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.

Where to Buy Essential Oils you can trust
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Previous Posts In the Series:

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.

Confused about essential oils? What this blogger found out will surprise you. She tried to find out which essential oils company is best and found out some VERY interesting things about oils and the companies that sell them, including Young Living and doTERRA.

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 the “Big Guys” on the block.  So I started contacting a bunch of companies and interviewing them about their oils.

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 the owner for a few hours (at first….that turned into many hours in the upcoming month) and found that he really “knew his stuff.”

I also found out that there were a lot of differences between his company and many others in the industry. I asked him tons of questions during our first conversation, and then more and more over the course of the next 10 months, while I investigated other companies as well.  (Wow–it’s been that long since I started writing this series…..)

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, during which 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 (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.)

Where to Buy Essential Oils You Can Trust–
Rocky Mountain Oils Review

Please note – since this series was written, Rocky Mountain Oils has purchased Native American Nutritionals. Native American Nutritionals was the original company, but the two companies had a partnership. Then Rocky Mountain Oils (RMO) purchased NAN and now RMO is a new company.  I am even more confident in the quality of oils now that this all has taken place.

Before we get on with the details about the company, you can Rocky Mountain Oils and see all that they have to offer.

1.  Experience

The owner of Native American Nutritionals (which later merged with Rocky Mountain Oils), 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 Oilsall 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 has put a high 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

I found the shipping costs with YL and doTERRA to be a little on the steep side.  I was told several times by customer service reps of one of the companies that it was due to businesses being charged more than residential customers.

That didn’t make sense to me – business rates being more expensive than residential when they have that kind of bulk shipping going on? So I called UPS and FedEx and was assured that this is not the case.  So I don’t know why their shipping is so high.  Maybe they are pocketing the extra?  

Rocky Mountain Oils offers Free Shipping domestically in the U.S. and reasonable shipping internationally, with free shipping over $199.

10.  Common Sense Approach

The companies recommend using caution with the oils — but also make practical recommendations so that you can confidently use the oils in your every day life.

11.  No Adulterating

Oils are not heated, mixed with anything else, or adulterated in any way.

Unless declared on the label, the oils are pure.

No Minimum Purchase

One other reason that I don’t want to buy from an MLM essential oils company is that when you do, you often end up buying way more than you need to.

For example, with doTERRA and Young Living, in order to get the best discounts on their oils as a rep, you need to order monthly over $100 of products (to get free products that essentially reduce your costs).  Do that every month and you end up with way too many oils).

A lot of multi-level marketing oils reps end up ordering other things from the company like personal care products in order to get to that “minimum.”  And I am not thrilled with the ingredients in many of the other products offered.

Undesirable Ingredients in Other Products from Essential Oils Companies

When I was trying to decide where to buy essential oils, I looked at other things besides just oils.

With doTERRA and Young Living, for example:

– DoTERRA’s On Guard toothpaste contains titanium dioxide, a metal that I initially thought that I should avoid due to the possibility of heavy metal toxicity. Now I’m not worried about it for that reason, but it simply because it isn’t necessary.  It’s there just for color.  Overall it is supposed to be pretty benign, but why introduce it to your body unless needed?

The company also has carrageenan (which, depending on the form, is known to cause inflammation) in their capsules and PEG 100 in their Deep Blue Cream.

{Update 2018 – I have been doing some additional research into carrageenan and am not sure where to come down on this. There are two types and it’s possible that the negative effects being discussed are not of concern. I hope to have an update to this in the near future.}

Both companies’ skin care products had ingredients rated 3 and above on EWG’s Skin Deep rating system. I prefer to stick with ingredients rated 2, at the highest. Depending on what you are looking for, that may or may not be acceptable to you. Of course, it depends on their performance too. I don’t think all of EWG’s ratings are flawless, but I do pay attention when I see higher ratings there.

There was, in fact, one essential oils company whose oils I thought looked to be very high quality, but their personal care items were loaded with lots of toxic chemicals.

Also note, if you are used to Young Living or doTERRA oils, Rocky Mountain Oils carries oil blends that are comparable to Young Living and doTERRA blends.

There are other good companies out there.  However, I think that there are fewer “excellent” companies than I originally thought when I started all of this evaluation.

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 purity. And more.

