the time. Then there is how long it takes to get them. There are a few products I will continue to order from YL. (Ningxia Red for one) BUT I just made my first order from Rocky Mountain (now combined with NAN) I can’t wait and I hope I have great results!!!!!
Thank you!
Michelle
No, divorce over Frankincense is NOT a good idea :). Have you looked at the autoimmune paleo diet? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0578135213/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0578135213&linkCode=as2&tag=whnemo-20&linkId=L5JTC7JAN3W42YUO This book is very good. It’s an affiliate link.
I went to the site for Native American Nutritionals and they don’t have thieves oil.
Hi there. It’s called “Immune Strength” on their site. Hope you like it! Let me know if you can’t find it or need any other help.
One other option is you could make your own like I do sometimes: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/homemade-anti-bacterial-thieves-essential-oil-blend/