What Company Has the Best Essential Oils?
This post may contain affiliate links from which I will earn a commission. Learn more in our disclosure.
Are you wanting to start using essential oils, but don’t know where to start? You’re ready to buy, but don’t know what company has the best essential oils?
You’ve come to the right place.
Essential oils are all the rage these days. People say that they can do everything from being a natural ear infection remedy, to helping with weight loss, to healing eczema, and more.
I’ve written various posts on essential oils in which I talked about:
- Are Essential Oils a Scam and
- Using Essential Oils for Tummy Aches, Head Tension and More (with more of my skeptical thoughts)
Hopefully you can tell by those posts that I’m a skeptic at heart and pretty detailed when it comes to sorting through all the information out there to find out what really works. In fact, many of my readers and friends have called me an “investigative reporter” of sorts.
My husband says that I “second guess everything.”
In one sense, second guessing is a good thing. I’ve saved our family a lot of money by avoiding problematic purchases.
But sometimes I can go overboard and spend way too much time analyzing a product or purchase. (Kind of like driving all over town to save a few pennies. Not smart, especially as I saw gas at $4.11/gallon coming home from church last night. Big sigh.)
When trying to sort out this issue about which essential oils company is best, I tried not to be too analytical at first, and simply used what worked. But then, things changed.
Enter your email and I'll send it straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll get healthy living updates too.
The Search for the Best Essential Oil
In the Are Essential Oils a Scam? – A Skeptic Looks at Thieves Oil, I shared how I held off trying really any essential oils at all for years before trying Thieves® from Young Living.
Truth be told, I did have a few old bottles of essential oils in my linen closet. One bottle each of orange, eucalyptus, melaleuca (tea tree) oil, and rose oil, which I bought for topical use to brighten up my laundry [ended up never using it] and for my Homemade Chest Rub and Homemade Rose Water Spray.
This time around, before buying the Thieves oil and signing up as a Young Living Distributor, I dug around a little, but not too much.
I asked about all the rumors surrounding Gary Young, the founder of Young Living and I also asked some questions about purity of essential oils.
I got some satisfactory answers and was pretty amazed at how well the Thieves oil had worked. And I was thrilled to have great resources in my natural health care arsenal.
I mean, who wants to put more toxins in your body if you don’t have to, right?
However, after my post on Young Living’s Thieves and the other oils (Wintergreen and Peppermint, etc.), a number of readers started asking me about other oil companies. And so I too started wondering.
At first, I thought, “This stuff works great, and I’m pretty worn out right now, so I am just going to leave this alone and not start digging for more information”
But the “investigative reporter” in me just couldn’t leave. it. alone.
So I started poking around.
Today I’m sharing with you the beginning of my investigation.
Other Essential Oils Companies
There were some essential oils companies that I knew of, and some that a few readers recommended to me.
One of my readers was a doTERRA rep who said I really should check out their company to see how it measured up to Young Living.
Little did I know what lay ahead of me.
I started out with just a small list of companies, but the list quickly grew as the series went on and as more and more readers commented and as I went down more and more rabbit trails.
I think you’ll find the whole thing interesting and I hope you’ll learn a thing or two about essential oils and the companies that sell them.
The Competitors:
(UPDATE: A lot changed after I started this series. Please follow the links at the bottom of this post to see how interesting everything got – you can hop on over to read Part 2 of “The Best Essential Oils” here.
To start off, following are the essential oils companies that were “on my radar” and so I started with these, wondering if I should stick with Young Living or switch to another company to be my family’s “best essential oils company” of choice
- Mountain Rose Herbs
- Aura Cacia
- DoTerra
- Young Living
- Heritage Oils
- Native American Nutritionals (now Rocky Mountain Oils)
- North American Herb and Spice
and more. Truth is, I called a TON of companies and read up on others. These all included: - NOW oils
- Butterfly Express
- Spark Naturals
- Edens Garden
- North American Herb and Spice, and on and on.My head really started to spin with all of the phone calls and notes I was taking, but I started with just those listed above and went from there.
This is not an exhaustive list as there are a TON of essential oils companies out there. After writing this series I felt like I really opened a can of worms, but these are the companies that I started with.
Hang with me – it gets pretty interesting from here on out.
IMPORTANT UPDATE
I’m updating this post years later to add important information. I do not have all of the information in this series on why I didn’t choose certain companies so I would appreciate you not accusing me of coming to silly conclusions. I have gotten threatening emails (some of them were cryptic threats), and have been warned about being sued if I published certain things.