This post on Pure Essential Oil Testing should be of help too for evaluating any company that you wish to consider.

Free Essential Oils Report

Also, if you go and grab my Free Report on 10 Things to Know About Essential Oils Before You Buy, you will not only get more myth-busting essential oils information, but you’ll get access to my VIP newsletter as well–complete with updates, great healthy living offers, of course new posts on essential oils, and more.

10 things you need to know about essential oils report in ipad

What are your thoughts?
Please let me know in the comments.

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6,975 Comments

  1. Nice information. I always look for organic things, YL is a great company I was using its products but now I have recently switch to Afida’s essential oils, Afida’s oils are also good.

    1. Hi there. Looks like the company is not around any longer. Sorry for approving this message late – it got lost in a pile of them. Sorry about that!

  2. Hi! I have spent the past two days reading this series and have been so intrigued! I’m very similar in that I love doing my own research to get to the bottom of what’s best for me and my family. I currently use one of the bigger name brand MLM oil companies, but I am not against making the switch. I guess my only last question is, you don’t ingest Rocky Mountain Oils, right? Do you know why they don’t recommend that? It’s just odd to me since the other major MLM companies do encourage it; and I ingest them everyday myself! Thanks so much for taking the time to put this all together! I’ve enjoyed reading!

    1. Hi there! It’s a lot of work to research everything for sure. I think it’s important to only ingest oils under the care of a practitioner or aromatherapist. In fact, I was just talking w/ someone who recommends the following and I’m considering updating the information on my site.

      She said that she didn’t think one should work with a practitioner unless they have been and educated and trained in aromatic medicine. Medical doctors and naturopath generally are not trained in aromatic medicine, so they are not going to know what is safe or not. If you choose to ingest, you should only do so, under the care of an aromatherapist with education and training in aromatic medicine.

      Does that help? Thanks for the kind words!

  3. Great investigating info. First, I would like to say I was a Doterra person but then I began to wonder abt the information that was put out by them and the company. Now being in the healthcare field, I like to have more options for my patients. I quickly learned E.O aren’t to be taken lightly and I find that YL and DO have people in their company that are putting out a lot of false information and they are not trained as Aromatherapist. Never, have I heard one of them ask me what medicine I have been on, do I have seizures, ashtma, cancer , etc. Also, I hear, “sure it’s ok to put that Peppermint Oil on your baby. It will help A B C and D”
    Which brings me to my next point, anyone thinking abt using the EO really should seek the advice a Aromatherapist before putting that oil on your kid or pets. You could easily harm them !
    So, now I have become a Certified Aromatherapist and I don’t use their oils cause I don’t trust them. The company you stated in the article is a great company however I use Aromatics International. A highly reputable company. Check them out if you haven’t. Great customer service, extremely knowledgeable, and fair in price.

  4. I love and greatly appreciate that you put in endless amounts of time and energy into ALL of this information (even with your busy mom/wife life!). It’s quite clear that your whole heart went into every bit of your research. A million thanks for sharing priceless wealth of information with us. I also appreciate that you update your findings and humbly admit to things that you were wrong about (due to being misinformed). You kindly retract those as most do not. They just leave the posts out there and add more which leaves us scratching our noggins. I find myself thinking “wait, a few months ago you said product or method “A” was the best. Now it’s product “B” Which one is it?”
    I myself have been researching these oils for 20+ years. Unfortunately, I have ADD and chose not to treat it so my efforts were less than productive. I have now chosen to treat it (cringing) but I was able to read all of your posts on this topic (I will still bookmark them) and I’m so grateful for your efforts. You have conquered the impossible and everyone will benefit.

    Forever grateful,
    Karen

    1. Hi Karen. This means so much to me you can’t even know. I have spent so much time researching when I could have just written more posts, but I wanted to have things right. Sometimes I research to excess b/c there is nothing perfect this side of heaven, but I have learned a lot for sure.

      I appreciate your kind words and hope to see you around again. We have a Healthy Living Community on FB that you might be interested in. We’d love to have you! https://www.facebook.com/groups/171490083677560/

  5. Your link said you didn’t use essential oils anymore then linked to a blog about what oils you buy. **expletive deleted by blog owner** is that about?

