Why we chose Young Living for Our Family. There are many essential oil choices. So many you may need some peppermint essential oil for the resulting headache. Here is a quick guide to navigating the many essential oil company choices.
But first, what peppermint should you buy? There seems to be 100 brands and the price varies from a couple dollars towards 20!
In a previous post I talked about seeking natural remedies first. There I highlighted a few options for changing your lifestyle and what those changes did for us. Hopefully that post brought you here on which company we chose and why.
I will start off by saying there are a lot of options out there, and I did not research anywhere close to all of them. Honestly, it just got overwhelming!
So let’s build off some basics.
What is an Essential Oil?
I like to think of it was a concentrated plant juice that has been pressed and distilled into a bottle for our use. Other forms of apothecary used tonics or tinctures where chopped leaves would be soaked in alcohol to draw out the medicinal properties of the plant. And these plants really do have effects… if it is the right plant, part of a plant and free from other chemicals and additives that are harmful!
Which is where all the pain starts.
Labels!
The easiest example of this pain is the standard chicken egg. You have options for caged (not that they are labeled as such) cage free, free range, pasture raise, all natural, no antibiotics, organic and just about any combination all meaning different things.
Then add in some various certifications on how the chickens lives are…you get the idea.
To really be an educated buyer you have to know what the regulations are for each of these words to be marketed as such.
The actual answers may surprise you and perhaps you started buying eggs at a local farms market, a farmer, or raising the chickens yourselves to forget the whole headache!
Essential oils are the same way. Maybe easier in the sense there are less extra marketing words. And just like the eggs you have to dig into the weeds to really find out what you are buying.
I love to go to the source of information, and I hope that even what I am saying here you will try to do your own research. Some of the statements I read on various blogs were eye opening but I have yet to actually find the information at the source myself.
The biggest challenge is how essential oils are defined at a government level for marketing and sale. They are viewed as cosmetic and fragrances. This is a far cry from what a true essential oils capable of and why it was so important to source our oils from a reputable company sticking to a standard we desired.
Stick with me as I go through the positive markers which made our families decision easier.
Homesteader mindset!
I love it when a homestead, farmstead, or farm allows people to visit and see the operation. No show no gimmicks, just see where your food is coming from and trust us to do it right.
When I found out (through our friend who introduced us to Young Living) that you can visit the farms, it was a positive in my mind for the company. That type of practice is something as a homesteader I could relate to and alleviates some of those labeling concerns. When the whole operation and process is before you, there is no hiding that your free range chickens don’t actually have room to go outside.
Was it yet to the point of signing up? Not all the way. Why are the prices still so much higher and what is this business side going on that has some legal issues? Admittedly there were some concerns still. So we dig.
Standards
Seed To Seal. A simple statement that neatly packages a very high standard.
50 years. I will say it again, 50 years. That is how long the soil has to be chemical free for Young Living to start using the products. And to keep the soil free of chemicals there is a much larger work force being paid fair wages to manage these farms. Weeding of lavender fields is preformed by a flock of sheep!
Young Living either owns or partners with the farms where the source product is grown. These farms are around the world growing the plants in climates that are most beneficial to the plant.
Distilling, another point that I had read could have areas of contention! How are the plants distilled or pressed to get the oils out? Better yet! What part of the plant is actually the most beneficial. In lavender, do you go for the leaves? Maybe the flowers, or even the stems? Why not the roots too?
The tomato in your garden is healthy for you. Nobody is eating a bunch of the leaves because it will likely make you sick! Exactly the same holds true for plants being used for essential oils. Certain parts actually contain the bits that cause an effect, while others parts have none. With Young Living marketing towards the healthy lifestyle, all the way to internal use this was another positive for the company.
The above also starts to draw some of the price difference. A bottle may have the exact same labels, but it will cost a lot more for a specific part of a plant vice trying to extract oil from the whole plant. The amount of flowers required to make a bottle of oil compared to using the whole plant is vastly different!
Whole lifestyle transition support!
We are busy. Two young boys, each with full time jobs and trying to run a small homestead to provide the best food for our family. When looking at a lifestyle change the convenience of one company offering multiple things and already having trusted standards is amazing.
Thieves cleaning products! Easy solution. They are super concentrated, even though the bottle is expensive it goes an extremely long ways and replaced so many cleaners in our house. Thieves laundry detergent, another easy swap and is HE. There are methods of making that last longer too.
Toothpaste, something I did not right away consider as a source of putting chemicals in my body. But there it is and Young living makes their own!
Nutritional supplements! If you are removing chemicals wouldn’t chemicals from these also be considered for removal. So we transitioned to vitamines from them.
Cosmetics? I admit they have them, though my wife and I do not wear makeup so we are not familiar with this topic!
To make things even more convenient, the company does not sell nor distribute to stores. Amazon is also not a retailer of Young Living. To get their products you have to buy through them. Makes product control easy, but also that means they ship a box. Right to your door!
Cost
I get the idea of paying more for a higher quality product. I understand the aspect of the way they manage the process creates added cost but that bought my favor, so good. How does this multi level marketing thing also fit into the construct and add to cost?
Not one of the items we really looked into a first nor wanted anything to do with it. My wife stayed out of the business side for almost a year because she just wanted the products. We ate the extra cost just as if we were shopping at the farmers market or buying the highest quality organic we could find.
Business
After only a few months of the business side, my wife already has our monthly orders being paid for with an bit extra for a source of income. There is potential to continue to grow so it can be a lucrative option for earning money on the homestead! At the very least we know we are getting high quality products, that we were going to spend money on anyways but now it is paid for by a commission.
How does that commission work? Well things in the system are changing. Because we have not been doing it long we have only approached it from one avenue. You share the information, people sign up under you and they buy what they want. We help them with any questions about the products or their uses, even some customer service issues! And if we spend at least 100 dollars then we get a % of the cost from the orders below us. The % reduces as you move further down the line but really, we were buying the products either way.
The nice thing, we were only sharing the products based on what worked for us. A method of helping other people find options that are healthy and chemical free. At no point do we have an inventory of products to sell. The only stipulation was buying the 100 dollars of products to get the commission which really is almost like a discount at first from your order. Once the line grows and more people share the discount grows to a paycheck!
There is a whole essential oil community our family has become a part of. My wife and her friends teach classes on the oils uses, how to grow the business, healthy living and run a Facebook group for their members! Though we did not know the amount of support available going into this avenue of healthy living it is something we are thankful for. For this very reason, this is not a sign up post, nor will our link to sign up be on here. If you are interested please fill out a contact us form to our homestead email.
** Signing up for Young Living under our family does result in us making a commission on any products you purchase.**