My family is important to me and while I don’t like to succumb to this kind of bullying, I have to weigh the cost of all of this. I am trying to be as upfront as I can about my decisions. Just know that what you are reading here is not the whole story. Not at all.
The Challenge
Following are some of the companies that I looked into.
1. Young Living Oils
I first tried Young Living when I thought that essential oils were a scam. I used them for a while and since I wanted to get as many savings as possible on the oils, I purchased monthly, took advantage of discounts, and stocked up quite a bit.
2. doTERRA Oils
Just before starting this series, several of my readers told me that I should really look into doTERRA as well, before making a hard and fast decision about which company to go with long term. So, I signed up with doTERRA as well. Follow along and you will see what happened next.
3. Mountain Rose Herbs
I like Mountain Rose Herbs’ mission and have a few bottles of their oils. When I contacted them they told me that they did not recommend internal use of their oils as they were not produced in a food-grade facility.
Much later (after this whole series was done) I contacted them again and they said that this was not the case. The company also told me several times at later dates that they didn’t test their oils but trusted their sources.
4. Butterfly Express
This seemed like a good company to check out, but I ran into quite a bit of trouble getting information from them. When I called to ask them a number of questions, I was able to get some information, but then I was told that they didn’t have time to talk with me.
5. Native American Nutritionals (now Rocky Mountain Oils)
When I first contacted this company, I thought that their prices seemed a little high for a company that wasn’t an MLM, but the more I talked to them the more interesting it all got.
You’ll have to read more in the series to see what happened with this company….
THE VERDICT: Probable high quality with no apparent earnings opportunity. Need to check into this company more.
6. North American Herb and Spice
From all I could figure out, this is a great company.
However, all they make is oregano oil.
So if you just want oregano oil, then this is a good place to turn.
THE VERDICT: Oregano is a pretty amazing oil, but I want more than just that in my natural healing arsenal.
7. Aura Cacia
I personally have a number of Aura Cacia oils that I bought prior to really digging into oils. I can’t say anything except for my personal experience which is that they don’t smell as potent as some of the other oils that I have.
I do like the company but for now, I’m not choosing to get my oils from them. That being said, I think that they have a lot of great information about oils and their use.
Well, this is a long enough post already – thanks for sticking with me!
Onto the other competitors in the next post and see what happens!
A Great Essential Oils Book for Your Library
There are so many books out there on essential oils, that it’s hard to know what to buy. I have a bunch, but this one, The Encyclopedia of Essential Oils, is a fantastic choice. It’s very highly recommended by many aromatherapists.
Encyclopedia of Essential Oils
This is one of the bestselling essential oils books of all time with information on plant origins, therapeutic uses, folk traditions, and more of 165 oils. Great for everyone from beginners to experienced aromatherapists.
At the bottom of each of my posts in this series are books or other kinds of products that I love that relate to essential oils.
The Essential Oil Company I Prefer
If you’re in a hurry to find out which essential oil company I went with at the end of this search, read the following post:
– Announcing “the Best” Essential Oils Company – Part 7
More Essential Oils Posts
Over the years, I’ve rewritten some of the posts in this series to make them more helpful. Here are some more posts to help you on your essential oils journey.
– Qualities of a Good Oils Company
– Tips to Spot Fake Essential Oils
– Young Living vs. doTERRA
– Are Multi-Level Marketing Oils Worth It?
– Distillation, Bias, Vomit and More Concerns
you can also read this post on Essential Oils Testing which gives you more information on how essential oils are tested for purity.
Free Essential Oils Report and VIP Newsletter Access
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.
What are your thoughts?
I desperately need help on what to do! I have 2 Italian greyhounds and a cat. I have paper wasp that are getting into my home and I don’t know what kind of oil to spray outside around the eaves and along the borders of my porch and house that are safe for my pets.
I believe my dogs would be OK but they say it could hurt my cat. I have a deck that joins up to my house and the wasp have built nest under there. So I need a way of getting something down between the boards that would smell strongly, perhaps peppermint oil that would deter them as I know it doesn’t kill them. ? And I thought about hanging fake paper wasp nest outside but don’t know if they’re rainproof! So please, please, please get back with me ASAP. Today is April 14th
Hi there. I am reading that lavender, pennyroyal, citronella, eucalyptus, and tea tree help.