    1. Hi “Bob” – I’m assuming that this isn’t your real email b/c it seems weird but I didn’t say that. I said that I didn’t use Young Living any more. If you can show me where I said differently I will correct it but I think you are mistaken. Please refrain from using profanity on my blog, even abbreviations for it. Thanks.

  6. Wow…my daughter has doTERRA and a good friend sells Young Living. Me? I just randomly grab NOW oils at my local natural food store. I suddenly got the urge to know more and BAM, found your articles. I read Parts 1-7 straight through! What a wondersul job you’ve done and what a service to all of us who’ve been too lazy to do the ground work. THANK YOU!

  7. I’m curious if you asked about sustainability plans when doing your research as well? The crop it takes to make these oils are huge, and I’d love to purchase from a company that actually tries to reduce/counteract their impact in the environment in some way.

    1. I didn’t but I have asked a few companies that since. It seems that there are those who don’t think about it at all (most of them) and some that think about it to a great degree and those in the middle. The company that I went with does do some work with sustainability if that is what you are interested in knowing. Thanks for reading and good question. I hope to dive into this more as I do care about it.

  8. Hi, I just read a few of your posts and appreciate all your background work. I am a certified nurse midwife and have minimal experience working with essential oils in the labor and delivery setting but the group I work with is wanting to purchase a diffuser and essential oils to use with patients during labor/delivery. Wondered if you have a recommended diffuser and which oils you would recommend ordering initially for us to get started? Thanks for your suggestions!

    1. Hello Amy and welcome! I need to do a post on diffusers, but basically I would go with one that has good reviews and meets your needs. I actually am talking with an RD about labor and delivery oils right now. I definitely would get a diffuser that has a timer and choose size based on the size of the room that you are putting it in.

      For the labor and delivery you need to make sure that they are mom and baby safe and it would depend on what you are wanting them for….would it be for relaxation?

  9. I appreciate all you do with your site! I’ve visited several times. My sister-in-law told me about RMO about 4ish years ago. After I placed my first order, I’ve never looked back. I started out with Doterra, then switched to YL, but after committing to buy “x amount” of product every single month from YL…it got expensive! With RMO, I love that they offer free shipping. I usually get several oils when I make a purchase because it’s easy to do and very reasonably priced. I also love that they have some organics now! I honestly use oils daily and for almost everything…from fevers to hair care and everything in between. I can’t say enough good things about this company and after reading your post, it is a confirmation to me that I’m making the right choice on where I’m getting my oils. ?
    For anyone not sure, buy an oil or two and see for yourself! They work just as well (if not better) than the more expensive ones from other companies. No strings attached…order when you want to with no monthly minimums. ?

    1. Hello and thank you so much! Welcome back!

      If you are so inclined you can use my link anytime you like. Great suggestions! Thank you again.

  10. All I want to say is thank you from the bottom of my pancreas (that’s deeper than my heart)…I’m closer to the end than the beginning of my life,but I want these years to be my best…..I take a lot of meds now but I want off of them and I mostly concerned about inflammation…plus I’m a diabetic and have had breast cancer plus assorted ailments some of which I choose to ignore……at any rate I’m hoping that the oils can get me off this merry go round…the only time I’ve felt good or close normal is when I run out of meds!!!

    Thanks for letting me sound off, I appreciate it

    Gene

  11. I am wondering if you looked into the company Plant Therapy out of Idaho? Do you have a list of all the companies you looked at? (If I missed it I am sorry). Your information is great and very appreciated. Thank you!!!

    1. Hi there. I did look into them and didn’t go w/ them for a few reasons but companies do change over the years. I hope to revisit this whole issue again but right now I am completely overwhelmed with other topics and life issues and I’m very happy with the company I chose for many reasons including the customer service, free shipping, some of their blends are real favorites of mine and more. Their testing is above and beyond anyone in the industry too, as far as I know. I think there is, of course, not just one good company for essential oils, or really any field, but there are some that stand above. Hope that helps!

  12. I’ve read through like half of your posts and your journey digging into this and appreciate you doing the work for me.
    I think it’s awesome and funny there’s a random company just for oregano! The name escapes me.
    I have young living right now but didn’t even think of the oils being extracted from plants in their native land.
    I will try rocky mountain ! I hope I can trust you on this;
    Any favourites from them to recommend? Especially kid safe ones.
    Thanks for all your work!

