Many people today have experienced essential oils in bodycare products, candles and sachets, even as perfumes. As aromatherapy becomes increasingly popular, the choices expand and it’s easy to get confused about what oils are ok to put on your skin, what you can take internally, whether it matters what brand you use (it does), and what kinds of things you can safely use them for.
We’ll answer these questions in a kind of a backward direction. First, essential oils are used for about a jillion things. Here are a few of our favorites:
Body to ease pain, to help wounds heal faster, to fight infection and protect from illness
Mind to achieve clarity and focus, to release old trauma, to ease depression or anxiety
Spirit to align with your spiritual self, to go deeper in spiritual practices
Environment (home, office, play space) to replace toxic cleaning and bodycare products, to eliminate mold, to create an environment with whatever “mood” you want to convey
We acknowledge the union of body/mind/spirit (and think the environment should be included too, in a way). There are ways in which these systems overlap and we like to use essential oils for all of them.
When you choose the right essential oil for a given situation, you are rewarded with desired results. The lynchpin around this decision starts with the big-picture question, “Who is making your oils?”. The answer to this question can, in some cases, be the deciding factor in whether you get the results you want.
We use and teach exclusively about Young Living Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils, and we have sound reasons for our loyalty to them (starting with the fact that they work, encompassing matters of experience and purity, and not excluding the fact that teaching about them is part of our livelihood!).
The questions of what oils can be used for which applications, which ones can be taken internally, and so forth, can be answered only after the manufacturer is known. Here’s why:
When essential oils were first used as medicine, it was a simpler time. To get lavender essential oil, for example, you first had to grow the lavender. There were no pesticides, so what was grown would equate to organic today. The lavender would be harvested when it was at its height of potency, distilled over a low heat for as long as it took to release the precious oil, and then separated from the water that carried it out of the plant in the form of steam. This is the manner in which our founder was taught to extract oils. When we use Young Living oils, we know that it is the result if the same process at work today; the company is involved in the production process from the planting of the seed through the final seal on the bottle.
Since the Industrial Revolution, it is no longer necessary to grow lavender to produce an essential oil. A manufacturer can purchase a hybrid that smells the same but produces more oil, then get rid of unwanted constituents with extreme heat or a chemical process. This destroys desirable constituents which can then be replaced by adding them back in chemically.
Or, a manufacturer could buy a synthetic lavender smell-alike from an essential oil supply-house, whose industrial-grade oils are typically stretched further with even more chemicals (some of which are banned in the health food store where I work).
There are two compelling reasons a manufacturer of essential oils would engage in these practices: First, it is cheaper than crafting oils with the ingtegrity, plant-appropriate technology, and first-hand experience that Young Living's approach requires. Companies can maximize profit and minimize production costs by turning out a product that smells nice but may lack reliable health benefits.
The second reason they would do this is simply that they can. Since essential oils are a non-regulated industry, there is nothing saying that a bottle labeled “essential oil” even needs to contain plant material. Even terms like “Pure”, “Natural”, and “Therapeutic Grade” mean little more than that the marketing team thought it would help them sell more.
A little side-note to illustrate this: The term “Therapeutic Grade” was actually coined by Young Living’s founder to help us distinguish our oils from others by describing the great lengths they go to in order to assure optimal, reliable therapeutic value in their oils. Since then, several other manufacturers have begun to use this term freely in their marketing or labeling (but you can’t take their peppermint internally... hmmmm.)
When a manufacturer does not have to tell you what they’ve done to produce a scented oil, they nonetheless have to protect themselves in case you use it in a way that is dangerous to your well-being. As a general rule, you will find warnings like “may cause skin irritation” (even on those oils traditionally used to soothe skin conditions), or “not for internal use” (even when the plant in its original form has been used for stomach upset over centuries). Our bottles of Young Living Lavender and Peppermint have supplement serving size label on the back, telling us we are welcome to swallow a drop or two.
The truth is, that with the growing interest in essential oils and natural health, there are many companies that rely on chemistry to produce oils. They sidestep the expense and decades of experience necessary to produce oils of the highest quality, because uneducated consumers don't know the difference.
Young Living chooses to make their oils the “seed to seal” way, overseeing the cultivation, growth and harvest of the plants. The picture at the top of this post is from our visit to the Young Living Lavender Farm in St Maries Idaho. The distillery is in the distance; Gary gave us the tour himself. They use a patented distillation technique and then utilise the benefits of technology (in-house and third party) to exhaustively test, validate, and verify the therapeutic value of their oils.
Lastly, Young Living oils come to the consumer directly from the company - usually on the recommendation of someone the consumer already knows and has a relationship with. That trusted relationship and the co-supportive community that's behind it, offer the education that no retail-bought oil can.
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