I haven’t looked into the safety of all of those w/ dogs and cats. Does that help?
Call an exterminator!
So I just recently started trying some essential oils to get off a lot of medications that I have to be on. I don’t know a lot about them but I just started by in a few of them from Art Naturals and Gurunanda that I ordered off Amazon and found at Walmart. I keep looking for the natural stuff with no yucky or unhealthy stuffin them to make myself healthy and to get off these medications. I also have melasma that was triggered by me having to have chemotherapy and radiation treatment for cancer that I have been trying desperately to get rid of. I’ve tried to make a cocktail myself with a bunch of oils and just started this out four days ago and seeing how it goes. Any insight would be very much appreciated and helpful.
Hi there. I can’t medically advise but I would check out some essential oils groups on Facebook b/c some have 3rd party testing and I think I saw Art Naturals in there. This post shares purity standards that I think are a great place to start: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/pure-essential-oils-testing/
Did you research The Melaluca Company, which is in Idaho?
I did a bit. My concern is that they tout themselves as being a natural company but they have artificial colors and fragrances in a number of their products and while I didn’t look at everything, I have concerns about other ingredients in their other lines. What do you think about that?
can you please tell me if those artificial colors and fragrances are in their Essential Oils?
I haven’t seen that on the labels but one would have to follow the purity guidelines in this post and see GC/MS reports to know about the fragrance part and other adulteration. https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/pure-essential-oils-testing/
I’m not saying that Melaleuca is lying but I have found other companies lying about fragrance (and other ingredients) and having wrong info on labels.
Do you have any experience with ancient apothecary essential oils? Dr axe’s range?
Hi Lara. I don’t have personal experience but I did see Dr. Axe say that they were the only USDA organic oils on the market (which isn’t true) and I saw Jordan Rubin say that they were the best on the market just a short while before he said the same thing about Epigenetics / Organixx’s oils, which is the supplement company connected to The Truth About Cancer. So I don’t know what to make of all of that.
Adrienne you are the best! Thanks for taking the time to reply. I am a big fan of dr axe and so would like to believe his products are all good. I cannot find enough info on his oils though so will probably go for another more transparent brand. TAC series is amazing! Just finished watching. Leaning towards plant therapy for oils. Love how much info there is on the oils, good price and they ship free internationally for over 50 bucks which is a biggie for me. With RMO it’s 200 min spend. Thanks again for this great blog!
Hi Lara,
I didn’t mean to say that his products were bad, I just don’t know what to think about those statements. It’s possible that it wasn’t him but was a staff member who doesn’t know what they are talking about. It’s hard to know if someone responding on FB is the person or not when it’s a business. Of course the Jordan Rubin thing is most likely more about Rubin than about Axe but it was very odd.
I appreciate your thoughts on the shipping and have passed it on to RMO. Thanks again!
RMO told me they shipped free on regular shipping.
I am so confused, and not a good researcher! Please continue to inform those of us who desperately need honest guidance and information. Tx
Hi Chris…just keep reading thru the series or you can skip to the end here:https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/natural-remedies/announcing-the-best-essential-oils-company-and-a-great-sale/
I will be doing more research so you might wish to subscribe here since I will be adding more info in the future. I’m working on a bunch more posts now: https://wholenewmom.com/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-essential-oils-before-you-buy/
Thanks for reading. Feel free to ask any questions.
What about Plant Therapy? Can I get your 2 cents about them? I don’t think I’m able to do such an in-depth investigation as you, so being able to get an answer from you would be such a life saver! Thank you.
Hi there. Sorry for the delay in responding. I looked into them when I started this and hope to revisit the whole issue later–busy researching other things and fixing broken things on my site. Please stay tuned! You can sign up for updates of posts here:
https://wholenewmom.com/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-essential-oils-before-you-buy/
Thank you for all of your hard work and time invested into this blog ! Because of this I chose RMO years ago. Their prices began to really wear on my budget and I have been using Edens Garden as it’s so much better financially. Once I re-read your article I see that you investigated them. Could you share why you chose not to go with them ? It may make me switch back to RMO. Thank you ! (I tried to see if I could find anything about this in other comments but there’s soooo many comments lol !)
Hi Mel.
