Watch this 2 minute video to understand the thoroughness of effort at Young Living to produce the finest quality therapeutic essential oils possible.

Therapeutic quality oils have been grown, harvested and processed with the therapeutic use in mind.  The oils are kept in a condition as close as possible to that which exists within the plant.

Even the seedlings have been carefully selected and tended and are identifiable by genus and species names of the particular type of plant.   Seedlings are carefully grown to the point of planting and then they are tended with extreme care and organic methods till mature.

In the case of Young Living oils, that means that pure mountain water is used to cultivate, only organic fertilizers and compost nutrient the plants and other oils provide protection from insects rather than insecticides or other sprays.

Hand weeding is done, and sometimes the goats are turned loose.

Prior to harvesting the entire field, a small batch of plants are distilled and tested to determine whether there are adequate amounts of the appropriate constituents or whether the plants should be allowed to continue growing.

-Once cut, the plant can no longer produce additional essential oil compounds and you got what you got. 

-This is why many sellers end up supplementing the natural molecules with some made in a laboratory- to get the required levels of certain constituents up to a level that passes the minimum (AFNOR) standards.  See “Essential Oil Standards”

-Recall that AFNOR is the minimum standard set to meet the needs of flavor and perfume manufacturers who use over 95% of the essential oils produced on the planet!

-These users are interested only in certain molecules from each oil, they do not need, nor are the interested in the therapeutic molecules that COULD have been produced- cheaper is better for them.

Assuming the plants are ready for harvest, special equipment and harvesting methods must be used to preserve the purity of the plants to be distilled. Plant matter is loaded into large distillation chambers which will allow steam to flow up through the plant matter and rise to the top where the steam will begin condensing and gathering in a condensation chamber where both steam and oil will revert to liquid form.

The mixture of the water and oils will naturally separate a bit but further separation is needed to obtain the pure oil for bottling. There is power in this water too- these are called hydrosols.

Young Living uses low temperature and no additional pressure in its distillation. This means that the fragile molecules are preserved and that the full array of available constituents is allowed to be distilled and captured. Again- food and perfume manufacturers are only interested in a few constituents and they do not care whether the other molecules are captured or harmed.

Therapeutic quality oils will be bottled in colored glass containers to reduce damage from ultra violet light. And will be labeled with the genus and species name of the plant. See the article at University of Minnesota’s web site about Therapeutic Quality oils. (Press the Back button if you get sent away from this page.)

Enjoy!