Over a year ago, I began to throw around the idea of using essential oils to help our daughter's immune system and respiratory issues. I had been introduced to essential oils about 4 years earlier when I was working in a health food store in the health and beauty department- where essential oils were sold. Company reps came in and their spill would go something like this " This is ___ essential oil and it is used for headaches. This is ___ essential oil and it is uplifting. This is ___ essential oil and it helps scrapes and cuts." Ok? I was never blown away by these presentations, we were never told the chemistry behind oils and about the farms these companies use to grow the plants that are used to extract these precious oils. Well, I realize now that's probably because most everything we were shown, from the liquid in the bottles to the label on the outside, was all created in a lab. It has an expiration date and a warning not to be taken internally- as does the label around poisonous cleaning products.
Back to my search for an oil company! We are going to barely touch the surface here, there is SO much information that Young Living makes available to it's customers. If I miss something or you have questions and want to go deeper, let me know- we can so go there. I knew if this was going to be something I was going to try on my fragile, precious daughter, it had to be something that was going to work. I didn't want controversy, I wanted purity. I researched and learned about how essential oils work in the body and how their purity can be compromised, I wasn't willing to compromise and I wanted a company that felt the same. Over and over again, I landed back at Young Living. I was, and still am, amazed at their dedication to control, purity, and education.
The process of growing and extracting an oil from a plant is a very delicate process. It blows my mind at how delicate this process is, factors ranging from the soil, the amount of sun, the time of year, the humidity, the amount of frost free days, and so much more dictate the best place to grow certain plants. Distilling is another huge factor, some plants need to be distilled right away while others need to rest for a specific amount of time. These factors are important because if you grow a plant in a sub-par area, harvest it at the wrong time of the year, then are inconsiderate with it's distillation, it won't exhibit it's highest potential for therapeutic properties. If all of this is well understood and a company educates it's workers on the art form that begins with choosing seeds to plant in the ground, you are going to get essential oils full of therapeutic constituents. Young Living does all of this and more, it's called their Seed to Seal process and you can learn all about it here. Pure, amazing, knowledgeable, simply wonderful.
It can go even further as to the machines used to test oil samples. Young Living uses Gas Chromatography coupled with Mass Spectrometry to test their oils as well as a chiral column to test for adulterations that may not be found with the first two machines. The column on the GC/MS is almost twice as long as other labs, allowing for maximum separation of molecules to determine the presence of chemical constituents. If any oil does not meet Young Living standards, it is thrown out. Have I lost you yet? That's fine, I became familiar with these units while my husband was finishing his PhD. I heard them over and over and my mind was in la-la land, then when I started learning about Young Living, I impressed him by recalling his dissertation :) Bottom line- this company goes over and beyond any standards that have been set in not only the US, but European nations that actually do have tighter controls on essential oils. They allow the FDA to inspect so that their oils safe for ingesting can have a nutrition label printed on them. Although, here's my opinion- if anything has passed Young Living's strict standards, I would not think twice about putting it in my body; however, if it's passed the FDA's standards, I'm still going to think about a hundred more times and research it to great extents before it even touches my lips.
Everyone wants to talk money when you bring up essential oils. I paid almost $80 for a 15 mL bottle of sacred frankincense to un-do damage done to my daughter's lungs, and guess what? It did just that. Worth every stinking penny spent, in my opinion. This frankincense comes from the Middle East, and was limited to Saudi royals until Young Living was able to partner with them, it's also believed to be the same species of frankincense brought to baby Jesus by the Wise Men. I look at it as a privilege to be able to buy it for my family, and we've saved well over $800 in medical costs since using essential oils. I've also used an $11 bottle of lemon oil to help a congested baby breathe through her nose, if you've been there, you understand the value in that. There's definitely a range in price, but just another example in the realm of "you get what you pay for." I am happy to be able to purchase essential oils for my family from a company that is so knowledgeable in the world of essential oils and goes to such lengths to make sure the bottle that arrives at my doorstep is pure, unadulterated and going to help, never harm my family. Thank you, Young Living for your commitment to awesome essential oils!
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