I have to be really careful what I say about companies and of course companies can change over the years but maybe contact them and ask them if they had / have these standards now: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/pure-essential-oils-testing/
There are companies that I didn’t go with for different reasons. Some of them had oils sourced from countries that weren’t optimal, some seemed to be lying about sourcing based on the pricing on their sites (being priced below wholesale), one had a scandal that was horrible going on w/ a sister company that was being covered up, some had reports of failed 3rd party testing, some didn’t do any third party testing, I heard reports of some falsifying reports to sell on Amazon, some wouldn’t answer my questions…..it’s been a very interesting journey to say the least.
I hope that helps! Maybe I should write a post about this or put it in the series.
Oh wow! Thank you – that would be an interesting post!
There is so much going on in so many industries…food, personal care, essential oils. We can only hope that the truth comes out.
Thank you for all the time and hard work you put into your posts. I learn so much from you. I love the essential oils information and I have begun to make some of the easy recipes for body care. I have found RMO to be very good and I like being able to order the oils at will. I hope you will continue to educate your followers on essential oil companies you find to be good choices. I will keep reading . Thank you.
Thank you, Michele. I am working on that and on other things too – I need a few more of me :)! Thanks for reading!
Plant Therapy …did you research them. Famiy run, great customer service. Good prices.
Yes, I did. I’m trying to keep my pulse on the industry with my very busy life. You can feel free to subscribe here for updates so you won’t miss anything :). https://wholenewmom.com/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-essential-oils-before-you-buy/
I highly recommend DoTerra!!!
I’ve suffered from rhinitis due to over use of Afrin for 6 months. I tried everything from nasal irrigation to acupuncture to chewing on fresh grated horseradish to no avail. I stated using DoTerra essential oils and their eucalyptus cleared me right up. Threw away the Afrin. They also responded to my phone call the first time. They also provide you with a number on every bottle showing it’s been tested for purity. I’ve been researching essential oil company’s for quite some time and DoTerra is #1 On my list.
D?TERRA also runs 8 additional tests on the oils they sell above and beyond any other oil companies. Third party testing, which provides integrity. Sourcing plants from countries that the plant is native to and giving people in those cylinders and sustainable income. I would ONLY use d?TERRA Oils.
Hi Karen. What are the cylinders? Autocorrect issue, I presume :)?
Yes, auto correct. It should read DoTERRA and countries.
Where on DoTerra site shows the 3rd party testing of their products?
I am wondering why their peppermint smells so odd too. I have peppermint in a lot of companies: Plant Therapy, Rocky Mountain, Eden’s Garden and Young Living. Doterra’s smells very odd. There is a strong smell I feel taking over the actual peppermint smell. Why is that? Very curious!
Dear Penny,
I suffered from a similar Afrin issue many years ago. May I also suggest to you that swabbing pure Vitamin E oil (15,000 iu) in your nasal passages will help the membranes heal and keep them from drying out. Just a trick I’ve learned after 5 sinus surgeries and many years of suffering with chronic sinusitis, and allergies. Hope this will help you.
Thank you for this info. I have Sjogrens, which cause the membrane to dry. I will try this.
so what was the verdict about Doterra oils are they the best in the world.
You will have to keep reading to find out but the last post is here: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/natural-remedies/announcing-the-best-essential-oils-company-and-a-great-sale/
What do you think about oils from Bulk Apothecary?
Hi Kaye, I personally wouldn’t depend on them for our family’s use – this post should help you see what helped me make my decision:https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/natural-remedies/announcing-the-best-essential-oils-company-and-a-great-sale/
and this post has the guidelines that I recommend for choosing a quality essential oil: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/pure-essential-oils-testing/
I have ordered their cocoa butter, however :)!
I wanted to thank you for doing all this research. A daunting task, and greatly appreciated.
You are so welcome! I’ve been doing tons more this week on other topics and it gets exhausting sometimes. Thanks for the encouragement!
More words than info…a LOT more. 😛
Hi Barb.
Thanks for reading and for writing.
First of all…..I’d like to bring something up. Over the past few weeks, I have been getting more and more negative comments including people saying my recipe isn’t good b/c I think that coconut isn’t a nut (it isn’t), and I’m really concerned. Is this the stress of the world that is getting to people? It’s getting to me, but I try not to take it out on people who are out there trying to help others, which is what I try to do each and every day. I pray almost every day that my blog would help others get out of the grip of Big Pharma and garbage food and nasty toxins and on to better health.
