how i store essential oils (and my favorite brands)!

I like to do things pretty naturally around here.  We brush our teeth with soap.  I take weird supplements.  (Right now, my favorite 'cocktail' to carry around the house all day is a potion of apple cider vinegar, ginger juice, magnesium powder, collagen and seltzer.)  Annnnnd... I love essential oils.

Yeah.  I know.  Me, and everyone else on the planet, amiright?

I'm not a super-oiler by any means.  I don't have microbrewed specialty concoctions of oils hanging from vials around my neck.  I don't have all of the really peripheral oils with names like Dragon's Blood and Loyalty.  I have a pretty straightforward, basic set of oils that I lean on pretty heavily for our straightforward, basic health and first aid needs.

I was going kind of crazy with how disheveled my oils organization was getting.  I was having to dig around in cupboards to find whatever oil I needed at the time, and if you know me at all, you know that when my stuff isn't organized, I feel all convoluted and discombobulated and claustrophobic, so I knew I needed to deal with it.  I wanted something that would allow me to see all my oils at a single glance, without needing specialty stickers for the caps, and something that didn't take up a bunch of room.  Enter: Nail Polish Organizer.

It's perfect.  It fits well on the shelf in my linen closet.  The shelves are deep enough to hold small (4 oz) bottles of carrier oils, as well as the weird, kind-of-superfluous refiller cups that come with every diffuser.  (Why diffuser companies don't think I can figure out how to just use a normal cup is beyond me.)  All the labels of the oils are visible.  There's quite a bit of room to expand my collection.

As for brands, I've tried all kinds - from Aura Cacia, which you can get basically anywhere, to NOW, which is sold at most health food stores, to Edens Garden, Plant Therapy, Young Living, and DoTerra.  And my favorite is...

Plant Therapy!

When I first started buying oils, I went with Edens Garden, and most of my collection is still comprised of their oils.  I liked the quality and felt comfortable using them, without having to sell my own blood in order to afford them.  (That was super important to me as a beginner!  I wanted to be able to try them out without having to bottom out my grocery budget for a couple of tiny bottles.)   They also have an explicitly child-safe line, so I didn't have to spend hours scouring the internet to figure out if I could use such-and-such oil on a four year old.  Plus, call me shallow, but the labels are pretty. 

In doing a bit more research, I have started moving more toward Plant Therapy.  They are very transparent in their GC/MS testing, and offer the test results for each oil and batch, so not only am I comfortable with their quality, but I completely respect their honesty and commitment to educating consumers about what they're getting.  They have aromatherapists on staff to educate their buyers about safe oil usage.  Plus, they're still really, really affordable, and they, too, have a KidSafe line.  (The only thing I don't like about them is their labels.  Again, call me shallow.)

And to be honest, while I haven't had the opportunity to compare multiple types of oils, peppermint is one we use a lot of in our house for headaches and belly aches.  I have used Aura Cacia, Edens Garden, a random brand I got from my chiropractor, Young Living, DoTerra, and Plant Therapy, and Plant Therapy is hands down the most potent and effective in our extensive personal experience.

I know there's a lot of info floating around out there, and I'm not here to tell you what to buy.  I really have no skin in the game when it comes to your own medicine cabinet!  I will say I don't believe that a single brand has the market cornered on purity or effectiveness.  I think there are quite a few great brands out there, and if they're safe AND affordable, that's where my money's going!

*Legal disclaimer: I don't get anything from Plant Therapy, or any other EO brand, and they don't even know I exist, so there's that.  In case you'd like to check them out, these are affiliate links through Amazon.