Friday, June 8, 2012

Essential Oils...I have an oil for that!




        For quite some time, a friend of mine, who is a nurse, has been telling me about Essential Oils. She is always sharing with me the benefits of this and that oil. I am always excited to try natural alternatives in diet and health. In the past, I have used Garlic/Eucalyptus oil directly in the ear to treat an ear infection. The Garlic/Eucalyptus oil helps sooth it and speed up the recovery. However, I just bought a pre-made mixture at the health food store or grocery and never imagined I could make my own.




I finally signed up to be a Doterra consultant and have been studying Aromatherapy. Although I have barely scratched the surface, I am loving it.

click on picture to order oils
I have been doing my own independent study and research aside from Doterra. I like Doterra oils, however they are not the only source of Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils. And because their company is a MLM then some of their their products can be overpriced.  The industry standard cheaper oils like Lavender and Lemon are more expensive from Doterra than other suppliers I have found. But the expensive oils like Rose Otto and Helichrysum are expensive no matter where you buy them.

                                                              
Note: If you click on the above picture, this website  Aromatics International has the best selection of
Helichrysum varieties and some are reasonably priced.

Doterra has some issues I think people should realize. 
  • They try to sign up everyone who wants to buy something as a consultant. 
  • There is no required training for consultants.
  • The extensive training they do have is in Utah and includes a lot of sales training
  • They are not listed with the National Association of Holistic Aromatherapy as an approved school for getting an Aromatherapy Certification. Some of the schools seem like small operations, so I do not understand why Doterra does not have their own school (even if it's just online) and get approved. Then they could require their Consultants to get Certification. But they do not do that because then they could not sign up the masses onto their MLM program as consultants. 

  • The consultants are independent, so the claims they make about essential oils are not necessarily the company's official stand
  • They lead you to believe that they are the only company that does Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS)testing on their oils. I am not sure they do an independent test on every batch of oil. More likely they buy from many of the distillers and wholesale distributors that do this testing on all the oils they sell. 
  • I could not find batch numbers or CG-MS analysis sheets available for any oils for sale by Doterra so we are only taking their word for them. 
  • There are many other companies that sell GC-MS tested oils and provide the results to the consumer
  • They freely recommend ingestion of essential oils when most  other companies have disclaimers about ingesting essential oils and say it should be done under a certified Aromatherapist direction or under a doctor or health practitioners care. I will write more on this later. 
  • Doterra says they are the only Certified Theraputic Grade Essential Oil. However......

They made up and trademarked the CPTG® 
So yeah they have the only oil that bears that seal but it is not an FDA certification. The FDA does not certify or regulate essential oil at all. Well, except for the fact that that Essential oil can be labeled 100% pure if it contains at least 1% Essential oil. So that means you could buy a 100% pure essential Oil bottle that has 5 or 6 drops of real essential oil in a 1oz container of coconut or Jojoba oil.

If you are comparing Doterra to what you can buy at Target or even the drug store then yes it is pure, tested, Therapeutic Grade oil.  But you can order online from a few other places and get the same quality oil maybe even the same oil since many companies buy it from the same distiller or overseas distributors.

That being said, Doterra is still the place to buy their blends if you find they are useful and I do really like all the blends I have tried. Even when buying oils cheaper from one of the other companies, you could not duplicate the blend making it yourself because all the blends have some expensive oil in it that is expensive no matter where you buy it.  
And if you sign up to be a consultant with Doterra (with no obligation to sell anything) you can get a discount and use the Loyalty rewards to build yourself a collection by slowing ordering a little each month and get points to use to get free oils. Thus making it even cheaper.



Now for my experience with the oils. I am in love with using essential oils. I love studying and learning about Aromatherapy.
My favorite saying is "I have an oil for that" My family loves it too.
The three year old loves the foot massages and asks for "oils" in his little three year old voice.
I have been having so much fun making my own blends.

Next post I will put up links to my favorite schools, books and supply sources and some other places to buy Therapeutic Grade oils. When you purchase the oils from the other sources, you have to re bottle them because they don't come in dropper bottles. That can be a pain because you have to buy bottles. If you are going to make your own blends that would not be a big deal because you will  need to buy bottles and droppers and labels anyways.
I think to get introduced to Aromatherapy and have an out of the box working relationship with Aromatherapy, then Doterra is the place to start. 
More on all that later. 
Email me if you want to sign up as a consultant.  
Or you can do it through the link above. 
Here it is again...
My Doterra Site
PS: Did you notice the fresh lavender and a few products from the Lavender Farm? I visited them yesterday. I will have a blog article about that soon.

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