I poured my heart into this series and spent hours and hours and hours on the phone and via email corresponding with essential oil company reps and owners to figure out what company I wanted to recommend. And I wanted to share that info in detail with my readers.
I didn’t want to just be a site that puts up 6-8 companies and has pretty meaningless information (like what the companies are told to say but isn’t the whole picture). If you would rather support that kind of site instead, then that is your choice. Some of them are spammy including some masquerading as bloggers when they aren’t….they are just sites trying to get clicks on Amazon and other affiliate links.
I’m really sorry that you feel that way. If you go through the whole series and onto my other posts about EOs you might feel differently. In fact, a huge publisher contacted me asking me to potentially write a book with them and they cited my detailed posts as one of the reasons why they did that. They said most bloggers just regurgitate information rather than really dig for meaty material.
I turned them down for now b/c my life is crazy, but I am glad that at least someone values my writing :).
Hope that clears things up a bit for you. Hopefully we can connect again with out the snarky comment being an impetus for the conversation.
Omg I had to stop 1) because I couldn’t figure out which article was next, there were thoughts on a list of companies and then it just stopped before I got to the company I use. It said to read the next article in the SERIES but I didn’t see a part 2 for the SERIES. 2) I was getting stressed out reading so many words that told me nothing. Hmm.
Hi Sarah.
I’m so sorry – you are saying that you didn’t find part 2? The whole thing took on a life of it’s own. If you have a suggestion of how I can make this more reader friendly, I’m happy to work on it.
Here’s the final post: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/natural-remedies/announcing-the-best-essential-oils-company-and-a-great-sale/
I have a list of all of the posts at the bottom of each post. Perhaps you missed that?
Thanks for reading.
Thank you for your article however very frustrating as I have gone into all your links and still unsure who is the best. Can you just comment here on who you believe is the best instead of giving us links to go to. Is this a marketing tool?
Hi Suzette.
I’m so sorry – did you get to this post and you still didn’t see it? It isn’t a marketing tool at all.
I started the series and a bunch of things happened along the way and I was still making my decision as I wrote it. The whole thing took on a life of its own.
https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/natural-remedies/announcing-the-best-essential-oils-company-and-a-great-sale/
Let me know if you have any other questions and thanks for reading.
I have found this article very informative and have bought some oils but not from any certain company. There is also TruVision now and I do use their Trudefense. I also have Melaleuca tea tree oil. I am really interested in learning more.
Best regards
Paula
I have never heard of the first company. I would highly recommend looking at this post to see about their purity: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/pure-essential-oils-testing/
Are you a member of both companies?
As for Melaleuca, ask the same questions. I do wish they didn’t use artificial colors and fragrance in some of their products. It’s odd.
Thank for the kind words and for reading!
I would really like to know more about essential oils and there uses but there are so many books out there and so many oil companies. What is a good book to buy to get me on the road? Thanks Nancy
Hi Nancy. What kind of book are you looking for….recipes, basic information, safety info? There are books at the bottom of almost all of the posts in this series and I think they are all decent choices but happy to try to help if you need something specific :).
I’m really confused because I still don’t know what oils are the best and which ones I should spend my money on ..i’m so tired and I read that whole article for why?? Can’t you just tell me if I should be using to tear all the time or not can you just tell me which one you think is the best
Hi there. Sorry you are confused – this post has the company that I ended up going with. Let me know if you need more help: https://wholenewmom.com/health-concerns/natural-remedies/announcing-the-best-essential-oils-company-and-a-great-sale/
Ma’am, I really love and appreciate this article. I love your honesty. It has helped me very much to have more clarity on a very complex and controversial topic! It really resonated with me, as did the sequel articles you wrote. I hope it’s ok if I shared a link on my own blog!
Of course and thank you!
Hello there,
I just want to say I stumbled upon your blog and I am glad I did. I just became a wellness advocate for DoTerra and I am researching as much information as I can. I am happy that you have put in some serious research and time to help shine light on, like you said, a very big world of essential oils. It can be very overwhelming to try and compare and contrast on your own and I am so thankful that you have it all right here.
I love having a product of nature on hand that I can use in place of a chemical. My boyfriend is Vegan and it’s nice that the capsules are also vegan so it really can be used by more people, especially these days with more and more people changing their diets.
Anyways, I’m not here to sell DoTerra haha I just want to say thank you again for being honest and open and helping me to understand what this world of oils is all about.