The 4 Qualities of Essential Oils

Something that was not clear to me at first is that there is a BIG difference between the types of Essential Oils. For all I knew, oils were oils, and even though I knew about lavender scented products in my grocery store – I had no idea about the possibilities of supporting my health, naturally, with Essential Oils. Let me explain, all Young Living Essentials Oils are pure Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils. That means that care has been given to every single drop, to ensure that the medicinal properties have been retained.

I have been using essential oils for nearly 25 years. I had purchased a book on essential oils back then and immediately absorbed it like a sponge. I had been into herbal remedies for many years and already knew that plants had so very much to offer us. I searched around for a company that sold essential oils, that was pre-internet days and a rather time consuming process because essential oils, unfortunately, were not mainstream in the US. Most people had never even heard of them.
I knew that the quality was very important and that one could tell by smell and price if an oil was of higher or lower quality. See my previous post on Smell Testing an Essential Oil. I finally found a company that had better quality essential oils, but they used solvents in distillation. I went ahead and bought some anyway. Thinking that even though I couldn't use them on my body, I could still use them to clean my house (I had had it with chemical cleaners sold in stores because of their toxins and was determined to remove them from my household).

For years, I mixed up my own essential oil blends from those oils and cleaned my house. They cleaned so well and smelled so fantastic. Everyone who walked in my house commented on how terrific my house smelled. There were times I even made up spray bottles of my essential oil house cleaner mixture and gave them as Christmas gifts to friends and family. I wanted everyone to know that they didn't have to continue to be slaves to those highly toxic cleaners. Everyone loved the gift and used it to clean their homes. I had hoped that they would come back to me and ask how they could buy the essential oils. No one did. Wait, that's not true, one of my sisters was interested and I think she called the company and bought a couple essential oils. Everyone else, even though they absolutely loved the smell and how good it cleaned, I don't think they 'got it'. I don't think they got it because they're so conditioned to buy toxic stuff from the store. And, making their own household cleaners was just not something they wanted to spend time doing and researching like I had done.

Then, I was at the right place, at the right time, and was introduced to Young Living's essential oils. No solvents, no chemicals, from organically grown plants, no adulterations, the plants were harvested properly and brought to the distiller promptly (rather than sitting in some trailer in the blazing sun for days deteriorating the beneficial qualities of the herb), they were distilled using long and low heat...Hey! Just what I was looking for!!!

Then, I smelled my first Young Living Essential Oil, WOW! They smelled 'right'. They smelled exactly the way the herb should smell like. I was sold! Now I could use my essential oils on my body, in my cooking, cleaning my house, as part of my herbal preparations and more! I was in heaven!

I sat down with an order form and started writing in one essential oil after the next, their list of essential oils is very long, my first order was over $500, yikes! Fortunately, the woman who introduced Young Living to me said that if I signed up as a distributor, at a cost of $50, I could immediately get the wholesale pricing (which is 24% lower) so I said, "fine!" The savings on that order and any other order I would place after that were well worth the $50 distributor membership fee. At the time, I was studying classical Feng Shui and had a landscaping business. I had no intention of ever doing Young Living as a business.

Last year, I changed my mind. With so many people complaining to me about how nasty store bought products were, and how they don't have time to spend researching and whipping up their own concoctions I decided it was time to get serious and utilize that distributorship and do this as my home based business.
Getting back to the subject...

There are 4 Grades of Essential Oils:

• Grade A oils are pure therapeutic quality and are usually made from organically grown plants distilled at the proper temperatures using steam distillation. This the category that all of Young Living's essential oils and essential oil-enhanced products are in.

• Grade B oils are food grade; they may contain synthetics, pesticides, fertilizers, chemical/synthetic extenders, or carrier oils. With all those unnecessary toxins I find it hard to imagine how these can be approved of as 'food grade'. If I ruled the world, it would be a completely different place!

• Grade C oils are perfume grade and may contain the same type of adulterating chemicals as food grade oils. They also usually contain solvents which are used to gain a higher yield of oil per harvest. Solvents are normally cancerous. This is what's in the store bought perfumes and other scented liquids sold for us to put on our bodies so we smell pretty, it's no wonder people have so many allergies to scented products! Personally, I'd rather smell bad than put that stuff on my body!

• Floral Water is a byproduct of the distillation process, a very high quality if it comes from a Grade A distillation process. Accordingly it is of very low quality if it comes from poor quality raw materials and/or poor distillation processes. It is usually found in skin and hair products. This too is a quality of product that I disapprove of for obvious reasons.

Here is a testimony from another Young Living member...

"I was first introduced to Young Living essential oils 8 years ago. I mention this to honestly admit how long it took someone like me to "get it", and it's not that I was new to health and nutrition.

I learned of the oils during a yoga class, at a time when I was spending good money to supplement my nutrition with herbs. I now know that essential oils greatly enhance the body's absorption of nutrients , and add exponentially more concentrated effectiveness, not to mention the almost intangible "feel good" benefits I am still discovering. I call it Feeling Fitness as I believe the oils most profoundly heal at the level of feelings and attitudes. I have always enjoyed the smell of some oils, but it has taken me years to appreciate the inherent wisdom of how they work, within me and the people I have had opportunity to share them with. Young Living Essential Oils have brought me some very miraculous moments, and I'm certain that they will bring you some too." Tim Owen

I think the other interesting I've noticed with myself, is that when I'm around anyone or anything that's not a 100% organic and 100% natural scent (perfumes, candles, air fresheners, cleaners, and so forth) it not only makes me feel ill, but it makes me choke and gag...and I don't even have allergies or illness, that stuff just smells nasty.

When you don't use toxic products it's like you can smell one coming a mile away. How in the world we ever allowed big companies to condition us into believing that stuff smells good and we should slather it all over our bodies has got to be the most cruel and successful marketing tactic in the history of mankind!

I don't understand why we as a culture, as a community, allow companies to make such appallingly harmful products for us and our families. I'm saying this, meaning that you don't have to buy Young Living products, but at least don't encourage these companies to manipulate us, and support them by continuing to buy these 'known' poisonous products. We deserve a lot better than what they've been giving us!

There are very, very few companies out there who do have high quality products. Because there is no regulation on essential oils any company can claim that their product has essential oils in it and they don't have to say which quality they use. This is where the price tells the whole story, if a product claims to have essential oils in it they can be synthetic, adulterated and so forth to keep the price low. If the price of a product claiming to have essential oils in it is of a comparable price to it's chemical laden relative, you WILL know for sure that the essential oil is either synthetic or of the lowest and poorest quality.

Since the days of our ancient ancestors, all therapeutic-grade essential oils have been extremely expensive. There has never been a day that has past that a therapeutic-grade essential oil was ever sold cheaply, they can't sell it cheaply because to make a high quality essential oil requires proper growing, proper handling, and proper distillation. This is why in man's ancient past essential oils were MORE valuable and more prized than gold.

And the same holds true for even today. Therapeutic-grade Rose essential oil is far more valuable than an equal weight in gold. Fortunately, due to the concentrated nature of therapeutic-grade essential oils a couple drops is all you need. The difference between us and our ancient ancestors, is that even the common person back then knew of the healing benefits and value of these precious golden drops the plant kingdom offered. All of our pharmaceuticals originated from properties of healing plants, then, they discovered how to isolate an active ingredient and/or make a synthetic version, which results in a product that can be patented. You can't patent a plant substance unless you severely manipulate it. It's because of this that we have big pharma companies pushing their drugs on us, and the average person has very little, if any, knowledge about the healing benefits of plants.