How to Choose the Best Essential Oil Company

The essential oils industry is flooded – there’s no doubt. With more companies popping up and old ones sticking around, it’s hard to know how to choose the best essential oil company for you. Blog posts dedicated to choosing the best essential oil brand are very subjective- but don’t worry, you won’t find that here. In this article, I’m not going to tell you which essential oil company to choose. I’m going to give you the steps that will help you find your perfect brand. Let’s get started. 

1. Define Your Goal 

What is your goal with essential oils? Why do you want to use them? Answering these questions is critical to finding the best essential oil brand for you. 

If you are looking for what I called “smell good” essential oils- the ones that you’re purely going to use for the smell- then opting for an essential oil company with not-so-pure products is not the worst idea for your wallet. 

“Smell good” essential oils are designed to make your sheets smell like lavender fields and allow you to walk into a pleasant smelling home. While this sounds great, “smell good” essential oils don’t have to be as high quality, so often they are cheap essential oils. 

Cheap essential oils make up the majority of the market. Why? Well, research published in 2008 by Tony Burfield in Aromatherapy Times answers this question plainly: “Essential oil customers frequently demand oils below the market price while still wanting to be told they are authentic.” And I doubt much has changed since then. So companies produce oils that are inexpensive and tell us they are authentic even though they aren’t. And often these oils are synthetic, meaning that they don’t come from plants, but chemicals. 

Keep this in mind, though: with cheap essential oils, you always have to be on the lookout for adulteration that is toxic to your health. For instance, the addition of fragrance (a hormone disruptor) to essential oil is a common practice that is typically much more prevalent with premium oils like Frankincense. 

If your goal is to use essential oils for serious therapeutic benefits like boosting mood, reducing anxiety, increasing brain power, and supporting thyroid health, than you need to look for reputable essential oil companies that provide scientific comparison of the top essential oil brands.   

What is crucial when looking for the most reputable essential oil companies? Complete transparency in sourcing, testing, and overall quality is going to help you weed out the cheaper companies and help you find the most reputable essential oil companies. 

Now break it down a little further- what are your price, selection, and quality goals? 

What can you afford, are these oils in your price range? Does this company have the selection you are looking for? If you just want a few of the popular oils then looking for a company with hundreds of oils, blends, and kits is just not necessary. Once you define your price, selection, and quality goals-picking through the best essential oil brands will be easy for you!

So once you come up with a clear goal, keep these things in mind and go from there.  

2. How/Where to Purchase 

Where do you want to purchase your essential oils? First, decide if it’s online or in person. Then decide if you would rather support a local mom and pop shop or a big-name, ethical company. 

If you want to shop around locally, there are benefits. You can smell the aroma, support your local businesses, and get your questions answered…face to face. From gas stations to grocery stores, you can find essential oils almost everywhere, but that’s why you need to remember your goal once again and decide which one of these shops deserve your business. If you only want smell-good essential oils, a cheap buy from your nearest gas station wouldn’t be the worst idea. 

Below are some local stores that carry essential oils. In my opinion, these oils are typically best used for aromatic effects or DIY recipes that you’ll use for cleaning. Here’s some examples of stores that carry essential oils locally:

• Bath and Body Work 
• Bed Bath and Beyond
• CVS
• GNC
• Target 
• Trader Joe’s
• Walmart
• Whole Foods 

Your other option for where to purchase essential oils is going to be online- which also has its perks. 

Typically, the companies that specialize in essential oils are found online. Depending on what you’re using your essential oils for, you may not have a problem picking up a bottle of lavender right next to a pack of chewing gum in the checkout aisle. But, if you’re looking for therapeutic benefits or specific physical or emotional results…well, the oils in the big box stores are typically not the best choice for that. 

Ordering online is no doubt more convenient. If you have a family, you know what I’m talking about. Busy people just don’t always have the time to venture out to the store- or at least don’t schedule the time. The fallbacks of ordering online include not being able to try the product and that it may be harder to get answers to your questions. You may even be wondering what the best essential oil brands on Amazon are, and I get that- Amazon is the fastest, most convenient way to get what you want. And if you want to get yours off of Amazon, you’re going to need do a little extra research. 

So, take a little time and decide which direction you’re going to go in when determining how and where to purchase your essential oils. 

3.  Ask Around 

Do you have friends or trusted colleagues that swear by their essential oil brand? Knowing that someone you trust uses a brand is a pretty good sign that you will love it too. Ask them whether they feel like their essential oils are worth the price, how they use their brand, and how well they think the oils do their job. But remember, don’t go 100% in on a brand just because someone you know uses them. Take those brands and dig a little deeper. 

4.  Know Your Labels 

Because so many people are now making the switch to natural remedies from conventional remedies, the essential oils industry is overflowing. Knowing how to read labels is going to give you a leg up and make it way easier when trying to decide which are the top essential oil brands and the most reputable essential oil companies. Here’s what you should always find to know if an oil is authentic: 

• The Latin name of the plant (botanical name)
• Where the plants were sourced or country of origin  
• When the oil was distilled or expiration date 
• If the oil was crafted from a fresh or dry plant, fresh is best! 
• Ingredients in the bottle- no synthetics or mineral oil 

Even if a bottle says that an essential oil is “pure” or “all-natural” even “therapeutic grade,”- this means virtually nothing because the essential oils industry is unregulated. 

5.  Evaluate the Company’s Transparency 

If you are buying online, you can easily go to an essential oil company’s site and evaluate them. Look to see if they are transparent with their quality. This means, do they clearly show proof of sourcing, testing, distillation, and bottling process? If they say they run certain tests but don’t show proof, consider that a potential red flag. 

Ask these questions: 

• Does the company provide testing information and third-party testing results?
• Does the site offer in-depth safety information?
• Does the company allow for 100% money back returns?
• Does the company offer friendly customer service support?
• Does the company offer educational information or additional support on essential oil use

Looking for more shortcuts? We’re rating the most popular essential oil brands here.