There are many companies selling essential oils, many of them quite good. Why have I chosen to work with Young Living oils?
My answer is purity, predictability of quality, and the educational resources and training.
Essential oils are highly complex substances. Many factors affect their quality, including the quality of soil where the plants were grown, the time they were harvested (some plants can only be harvested during a particular month of the year to generate the particular quality of the oil), the speed and temperature of distillation, the bottling process, etc.
Here's what you want to find out when working with an essential oil distributor:
1. Does their company own any farms on which they raise herbs for oils? If they do, are they new farms on land formerly polluted with herbicides, pesticides, and chemicals that contain residuals from the past, or are they farming land that is clean, which has never been cultivated or has been untilled for at least the last 50 years?
2. Does the company have their own fully equipped testing laboratory to verify an oil's composition?
3. Do they have anyone on staff with a trained nose who can analyze oils by their smell? (There are less than 200 people in the world with noses sufficiently trained to discern the chemistry of a fragrance.)
4. If their company purchases oils from outside suppliers, do they visit the distilleries and farms of those suppliers periodically to observe if the herbs are grown organically, i.e. without pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers?
5. Do they know if the grower has a testing laboratory on the farm to determine when the crop is at its peak for oil harvesting?
6. Do they know if the crops were actually harvested at their peak time and, if so, was there an inordinate delay in taking them to the still and into the cookers?
7. Do they know if their distillery personnel understand the art and science of distilling, how to pack the cookers, how to administer the steam, how to maintain minimum temperatures and pressures throughout the cooker, and how to continuously monitor the process throughout distillation to make sure the oil produced contains all of its components in the proper proportions?
8. If their supplier makes a mistake in the distillation or harvesting processes that results in an inferior grade of oil, does that supplier sell the oil anyway or do they discard it?
9. Do they know if the cookers in the distilleries of their suppliers have domed lids or cone shaped lids? Most stills use dome-shaped lids. Cone topped cookers deliver a better grade of oil than dome tops.
10. Do they know if their suppliers supplement the distillation process with solvents to extract additional oil from the plant matter?
11. Do they know if their suppliers bottle their oils directly from the distillery without modifying the composition of the natural oil by adding anything or taking anything away?
Without an affirmative answer to these questions, it is impossible to know for sure that the oils are truly therapeutic-grade. With Young Living, I'm satisfied that I'm getting the highest quality of oils that meet all of the above requirements and more.
