About Essential Oils Index
Living in the heart of the industry. Not selling for either side.
We’re based in Utah — the geographic center of the essential oils business — and we built this site because nobody else was reviewing the industry from the inside without trying to sell you a bottle.
Independent · Reader-funded · No paid endorsements
Our story
Why this site exists.
The short version: we’ve spent years using essential oils, watching the industry grow up around us, and getting frustrated that there wasn’t a single trustworthy place to compare them all.
Where We Are
Utah, in the middle of it all.
The two largest essential oils companies in the world were founded within driving distance of our office. We’ve watched warehouses go up, watched fields planted, watched the industry shift from a niche category into a multi-billion-dollar global market — all from the same valley.
That proximity matters. We’re not writing about an industry from another state, guessing at how it works. We’ve talked to growers, attended trainings, sat through enough “opportunity calls” to last a lifetime, and watched both insiders and skeptics make their cases up close.
What We Chose
Independent, on purpose.
Living where we live, joining one of the major essential oils companies would have been the easy path. Almost everyone we know is connected to one of them somehow — as a distributor, a customer, or a former employee.
We chose not to. Not because we have anything against any specific company, but because we wanted to be free to evaluate every brand on the same standards. You can’t write an honest review of a bottle you’re paid to sell. We’d rather be useful than be a salesperson.
What We Saw Missing
The gap nobody was filling.
When we looked for a site that compared every brand fairly — that took the chemistry seriously, cited real studies, and didn’t push the same two companies on every page — we couldn’t find one. The sites that existed were either owned by distributors or written by people who had clearly never opened a bottle.
So we built it. Every essential oil, every major brand, evaluated against the same published rubric. Research-backed, plainly written, and free to read. That’s the whole idea.
You can’t get an honest review from someone who’s trying to sell you the bottle.
Editorial Principle · Essential Oils Index
How we work
The four standards we hold ourselves to.
Every review, comparison, and recommendation on this site runs through the same rubric. No exceptions.
Research over reputation
Every health claim links to peer-reviewed research. We cite PubMed studies, the Tisserand textbook, and NAHA position papers — never blog hearsay.
Same rubric for every brand
We evaluate brands on price per milliliter, third-party GC/MS testing, sourcing transparency, and certifications. Marketing claims don’t count.
Disclosure on every page
When a recommendation includes an affiliate link, we say so clearly. We never accept paid placement, sponsored reviews, or rank-for-pay arrangements.
Corrections in public
If we get something wrong, we fix it openly. Updated articles show their revision date and what changed. We’d rather be corrected than be confidently wrong.
What we promise, and what we don’t.
We can’t promise that every essential oil will work for you. The research is genuinely mixed on a lot of common claims, and we won’t pretend otherwise. What we can promise is that we’ll tell you what the evidence actually says — including when it says “we don’t know yet.”
We can’t promise that the brands we like will be the cheapest. Quality oils cost more to source, and we’d rather point you to a fairly priced bottle than the cheapest one on the shelf. But we’ll also tell you when a brand’s pricing has more to do with marketing structure than with what’s inside the bottle.
What we will promise: every recommendation on this site comes from the same rubric, applied to every brand we cover. No shortcuts. No favorites. No paid placements. Just our best attempt at giving you the information we wish someone had given us when we started using essential oils ourselves.
Questions readers ask
About us, answered.
The questions readers ask most often when they first land on the site.
Are you really independent?
Yes. We are not owned by any essential oils brand, we are not affiliated with any multi-level marketing company, and we have never accepted a paid placement or sponsored review. Our revenue comes from advertising and affiliate commissions when readers buy through our links — and crucially, we earn the same rate regardless of which brand a reader chooses, so we have no incentive to push one over another.
Why should I trust your reviews?
Three reasons. First, our methodology is published openly — you can see exactly what criteria we use to evaluate every brand. Second, every health claim on the site links to peer-reviewed research, so you can verify our sources directly. Third, we publish corrections openly when we get something wrong, and our revision history is visible on every article. Trust is built by being transparent about how the sausage gets made, not by claiming to be neutral.
Do you sell essential oils?
No. We are a review and reference site, not a retailer or a distributor. When you click an affiliate link on our site, you’re sent to the brand’s own store (or to Amazon) to make your purchase. We never handle the product or the transaction. This separation is intentional — it means we don’t have inventory to move or sales quotas to hit.
How do you make money?
Two ways. First, display advertising — small ad units that appear on our pages, served by Google AdSense and other ad networks. Second, affiliate commissions — when a reader clicks through to a brand and makes a purchase, the brand pays us a small commission at no extra cost to the reader. Both revenue streams are clearly disclosed on every page. Neither affects what we recommend.
Who writes for the site?
Our content is produced by an editorial team with backgrounds in research, writing, and personal experience with essential oils. Every article is reviewed against our editorial standards before publication. We do not use AI to generate articles — research and outlining may be assisted by AI tools, but every piece of published content is written and reviewed by humans.
Can I suggest an oil or brand for review?
Yes, and we read every suggestion. If there’s an essential oil we haven’t profiled yet or a brand we haven’t reviewed, send us a note through our contact page. We prioritize review requests based on reader demand, so the more people who ask about a particular oil or brand, the faster it moves up our list.
How can I support the site?
Three things help us the most. First, when you buy oils through one of our affiliate links, the small commission funds the site and costs you nothing extra. Second, subscribing to our newsletter keeps you in the loop and helps us build a direct relationship with readers. Third, sharing our articles with friends who are researching essential oils — that’s how we grow without paid marketing.
Ready to dig in?
Start exploring the site.
The fastest way to see how we work is to read one of our oil guides or brand comparisons. Or start with our methodology if you want to see the rubric first.