I've long thought about doing a post on this subject, and now is as good a time as any. Everyone knows that essential oils range in price from relatively cheap to crazy-town expensive. Much of this has to do with the supply of the plant that's used for creating the essential oils.
You want to make Lemon essential oil? Well, lemons are plentiful, and you can get a fair amount of oil from the peel of each lemon, so the result is that even the "best" Lemon EO isn't all that expensive. Rarer forms of lemon (e.g. Jade Lemon) may run as much as $35 per 15ml, but you can find other "Therapeutic Grade" brands for as little as $5 per 15ml. And if you really want to go cheap, there are 4oz bottles starting at $12 -- or roughly $1.50 per 15ml.
So here's the question: are all of these oils the same quality, or are some of them less pure? If you want to buy into the marketing hype (remember: MLM stands for Multi-Level Marketing), there's a huge difference in quality between regular oils and the best quality oils. My feeling is that the difference isn't quite so large -- obviously there would be some difference between lemons grown in organic soil in Florida and lemons growing on the side of the road in Mexico, because soil contaminants get into the plants growing in the soil. But if you have five oils that are all listed as "pure therapeutic grade," are there really major differences? I mean, the expensive MLM oils have to be better, right?
This might surprise you to hear, but the answer is: probably not. Why is it that certain brands of essential oil cost so much more than other brands purporting the same quality level? Within the MLM world of essential oils, the answer is simple: someone has to pay all those independent distributors a commission! I happen to know for a fact that one company sells oils to their employees (not distributors!) at a 75% discount from the wholesale price. This same company has said in the past that they only make 10% in profits off the oils they sell. So how's that all work out?
Say an oil has a wholesale price of $100. The true cost (to the company) of that oil is probably around $20. But of the $100, as much as 35% may be paid out in direct commissions, another 20-30% is used for rewards bonuses for people ordering product every month, and another chunk (maybe 10%) goes to bonuses paid out to the highest earning distributors. That makes for potentially 65-75% of the "earnings" going to distributors, and the company still has to pay for employees, buildings, equipment, etc. So if they still have net profits of 10%, that's pretty good for the company -- and they don't have to do any advertising as their independent consultants will handle that. Good times!
But what that means is if you're buying their products and you're not making enough money to cover at least 75% of the price of the product, you're probably overpaying. Another company could skip all of the MLM cruft and simply sell direct to customers through the Internet, charging $25 instead of $100, and they're still making a profit.
This is compounded by the fact that there are only so many places that actually source and produce essential oils for any specific plant, especially for rare oils. If you want some Frankincense essential oil, for example, there are several classes of Frankincense; the two most common are Boswellia serrata and Boswellia frereana. You can see that the serrata costs about half as much as the frereana, because it's easier to source and more readily available. There aren't many places where you can grow frankincense trees, and you still need to extract the essential oil from the resin.
If two companies end up buying frankincense from the same supplier, the quality of the oil for both companies is going to be largely the same -- within a margin of error. Independent testing might show some differences between the two, but even buying the same oil from the same company over a period of years will show differences. How often does a batch of essential oil fail to meet the "Pure Therapeutic Grade" standard that you'll see bandied about? Probably almost never, as the suppliers are contractually obligated to meet some standard.
This is all probably very painful to hear for the MLM folks, but don't worry: there are plenty of people that are willing to drink the Kool-Aid and believe that more expensive products are better, simply because of the higher prices. And sometimes, they're even right, but mostly it's because the supplier of the oils is different and one supplier happens to have lower quality oil/plants than another. And in most cases, the oils will still be high enough quality that it won't matter.
This is why the exact source of many essential oils is a closely guarded secret, because if you knew the exact supplier of company XYZ's Lavender essential oil, unless XYZ has an exclusive distribution agreement with the supplier (which does happen, particularly on rarer oils/plants), company UVW could go to the same supplier and offer to pay 10% more, then sell their oils at a 15% markup and still be less expensive than XYZ's "pure" oil!
So if you're looking for a good quality essential oil, go shop on Amazon. There are several brands sold there that I'd consider reputable (Butterfly Express, Edens Garden, Healing Solutions, Plant Guru, and WellnesScent). If you check out those brands, you'll notice they all use 10ml bottles, and there's a good chance many of the oils come from the exact same supplier and the labels are the only difference.
Or maybe they're inferior and you should pay more for the expensive MLM brands? Honestly, it's your choice, but if you're not interested in doing the MLM thing, I'd suggest saving your pennies. It's simply not worth the headache to spend more and have to deal with the compliance department.
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