our favorite reasons for why young living

How is Young Living different than other companies?

Young Living is the only company to have 100% control over the entire process of production. They own farms all over the world, growing and distilling in the best way possible. If it’s not grown by a YL farm, it’s from an exclusive partner farm with the exact same standards. Everything is grown from non-GMO seeds, in an organic matter. When it’s time to harvest and distill, they will do a test batch first to check chemical constituent levels to ensure that it’s the best time. There is never, ever anything added to your YL oils. This means that the quality is significantly superior to anything else out there. No other company can say these things!

But, aren’t they expensive?

Price is what you pay, value is what you get, friends! While they may cost more than your typical health food store oils, let’s break down WHY that is, and how they actually an amazing value when you understand the difference. You typical health food store oils are not grown with the same standards as YL - non-GMO seeds, grown organically, harvested at the exact right time, distilled on site, live testing during distillation, in house and third party testing on every batch. Our products also don’t pass through multiple brokers, allowing for contamination. If you can see/smell a single oil such as lavender or peppermint of another brand compared to YL, the differences are obvious. For our families, we know that YL is the best quality out there, and the safest option for our loved ones, and that’s absolutely worth the cost for us. Additionally, we have found that we get better results with fewer drops of oil using the purest, most potent oils that only YL provides.

If other brands say they are organic and 100% pure, isn’t that enough?

We’ll let you be the judge! 100% pure is not a regulated term. The USDA organic label is regulated, but has some limitations. Remember that organic doesn’t mean “no pesticides”, it means only certain ones. YL uses their own essential oils to spray on the crops to deter pests. Additionally this does not account how the oil is distilled, or what other additives and synthetics may be present. How are synthetics added? Well - most of the time, the oil has changed hands several times before being bottled for any particular company. At any point along this process, the oils can be tampered with, having synthetics added to “improve the aroma”, or carriers added to extend the amount of product (profit). The fact is that many companies selling oil that is contaminated are NOT intending to do so, but it’s out of their control when third-party brokers are used.

Why does it matter how an oil is distilled?

Young Living obtains most of their oils by steam distillation, and some by cold-pressing, like citrus oils. A few oils are obtained by resin tapping. These are the cleanest methods and result in the highest quality of oil, but are also the most time consuming and expensive. Other companies will use a process involving a chemical solvent that saturates the plant material, and then other chemical processes to attempt to remove the solvent they started with. Some of the chemical solvent always remains however, and this is why you will see many non-YL bottles say things like “avoid skin exposure, may cause sensitivity, not for internal use” or similar.

I’ve heard that essential oils are bad for the environment and take a lot of plant material to produce a small amount of oil. True?

It is true that it takes a large amount of plant material to produce essential oils, absolutely. For example, a 15ml bottle of peppermint requires a full pound of leaves and flowering tops of peppermint to product. From this perspective, with the way our oils are grown, the value is clear. It is not true that this is inherently unsustainable. YL is committed to environmental stewardship of the highest level, and has aligned with sustainability long before it was the hip thing to do. As they celebrate their 25th Anniversary, they are expanding on this with their 5x5 Pledge. As part of this initiative, they have set a goal for becoming zero waste in the next 5 years, as well as obtaining 5 new farms per year and other pledges. It’s an exciting time to be with Young Living for sure!