Well, I bought some really terrible essential oils this week and I wanted to keep you from doing the same!
I have only ever purchased oils from the companies I recommend to you at the bottom of my newsletters. I was given those marvelous names during my Clinical Aromatherapy training program and have never had any reason to try oils from other, unknown, companies.
Over the years I been very happy and each time I open a box and unwrap the carefully packaged oils and bring them to my nose. I am transported by a new intense and natural smell. Amazing.
But,
This week I was part of a discussion on facebook about using essential oils to keep ticks at away. I found several online sources that mentioned how using rose geranium, especially a specific genus of rose geranium really kept ticks off of pets.
I have a beautiful Geranium oil and I have other really nice oils for bug repellant, but I went looking and none of my regular sources had this Rose Geranium in their shops. (That was probably my first clue that something was up.) So, I found a source online that looked a bit generic. I tried to google around for reviews of the company and I couldn’t really find anything, but the reviews on the page were pretty positive. Many people thankful for the inexpensive oils. (That was my second clue something was up. The oils were WAY too cheap, ($3.66 for an ounce of Lavender oil) but I thought , “Well even if they’re not great I can use them for things like putting peppermint along the floor boards to keep the ants away.”) Some people were ranting a bit about how these were poor quality oils, but not many. And, like I said, I was swept away by he price and the promise that I could keep ticks away.
The oils arrived quickly and I sat down to open them up. I unwrapped each cool bottle and then began to smell them.
The rose geranium smelled like rose. A bit sickly sweet, but sort of nice.
Then I opened the Peppermint. Horrid. Really horrid. Like gasoline or rubbing alcohol were mixed in. Yuck!
Then the Lavender. Ewwwww. It smelled like a really fake lavender air freshener mixed with bon-ami, that powder cleaner for tubs. Gross.
I was definitely holding them farther from my nose as I smelled them now. Each one terrible.
I was shocked, even though I shouldn’t have been. My teacher warned us that the world of essential oils is filled with people adulterating and faking essential oils to make money. I just didn’t think it would all look so official. Although, I have been hearing about a recent incident of one of the huge multi-level marketing giants in essential oils that was adulterating their oils, so I think it is, sadly, a common practicehttp://www.utahstories.com/2014/08/damning-evidence-that-young-living-and-doterras-essential-oils-are-adulterated/
I still wasn’t sure about the Rose Geranium, so I took some and poured it in a little bowl to see if it looked like an essential oil. It was supposed to be light yellow/greenish per the website description, but it was not. Instead it was totally clear.
I dropped it in some water and it sank in little balls to the bottom, which essential oils don’t do-they float.
It was a fake!
I had been duped!
A little bit of the Rose Geranium oil got in my hair when I leaned over to smell it in the dish and so the smell followed me around. The smell was so strong I got a headache and I had to take a shower. Maybe the reviews are right and it does keep ticks away, but what I bought was a fragrance oil, not a true essential oil with all the incredible natural chemical components that make essential oils the powerful healers that they are.
When the family came home I had them smell the oils, too. They looked shocked as they smelled the Peppermint and the Lavender, too. “Is that gasoline?!” Rob asked, holding his nose.
I’m going to call the company and see what they have to say, but when I re-read the reviews and paid more attention to the negative ones, I learned that this company doesn’t allow you to return oils once you open them. Well, lesson learned, and at least they were cheap.
So, make sure you know and trust the source of your oils!
