Oasis Energy Therapy

Natural Health & Wellness

Home     Far Infrared Therapy     Back On Track® Products     Energy Therapy Machines     Essential Oils     Pixieglass Products     Therapeutic Salts     Services     Interesting Links      
Single Oils     Blended Oils     Accessories     Carrier Oils     Essential Skin Care     Essential Supplements     Animal Aromatherapy     Books     Starting Out     Essential Oil Safety      

Whether you want to enhance your mood, reduce stress, or repel insects, there is an essential oil that can help! (with those things and much more!)

 

What Are Essential Oils?

Essential oils are natural aromatic compounds that are distilled from plants. In addition to giving plants their distinctive smells, essential oils provide plants with protection against predators and disease, and play a role in plant pollination. Essential oils have been used throughout history in many cultures for their medicinal, therapeutic and aromatic benefits.  

 

What Makes Essential Oils Therapeutic?

The therapeutic properties of essential oils come from naturally occuring chemical constituents, as unique to each oil as a fingerprint. These constituents are affected by many variables, including the soil, the climate, the time of harvest, and the distilling techniques. Oil distilled from the same plant will have different properties depending on all of these factors. For example, common thyme has high levels of thymol, but also contains carvacrol. If harvested in midsummer or fall, there will be much higher levels of carvacrol, which causes the oil to be more irritating to the skin.

Distilling conditions are likewise important in obtaining pure, potent and therapeutic oils. Distilling at low pressure and low temperature helps maintain the purity, fragrance and therapeutic value of the oil. However, it is more costly to produce essential oils this way. Since the vast majority of production is destined for use in the perfume industry, many producers use higher temperatures, higher pressure, and even chemical solvents to extract oil more rapidly. These oils may smell good and cost less, but they will lack most, if not all, of the chemical constituents necessary to produce the expected therapeutic results.

 

Making the Grade

Within the essential oils industry there are three grades of quality. Synthetic essential oils comprise the lowest grade. These oils are used in the perfume industry and have no therapeutic value, although they are often added to higher grade oils as a cheap filler. The next grade is for the food industry, and conforms to the GRAS standard. These are mainly used for flavouring foods, but are often passed off as therapeutic grade. The highest and most exclusive grade is therapeutic quality. But even within the Therapeutic Grade oils there is a range of quality. At the top of the range is Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade. In order to reach this premium therapeutic grade, the plants that produce the oils are strictly supervised as they are grown and harvested in order to obtain the correct chemical profile. Lesser grades may smell similar, but they won't have the same effect on your body.

 

dōTERRA Essential Oils

Oasis Energy Therapy uses dōTERRA Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade (CPTG™) essential oils. Here's why: first of all, dōTERRA takes care to monitor the growing and harvesting of the plants to ensure that the proper methods are used to produce the highest quality oil. In addition, dōTERRA has each and every batch of oil tested by independent labs using both a Gas Chromatography and a Mass Spectrometry test.

 

Why is it important to use both tests? The answer is that a Gas Chromatography test only counts the different constituents of an oil to verify that all are present. It does not and cannot differentiate between synthetic oils and natural oils. If a company relies only on a GC test, they may end up selling 100% pure synthetic oil when they believe that they are selling 100% pure natural oil.

 

The Mass Spectronomy test reveals whether a not a sample is pure or adulterated, natural or synthetic. It is the more expensive test, but absolutely vital to ensure that every bottle that is shipped to a consumer conforms to the Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade standard.

 

Many essential oil companies believe that they are selling the highest quality available, but if they do not test each and every batch with a GC and a MS test, how do they know? The founders of dōTERRA choose to take home less money in order to ensure that every batch of oil is Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade oil. They do this because they use these oils on themselves and their families and want the highest quality available for their personal use.

 

Buyer Beware! 

A growing number of products claim to be or to contain essential oils. They are found in skin care, cosmetics, aromatherapy, and other products. However, many of these products use fragrant synthetic chemical substitutes to dilute or replace more expensive essential oil extracts. How can you tell the difference between poor quality, synthetic or diluted oils and pure, potent essential oils?

 

It is very difficult for the average person--or even an expert--to determine potency from smell alone. Top-quality oils will have a Nutrition Facts label if the oil is one that is safe to consume. This label verifies that the oil has been thoroughly tested and is free from pesticides, chemical residues, additives, and other contaminants. In addition, pure essential oils will not have an expiry date, as they have an indefinite shelf life. If the bottle says "for topical or aromatic use only," the oil is very possibly not pure, not thoroughly tested, and/or not good quality. Finally, look for the designation CPTG, which indicates that essential oils have met the highest standards in the world.

 

The most important indicator of potency is, of course, results. Time and again we have experienced and witnessed remarkable healing using doTERRA essential oils. We won't use or recommend anything else.