Lately there have been various articles on the internet and elsewhere about ingesting essential oils. Certain brands advise customers to ingest oils for therapeutic use. As for taking oils internally, it is not usually recommended by herbalists, naturopaths and aromatherapists in the U.S.A. Do so at your own risk, or under the care of a medical professional.
Young Living essential oils and their spin off company doTERRA are multi-level marketing companies. They claim to have the purest “therapeutic grade” oils on the market. Harvest Market has chosen not to carry multi level marketing brands of essential oils. We feel that they have overly strong and sometimes misleading marketing tactics. There is no testing facility or system in place in the U.S. or Europe for therapeutic grade. Anyone can put that term on the label, much like the term all-natural. What is different about the labeling on Young Living and doTERRA is that they paid to trademark the term so now they have the legal right to sue anyone else who puts it on their essential oil label.
We recommend that customers look for Certified Organic essential oils and/or see if the company selling the oil has full transparency about where the oils come from. It is important to know the country of origin in which the plants were grown and where they are processed. Aura Cacia brand has a good reputation for full transparency as does Wyndmere. Wyndmere, Aura Cacia and Now brand offer some USDA Certified Organic essential oils. DoTERRA offers some organic oils and some transparency about country of origin. Note that Now has its own version of “Thieves” oil (the name Thieves has been trademarked by Young Living) called “Nature’s Shield”.
Note that there is no FDA or other Federal regulation for essential oils as food or supplements. In fact in 2014, the FDA ordered a cease and desist against Young Living for using the term “supplement facts” on their labels. They have since changed the label to read Topical and Aromatic. There are currently no federal regulations for the quality or consistency of essential oils either, other than Organic Certification.
