Frequently Asked Questions
Are your essential oils therapeutic grade?
Harmony Naturals uses only 100% PURE essential oils in our products. We do not use “therapeutic grade” essential oils because there is no such thing as a “therapeutic-grade” essential oil! This comes as a shock to many essential oil aficionados, but surprisingly in the world of essential oils, there is no accreditation process. Essential oils are not evaluated by the FDA (or any other governing or accrediting agency) that regulates, grades or certifies essential oil quality. Therefore, there is not a standard by which the oils can be measured; any claims stating that essential oils are “Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade” or “100% pure therapeutic-grade” are merely marketing descriptors – there is no real meaning behind them! A statement of “100% pure essential oil” is really the only truthful claim a company can make!
Can I ingest your essential oils?
Absolutely NOT! All the research we have done at Harmony Naturals indicates that this is not a wise practice. Essential oils are extremely concentrated, and many are corrosive when undiluted. The National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy and the Alliance of International Aromatherapists do not support the indiscriminate or uneducated internal use of essential oils unless used under close supervision by an appropriately trained and licensed healthcare practitioner.
Consumers are frequently misled by enthusiastic sales reps that ALL Young Living and doTERRA essential oils are of such high-grade (again, “grading” simply doesn’t exist) and such a higher purity (an oil can’t be more than 100% pure) than all their competitors that their essential oils are “safe” for ingestion and all other oils are inferior because they are “not safe” for ingestion. This is a blatantly misleading and deceitful way to sell essential oils. This is not a quality issue, this is a SAFETY issue. A sales rep absolutely IS NOT qualified to help you use essential oils internally (even if they have been “trained” by their company). ALL essential oils (regardless of brand) can be dangerous if not used with caution and care; using essential oils safely should always be a top priority.
If you are considering internal use of essential, please read more on our ‘Safety’ page first!
Are your essential oils tested by a third party?
Yes. All of Harmony Naturals’ essential oils are unadulterated, meaning no additives of any kind (such as bases, carriers, paraffins or parabens) have been added (the exception being exotic oils which are diluted in jojoba oil due to their strength – any dilutions we use are marked as such). All our oils are tested by our wholesaler in their laboratory using state-of-the-art gas chromatography to rigorously test the veracity of the purity and potency of their sourced oils. This ensures that all the essential oils we sell are of the highest quality and purity. Each and every essential oil we sell and/or use in a product is meticulously tested and documented. The following information is available, upon request: MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet), C of A (Certificate of Analysis), GC/MS (Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry Analysis) and Quality & Regulatory Info.
Are your essential oils organic?
We also don’t usually use organic oils because it dramatically increases the cost of the oil with only a negligible (if any) difference in quality. All essential oils come from plant material; many of the plants used for essential oils are already natural deterrents for insects and pests or simply are not affected by them (like trees). Our supplier always does their best to source all their products from organic growers and distillers, leaving their products free from pesticides or chemical fertilizers. No pesticides, synthetic chemicals, herbicides, GMOs, harmful chemicals or fertilizers are ever used during any stage of the growing or distillation process, which is precisely what “organics” seek to avoid. Additionally, the plant material for essential oils is grown all over the world — many countries simply do not have a certification process for organics even if the essential oil would meet organic standards. When it comes to essentials oils, organics do not necessarily provide any additional purity or safety and therefore, it is in the opinion of Harmony Naturals, that they are just not worth the extra money.
Why are your prices so much lower than Young Living or doTERRA?
We buy in bulk from trustworthy, top-quality wholesalers. We rebottle the single note (unblended) essential oils for resale exactly as they come to us and, we create our essential oil blends personally from the same oils and then bottle them ourselves and we hand-make all the natural products we sell! We determine the retail cost by our total cost and time to produce the item. In addition to producing our own products, we also sell our products ourselves, via Kim’s massage therapy office in East Lansing, Michigan, and through our Harmony Naturals’ online store (which we built and maintain ourselves). We literally do everything ourselves and there are no middlemen in our operation. This business model assures our customers that our products are a great value!
But doesn't higher cost mean higher quality?
In this case, no. We don’t know exactly how Young Living or doTERRA price their essentials oils, but we suspect that a large factor in pricing difference is business structure. Both Young Living and doTERRA are multi-level marketing, or MLM companies. MLM is a system of direct sales through a hierarchy of individual distributors, where sellers get a cut of the profits from sales by other distributors they have recruited. This increases product cost significantly because, in addition to the actual company making a profit on their goods, the hierarchical network of distributors all make commission on each sale. Ask yourself this… if your sales rep is earning free vacations from sales, who do you think pays for those vacations? That being said, if you would like to send us on a free vacation, we’re not opposed to it.
Additionally, companies that wish to offer “ingestible” essential oils must pay for a substantial amount of liability insurance to remove the “not for internal consumption”, “not for ingestion” or, “for external use only” warning labels from their products. Presumably, the high cost of liability insurance is passed along to the consumer too. You can learn more about MLMs in this blog post.
Bottom line – an essential oil’s quality is in the purity. The actual cost is in the availability of the raw material and the difficulty to procure and produce the oil. If the higher cost of an essential oil is due to paying tiers of sales rep commission and/or paying for liability insurance in case someone gets hurt from using an oil internally, neither one of those things have anything to do with quality. Those additional costs are simply being passed on the consumer.
Why did you start Harmony Naturals when they are so many other companies selling essential oils right now?
We started this business so that we could provide 100% pure essential oils and blends and practical, chemical-free natural products that many regular consumers can afford to use in everyday life. Creating top-quality, versatile and reasonably-priced products is a driving principle of Harmony Naturals. We were frustrated with inflated prices and a lack of consumer-education. We felt people were not getting a good value for their money. We think we can do it better and we hope you will find our products to be an invaluable part of your household.