ESSENTIAL OILS

What are they  +  How do I use them  +  Why Young Living ?

Hi Friend, I'm so glad you're here!

So Let’s start with the basics:

What are essential oils? 

Essential oils are the most vital and powerful part of plants. They’re distilled from shrubs, bushes, flowers, trees, rinds, resins and herbs. Oils consist of over 100 different natural, organic compounds.  

How do you use essential oils?

There are three main ways to get oils into your system: topically, diffusing them, and ingesting/cooking with them. Topically – you can put a drop right on your skin OR use a carrier oil which basically slows down the absorption rate and spreads out the oil to make it go further. Diffusing – You’ll need an oil diffuser. You add water to the diffuser and a few drops of oils. The oils sit on top of the water and the diffuser emits a cool mist through ultrasonic vibrations and the oil particles ride on those water molecules through the air. You can also inhale an oil from the bottle. It’s one of the most effective ways to get oils into your system because it doesn’t have to pass through the digestive system.Ingestion – some people do, some people don’t. I will put a drop of lemon in my water to add some flavor or even peppermint when my stomach is a little upset. You can get veggie capsules from the health food store and put a drop or two of an oil in, fill it with carrier oil and take it as a dietary supplement.  Essential oils reach your heart, liver and thyroid in three seconds when inhaled, they are found in the bloodstream in 26 seconds when applied topically and it takes 3-6 hours in a normal healthy body for oils to be expelled. 

How do I know if an oil is good?

Essential oils come in four different “grades”. 

GRADE A– therapeutic, made from organically grown plants and distilled at low temps.

GRADE B– food grade, but may contain synthetics, pesticides, fertilizers, chemical extenders or carrier oils.

GRADE C– perfume oils that often contain adulterating chemicals. They usually use solvents like hexane to gain a higher yield of oil per harvest. Solvents can be carcinogenic and are in many store-bought oils. They may also be diluted 80-95% with alcohol.

GRADE D– called “floral water” which is aromatic only and is usually a byproduct of Grade A distillation. After all the oil is pulled out, the leftover trash water is sold to companies which fill 5% of the bottle with this leftover floral water, fill the rest with carrier oil and synthetics, and label it “pure” because the FDA allows for that. 

Grade A is the only true pure oil. Grade D would be like walking to the fridge, taking a glass of orange juice and diluting it 95% before you drank it. You wouldn’t have the full benefits of the orange juice. That’s why you want Grade A oils. Before you purchase any essential oil, check to see if the company grows their own plants, owns their own fields and controls the entire process from seed to seal – from the farm to the sealed bottle. Pesticides, pollution, previously farmed land…all of it can affect the quality of an oil. Young Living’s oils are Grade A. 

The reason I decided to start my essential oils journey with Young Living was because they have been around for a very long time. They own all of their own farms. They don’t use pesticides (everything is weeded by hand…!), chemicals or weed killers. Their plants are harvested at their peak and put through a vigorous testing process. Then, they go from the farm directly to your home. They are the real deal and I know I am getting the real deal when I use their oils.

When I found out how much work goes into one little bottle of essential oils, I was amazed. Sixty thousand rose blossoms provide an ounce of rose oil! Lavender is abundant so 220 pounds will provide 7 pounds of oil. Jasmine flowers must be picked by hand before the sun becomes hot on the very first day they open which is why it is one of the most expensive oils in the world. It takes 8 million hand-picked blossoms to produce 2.2 pounds of oil. A sandalwood tree has to be 30 years old and 30 feet high before it can be used for distillation. Isn’t that amazing???!!!

With all of that said, a little goes a long way with the oils. Most oils are $10-$30 a bottle. A 5 ml bottle contains about 90 drops and a 15 ml bottle contains about 250 drops.

Each application is 1 to 3 drops, meaning even a small bottle will get you 45 to 90 applications. So a little go's a long way!