Can Your Essential Oil Company Back Up Their Big Claims?

Can Your Essential Oil Company Back Up Their Big Claims?

There’s a new EO company on the block throwing around big words and even bigger claims. Being a skeptical person that is already sold on Young Living for life I shrugged them off. I figured people would see through the nonsense and realize YL is the way to go.

From what I’ve seen since I tried to ignore this company I feel I have to address some of their claims.

As it always goes if a company is loud enough and makes enough promises people will abandon ship and jump aboard the newcomer, or there are people out there that just don’t know enough about Essential Oils to realize a wolf in sheep’s clothing when they see one. I’m not saying your friend who is joined up with this company is a wolf just that they, like others, have been taken in by fancy slogans and marketing terms.

We have talked about this before but there are no regulations in the US for essential oils. That means that it is up to each company to determine what they feel is therapeutic, clinical, or certified pure therapeutic grade. That’s right there is no governing body in the US that cares what these companies put in their oils especially when for the most part they fall under trademark status and the companies do not have to disclose what they have in their essential oils.

What would you do if you want to cash in on the huge industry that essential oils promises to become but don’t have the upfront capital to purchase farms so that you can truly compete in the market with Young Living? Well you just start making things up! (Because, why not no one is going to stop you?)

I don’t want to name names but you might know what new upstart company I’m talking about and no it’s not doTerra. I have issues with them but I won’t get into it here. You can read some of what I’ve wrote and probably discover my stance on their CPTG trademark. If you don’t have a clue what I’m alluding to just move on. Make the right choice with YL and don’t look back. The grass is NOT greener on the other side.

What is this new company’s claim to fame?

Why their nonsensical CERTI-5 trademark, of course! (It worked so well for DT to make up a standard I think the founding fathers of this company assumed if it ain’t broke why fix it!)

Let’s take a look at CERTI-5 shall we?

1. Sourcing Best Practices – Their sourcing best practices read as a 101 to sourcing essential oils. “Only the correct botanical varieties and parts are used for each oil” well duh, really Sherlock? If you don’t get the correct botanical varieties then you’d have to put a completely different label on there. Why would they mention this? Because by stating the completely obvious they make it seem like other companies are not doing this to the uninformed. Carefully look through their sourcing best practices. I want you to look out for the part where they mention the farms they own. What’s what you say? They don’t own any farms? Gasp say it isn’t so! They mention words like partner and site visits. How nice… first of all Young Living owns their own farms on 6 continents. Secondly the partner farms and site visits are terms YL has used for years to describe the partnership they established with these farms they don’t own but have relationships with. Again, this company is trying to cash in on what YL has established for the last 20 years.

2. Validation Best Practices – Here’s where they throw a whole bunch of science-y terms at us ‘lay’ people and hope that by confusing us we’ll just hand over our wallets and call it a day.

• Organoletpic Testing – Every essential oil company does this. It’s a fancy word for smelling the products (along with a couple other test done by your senses). You do this when the EO shows up at your door and you open the bottle!
• Microbial Testing: This is required by the FDA. Honestly are they serious with this? Do they think we will believe that other EO companies are just letting contaminated microbial infestions of their products run rampant in the marketplace not to mention that it is almost laughable that they had to mention this when most EOs are generally regarded as antimicrobial meaning most bacterium, viruses, mold, yeast etc won’t live in their presence.
• Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Testing: You can read about this test at the link. It is performed by Young Living as well and many other essential oil companies perform the test.
• Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) Testing: Oh look another test Young Living does as well.
• Heavy Metal Testing: This is required by OSHA and Young Living tests for heavy metals. In fact some EO’s are natural chelating agents which just means they bind to metals and help your body excrete them.
• Specific Gravity: Another test YL does as well. Are we sensing a theme yet?
• Optical Rotation and Refractive Index: WHAT? Are you kidding me Young Living runs this test too??? Wow guess Young Living’s oils could be CERTI-5… oh wait… it’s still a made up trademark! (And it would be pretty insulting to Young Living too.)

3. Delivery Best Practices –

• “Our pharmaceutical-grade manufacturing facilities are certified according to FDA Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), which confirms that the end products are high quality and do not pose any risk to consumers or the public.” – Surprise! Again this company is treating us, the American public, like morons this is something that is required by the FDA and something that Young Living adheres to. It’s not some new concept that this company came up with.
• “… tested, prepared and bottled in clean rooms using the most scientifically-advanced equipment and technology available. Our facilities are cleaned, rinsed, and sterilized between each batch to avoid cross-contamination.” – Is this getting repetitive for anyone but me? Is a company really going to come out and say we were too lazy to clean our scientific lab today guys sorry! No. Why are they stating this? Because stating the obvious, especially when other companies don’t specifically state this, makes them look good! Young Living has amazing onsite labs on their farms. D. Gary Young has committed 20+ years to his passion do you really think he allows shoddy facilities? He has pioneered some of the testing this company is touting just FYI.
• “Many of our essential oils are treated with either a nitrogen flush or nitrogen blanket, which helps preserve them naturally without harsh chemicals or additives.” – This is a procedure that is widely used in the industry. It is not something this company has pioneered or invented as they may lead you to believe. It is industry standard. I do not know if Young Living does this and I am on the fence about whether I care. Half of me thinks adding nitrogen to an EO would be adulterating it and the other half thinks it would be good with citrus oils to extend their shelf-life. I will email Young Living or contact my upline to find out info though because I would like the answer.
  Edit: I received a response from Young Living. Nitrogen flushes are used to stabilize FATTY oils preventing them from going rancid so Young Living does not use this process on any of their essential oils as they are not fatty oils. 
• “Products are carefully filtered, filled, capped and sealed—in accordance with advanced statistical methods and quality assurance processes. During these processes, quality checks are performed every 15 minutes, allowing them to remain completely pure throughout the process.” – Click the link. Go to the Seed to Seal site. Click testing. Forward video to 00:47 seconds. Prepare to be shocked. Young Living has been doing this for awhile kids. Don’t be fooled.
• “… oversees the delivery process of our products until they are turned over to our shipping partners for worldwide distribution.” – Woop. De. Doo. Young Living oversees their products from Seed to Seal and oversees the packaging process as well.

4. Scientific Advisory Board – “… is made up of industry-leading researchers, doctors, scientists, essential oil experts, and more. This team works together to oversee all aspects of … sourcing, validation, and delivery processes to ensure product quality and purity.” – Young Living has it’s own scientific advisory board. This other company appears to only have one Ph.D. and oh look someone who used to work for Young Living and now runs a consulting firm for MLM companies. That’s not strange at all.

5. Difference – Fancy videos, big words, and sketchy tactics. You can find out the parent company name and google them. They have a pretty bad rap as far as MLMs go.

Stay Tuned For Part 2!

I really want to address some of the other claims this company makes but it will have to be a separate post. This has already spiraled on to a huge rant and part 2 will likely go into a lot of the chemistry of essential oils. Subscribe to the blog to get notified for new posts or follow me on twitter, facebook, etc to get updates.

Before I Forget

Did you happen to see where this company mentioned Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography in all the tests they run? Neither did I. Young Living runs this test. D. Gary Young shelled out 100k to buy the equipment. Just saying. Do your research friends.