There might be affiliate links on this page, which means we get a small commission of anything you buy. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Please do your own research before making any online purchase.
While essential oils and plant extracts have been used for centuries, today, essential oils are more popular than ever. More and more people are looking for a natural way to live life, and for safe and healthy resources that can replace the synthetic products they have been using.
Purchasing an essential oil today is an easy task. But when it comes to choosing a high quality and pure product, things can get tricky, and even overwhelming! There are countless companies that are selling oils, and new ones are added to the market all the time. And while most of them claim to sell the purest and most tested products, unfortunately, many of them are lying!
So how do we know if an essential oil is pure or fake?
Let’s go into more detail about the peculiarities of a 100% pure essential oil, and how it differs from a fake one.
Why Should You Buy a 100% Pure Essential Oil?
The importance of buying a 100% pure essential oil is linked to a very simple yet key factor: oils enter our bodies!
Be it through inhalation or direct contact with the skin, the main action of the essential oils happens within our bodies.
It’s therefore very important to make sure that our essential oils are not fake or tainted. If we want to use essential oils to replace synthetic products, we have to be 100% sure that we are using something that is natural and safe.
The fact of the matter is, the pureness of an essential oil can directly affect how it supports our systems.
Taking this into account, it’s clear that 100% pure essential oils are the only appropriate option when delving into the world of essential oils. Our bodies need and deserve quality and pureness!
An oil that is produced using chemical and synthetic fillers, or an oil that is adulterated through a mix of cheap seed oil and nuts, is a dangerous oil. Not only is it not beneficial and soothing, but—even worse—it can be toxic and harmful.
Let’s take lavender as an example. The topical use of pure lavender is amazing to promote skin regeneration. But if we apply fake lavender, we may get to serious skin issues (including skin irritation or infection, allergy, and skin inflammation).A fake oil just brings more trouble and pain. That’s why we only promote this organic lavender essential oil.
It’s good to know that reliable companies—the companies that are committed to producing 100% pure and safe oils—normally take the following precautions to ensure the quality of their products:
To see an example, here is a detailed description of the testing process that is followed by our recommended essential oil company.
Unfortunately, fake essential oils are very easy to make in a lab. In addition an oil may be partially pure, meaning that it can be “stretched” using various adulterants.
All of these factors make selecting an essential oil complicated. So how can we identify safe products? How do we know if the essential oils we are buying are going to be beneficial for our families and us?
3 Differences Between Pure and Fake Essential Oils
Fortunately, there are a few ways to identify fake versus pure essential oils.
Here are three of the best clues we should take into consideration before purchasing an oil:
1. The Name
If an essential oil is real, it will have the Latin designation of the plant it comes from, in addition to its common name. As an example, Mentha piperita and Lavandula augustifolia are names that we find on the bottles of the popular peppermint and lavender oils. If the Latin name is not on a bottle’s label, the oil is probably fake.
2. The Price
While high price doesn’t necessarily translate to high quality, a cheap price is a reliably telltale sign that an oil is fake or adulterated.
Pure essential oils are usually costly, as it takes hundreds to thousands of pounds of plants to make one pound of pure essential oil. The quantity may decrease or increase depending on the type (one pound of lavender oil requires over 150 pounds of lavender flowers, while a pound of rose oil requires at least 4,000 pounds of Bulgarian rose!), but generally speaking pure essential oils cost more because the type of plant that is used and the amount of plant parts used contribute significantly to the final price.
3. The Container
Color
Pure essential oils can go bad if exposed to ultraviolet radiation. Therefore, real oils are stored in dark-colored bottles (these may be amber or cobalt blue). So if you see oils that come in clear or other colored bottles, they’re probably fake.
Material
Pure essential oils have to be stored in glass containers. This is absolutely crucial in order to maintain the quality of the oils, as the strong chemical compounds in the oils break down and react when they come into contact with plastic.
Temperature
Bottles should be kept in cool places, because heat interferes with the chemical composition of the oils.
How to Tell If an Essential Oil Is Pure
The purity test is a simple yet effective way to test an oil once you have purchased it.
This is a “home test” that you can easily do at home, but that is also pretty reliable.
Here is how you do it:
Please note that there are exceptions to this home purity test.
According to Jade Shutes, president of the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy, there are some oils that are naturally deeper in color and heavier in consistency, and can therefore leave a slight tint behind.
Those exceptions include sandalwood, patchouli, vetiver, and German chamomile.
Final Thoughts on 100% Pure Essential Oils
Ultimately, it’s all a matter of health and safety.
It should be obvious that 100% pure essential oils are the only option when you are looking to improve your life through oil therapy.
With all that being said, it’s clear that we have to be extremely careful when buying an essential oil.
With so many choices, which brands should we consider? Which products are really worth buying?
Rocky Mountains Oils is the one of the best and safest choices.
As one of the leading direct-to-consumer essential oil companies in the world, Rocky Mountains Oils creates expertly crafted blends and the purest single essential oils available.
When you use a bottle of Rocky Mountains Oils, you can be absolutely sure that you are using an oil that is pure and safe.
How do we know that Rocky Mountains Oils’ products are 100% pure? What guarantees does Rocky Mountains Oils offer to their customers??
Rocky Mountains Oils’ commitment to quality is proved by scientific facts.
Thanks to their unique processing method that combines exclusive knowledge and technical skills—the Rocky Mountains Oils S.A.A.F.E. Promise (company’s TM)—Rocky Mountains Oils are able to guarantee that their essentials oils are 100% pure, natural, and authentic.
The Rocky Mountains Oils S.A.A.F.E. Promise is synonymous with quality, reliability, and high performance. Everything you are looking for when purchasing an essential oil is included in this unique method.
In order to guarantee that their products are pure and safe, Rocky Mountains Oils provides actual GC/MS (gas chromatography and mass spectrometry) test results free of charge through their website for every essential oil.
Thanks to a rigorous process of selecting suppliers and an unwavering commitment to stringent quality testing, Rocky Mountains Oils guarantee that every oil they sell is 100% pure.
Rocky Mountains Oils guarantee that their essential oils do not contain adulterants by conducting both external and internal production tests.
Tests and analysis are conducted by the company, as well as by independent, third-party GC/MS testing.
The high standard of quality and pureness of the Rocky Mountains Oils is guaranteed by the GC/MS test reports, as well as by an efficient and unique internal quality control process.
A unique working method, a professional and scientific approach to production, public and independent tests, and a high-quality purity process make Rocky Mountains Oils one of the most reliable companies in the essential oils market.
It’s more than just testing that sets Rocky Mountains Oils apart. They work diligently to make a difference.
Now that you know the basics of pure essential oils, all that remains is try the oils and enjoy their benefits!
Where to start? There are a million reasons that people choose to try essential oils. Some of the most common include more energy, treating headaches, and soothing anxiety.
Learn more here:
Pamela Sironi is a passionate writer, blogger, yoga, teacher, mom and essential oils addict. She has studied with experts, made trainings, webinar and workshops on how to use essential oils in life, at 360°. Today she uses essential oils to improve her family’s health and mood, to relax, to focus, to energize… for a thousand and more reasons!
