What is an Essential Oil?

Essential oils are highly concentrated, aromatic essences of trees, shrubs, herbs, grasses, resins and flowers. They are greaseless and not like other 'oils' you have in your home like olive oil or coconut oil, for example. Essential oils have been used for thousands of years for their health, cosmetic, and emotionally uplifting properties.  Many people are familiar with using herbs to enhance wellness. When plants are dried for tea or to make supplements, 95-97% of their essential oil is lost.  For example, one drop of peppermint oil is equivalent to 28 cups of peppermint tea!  By using essential oils, we are getting the complete chemical profile in every drop! Essential oils are the plant's natural defense and protective mechanism.  It's called the ʻlifebloodʼ of the plant and it's immune system. What does that mean? When you take all of the oil out of the plant, all that's left is fibrous material. The plant cannot live.  Just like without blood, we could not survive. So, essential oil is like the blood of a plant. They work the same in our bodies as they do in nature. They penetrate cell membranes and disperse into our blood and tissues. One drop of essential oil contains 40 million trillion molecules that affect the body at the cellular level. These molecules are one of the few things small enough to pass the blood-brain barrier. Their purpose is to help support all of our body systems by keeping our bodies clean and functioning as they should.

On average, each essential oil contains over 100 medicinal components, with more being discovered everyday!

Essential oils are distilled from plants by putting plant material into a large stainless steel cylinder, running steam up from the bottom. The steam picks up the oil sacs from the plants and is taken out through the top of the distiller. The steam is cooled back into water and the oil floats to the top or bottom, depending on the viscosity, and can be removed. These distilleries can be as large as about 20 feet tall and eight feet across. If you can imagine filling a cylinder 20 feet high and 8 feet across with German chamomile, which is a delicate, fragile plant, how much oil do you think you would get from distilling this much plant material?  You get somewhere between 1/4 of a cup and 1/2 of a cup essential oil!  This is why some oils are very expensive.  Other oils that yield more oil in each distillation are less expensive.  But, since a 5ml bottle contains about 100 drops and a 15ml bottle contains about 300 drops, they can be very economical!

When I first started learning about essential oils, I was only using them for topical applications where they applied to masssage therapy. Although the oils I used were high quality, they were not therapeutic grade. Later, my friend started talking to me about her essential oils and my big question was: "Why Young Living? What's the difference? These seem to be a lot more expensive than what I can find at the health food store."  So, after doing a lot of research, this was my conclusion. Purity is important- since our driving force is to eliminate uneccesary toxins in our bodies and on our skin. Some of the oils at the store were saying things like "do not ingest".  Why?  It's peppermint oil, I should be able to ingest peppermint. The answer is that, what most people are after is the scent.  Those are what we call "perfume grade" essential oils.  They're more concerned with the smell than any therapeutic value.  When scent is the main focus, oils are either synthetic or extracted at a high heat with chemical solvents (which end up in the product), because it makes it fast, cheap, and easy. To ensure the fragile therapeutic compounds are intact in the final product, the oil needs to be gently distilled at very low temperatures. Young Living's primary focus is on the therapeutic quality of the plant and therefore the strictest measures are taken to ensure purity and potency of the essential oil. Thus, not all essential oils are created equal!

The Young Living Difference

Young Living is the oldest, most trusted and well respected essential oil company in the world! With 25+ years of experience, Young Living is the only company with it's own farms offering Seed to Seal® . From the seed in their hand, to the seal on the bottle, every step is perfected to ensure the highest quality pure therapeutic grade essential oil. It took 6 years to get the soil on their farms just right.  They own their own worm compost! Young Living makes sure all their oils' therapeutic constituents are consistent from batch to batch.  Young Living tests EVERY batch of oil, and only 28% are accepted and bottled!  The rejected oil goes back into weed (which are hand picked) and pest control.  Isn't that awesome? Talk about organic!  Every bottle contains 100% of the oil on the label.  If it's a blend, it has every ingredient listed, including any carrier oils (usually coconut or almond oil).  They have huge libraries full of books on compounds and 3 PhD's on staff to analyze research with over 100 years of combined experience.  The foremost authority on essential oils in the world, Dr. Casabianca, has been working with Gary Young for 23 years! They are open and inviting to all their customers as well. You can visit the farms and tour the distillery any time you want. Everyone is invited to help with the harvest. It's not the only brand of essential oils that is safe, but I'm not a scientist, I can't test each bottle of oil I come into contact with (and I wouldn't want to). I have friends and colleagues who have used Young Living oils for over 15 years. They have shared and helped thousands of people, collectively. I have researched a ton and after all that, I decided that Young Living was good enough for me and my family! What do you think?  Is it good enough for your family too?  If you think so, then visit my 'How Do I Get Them?' tab!  Need some more information?  Visit the Young Living website.