    1. Thanks so much, Cheryl! What things are you wanting the oils to help with? They have a whole set of kid roll ons that might be of interest :)! Yes, that oregano company is very interesting. There is at least one out there that specializes in tea tree as well.

      1. Oh I’d love to know where to buy good tea tree oil and oregano!
        I’m looking at RMO kids line right now actually! But I can just dilute certain ones into a roller myself (already do and own two to refill)
        Well right now the ones I’m using are mostly for sleeping and immunity/congestion since it’s flu season and I’m 32 weeks pregnant.
        So I mostly want to keep a collection that’s safe for me and new baby.

        1. So I think you are totally fine buying them from RMO – I just meant that those companies only sell those things. I don’t remember the tea tree company right now. Yes, you can dilute what you would like and buy the roller balls.

          So let me know what you are looking for–blends that are not in roller balls that are safe and would be helpful for sleeping and immunity?

          In the meantime, these posts might be of help: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/homemade-anti-bacterial-thieves-essential-oil-blend/

          https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/essential-oils-for-cough/

          1. Omg these are both AMAZING! Sharing with my friend (Who’s currently with Young Living but I like to do my own digging – then I found your blog haha)
            Thanks so much for your help. I’ve been using my eucalyptus with lemon and premixed Thieves blend from YL.
            I’ll have to buy the missing oils from RMO 🙂

          2. I also have to ask – best quality diffuser for oils? I know some are cheap plastic, and others are just not as efficient in diffusing the oils so you have to use more.

            1. I know that the ones that RMO sells wouldn’t be considered to be cheap plastic. I think a lot of it is personal taste–I like one that runs at least 8 hrs and has a timer option. Then you think about room size. Bigger ones for larger areas. The ones that use a lot of oil straight can be more efficient b/c you use them for a shorter time but I haven’t used one of them.

              1. Update – I’m rethinking the 8 hour thing….a shorter time period is fine b/c too much exposure to essential oils isn’t necessarily a good thing. Hope that helps — maybe look at the reviews and choose from there. Hope to cover this more later!

  13. Hi
    What was your final opinion on Mountain Rose herbs? I have always kkked this company and I have ordered herbs but not oils yet, from them. Is there any advantage to ordering from Rocky Mountain over Mountain Rose?

  14. what Essential Oil Co.s can you safely consume their oils, & a list of conditions the oils are used for, either topically or internally!

  15. Thank you for all the research you have done. I wanted to know more abt the Young Living company and your articles do a great job of evaluating them. MLMs really rub me the wrong way. So I wanted to see if there was a company out there that wasen’t MLM but still sold the same high quality oils. I would rather buy directly from a company’s website not have to buy from a “rep”. Thank you for writing these articles.

    1. Thanks, Hillary! I really appreciate your kind words. I think that some MLMs are fine and some are not–just as some retail companies can have bad issues as well. I just learned about some that made me sick to my stomach, in fact. But I’m glad to have helped :). Hope to see you around again.

  16. Thank you for all the hard work and dedication you put into filtering out the good from the bad of essential oil companies and allowing all of us to know and understand the business.
    I had no ideal and totally clueless .
    Now I can order with confidence from the source you mentioned and know I’m getting a good quality oil . Thank you !!!!! ?

  17. Wow! Impressed with the level of diligence and objective evaluation. These articles have helped me tremendously. Subscribing to your newsletter 🙂

      1. Oh no, I use plant therapy for everything because there supposed to be pure and are also well priced. Please, can you tell me your reasons? I’ve gotten a few oils from RMO and considered switching just because Plant Therapys cheap prices worry me a bit. What kind of answers did you get from them and what worried you? Thanks so much!

        1. Hi there. I did look into them and didn’t go w/ them for a few reasons but companies do change over the years and some of the ones that I would never have considered buying from years ago I would now. I hope to revisit this whole issue again but right now I am completely overwhelmed with other topics and life issues and I’m very happy with the company I chose for many reasons including the customer service, free shipping, some of their blends are real favorites of mine–and more. Their testing is above and beyond anyone in the industry too, as far as I know. I think there is, of course, not just one good company for essential oils, or really any arena, but there are some that stand above. Hope that helps!