How to Find the Best Essential Oils

7 Things to Look for Before You Buy

It can be super tricky to find the best essential oils since companies can pretty much claim whatever they want.

You  need to do a little digging to find high quality oils- and please, do be picky when choosing. Essential oils aren’t worth using if you don’t use good ones. Read my essential oil horror story here.

Here are 7 things to look for when you buy essential oils. If the oils truly meet all of these guidelines, they’re sure to be some of the best essential oils out there. Most oils out there won’t meet all of these criteria.

1. Sourcing- Essential oils should be sourced from parts of the world where they grow indigenously. Most people don’t realize the same species of lavender may work completely differently when grown in another area. It’s also important to note whether pesticides were used on the plants.

2. Extraction- Essential oils should be extracted using low pressure and low temperature steam distillation. It can be faster and easier to use higher temperature and pressure, but the product isn’t the same- and the results you’re looking for won’t be the same either. The exception is citrus oils- they are cold pressed rather than steam distilled.

3. No Synthetics or Fillers- Many oils are synthetically re-created in labs, because it is cheaper. True essential oils should have no synthetic compounds in them at all. It’s very common to see fillers added to oils to keep the cost lower- this means you’re getting less actual oil and more synthetic filler.

4. One Species of Plant- With the exception of essential oil blends, there should be only one species of plant in the oil. Read my example of lavender essential oil here.

5. Dilution- Make sure the oils aren't pre-diluted with carrier oil. If the oils you're buying are marketed as pre-diluted for a certain use, that's one thing. However, if they're being sold as 100% essential oil but they're diluted down, you're paying for carrier oil rather than pure essential oil.

6. Gas Chromatography Test- This test ensures that each component that should be in a given oil is there in the proper amount.

7. Mass Spectrometry Test- This test makes sure there’s nothing in the oil that shouldn’t be there, like heavy metals and pollutants.

All of these things affect the cost of oils. It’s more expensive and time consuming to produce truly pure and high quality oils. Notice I said pure and high quality. It’s possible for an oil to be pure but not high quality and effective- make sure your oils meet all 7 guidelines. The key is using oils that are pure and potent.

Obviously, oil companies that go through all the processes to put out high quality oils have to charge more. It costs them more to test, especially if they test every batch., not to mention the cost of truly high quality sourcing. With essential oils, you do really get what you pay for.

Looking for high quality oils? Get my favorite oils here.