Update/TL; DR: There appears to be a great deal of fraud with DoTERRA that has gotten the FDA’s attention. In addition, the FTC warns MLMs with overpriced products may be a pyramid scheme.
Update 2: More than five years after I published this article, doTerra still has a compliance problem with their distributor network where they make false, misleading, and likely illegal claims. My opinion is that consumers should ignore the claims and the product.
You can pay ~$68 for 1.5 ounces (45ml) of DoTERRA lavender oil or spend the same amount for 16 ounces of NOW Lavender Oil. The NOW Lavender product is extremely well-reviewed, showing that it is a quality product and not a cheap knock-off. Your money goes more than 10x further with the non-MLM/pyramid scheme version.
For a few years now, people have asked me about doTERRA essential oils. The first was Candace, who was a major contributor in the 6000+ comments of my MonaVie article. That was back in March of 2012. A few months after that, someone by the name of Laura emailed me about the company.
In the last few months, I’ve received a couple more emails about essential oils from close friends who follow the blog. One was LisaRob, a frequent commenter on my old LifeVantage Protandim article. Another was one of my favorite personal finance bloggers who sent me an email with the subject, “The Wife got ripped off”. It turns out that in both these cases, they were talking about Young Living’s essential oils and not doTERRA’s.
I don’t want to unfairly lump the companies together, but there are clearly very obvious similarities such as the essential oils and the MLM structure which are increasingly becoming exposed as pyramid schemes in recent years. (Some examples include WSJ, Harper’s, and Forbes calling them out. And that’s not to begin to cover the Herbalife investigation from every regulator under the sun.)
With apologies to those asking about Young Living, I’ll focus on doTERRA today and leave Young Living for some time in the future. If you are interested in Young Living, I suggest reading this anyway, it’s most likely the same thing. It will be like learning about baseball by watching the Yankees instead of the Red Sox. They are different teams, but the game is still the same.
Let’s dig into doTERRA, shall we?
When Candace emailed me back in 2012, it was to tell me that she was recently made aware of this company and their products. In her research, she found that doTERRA was claiming that their products were certified as “therapeutic grade” by the FDA and that they show a seal with registered trademark CPTG (Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade) as proof. It’s brilliantly covered in this article that the CPTG trademark is one that doTERRA created and has nothing to do with the FDA at all.
That article even shows that doTERRA customer support is lying to people about the FDA giving them the label of CPTG. Quite clearly the FDA wouldn’t waste their time giving doTERRA a label that doTERRA invented. It would be like me register a trademark for World’s Best Blogger and then claiming that a consortium of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook gave me that label. Sorry, but…
We can go a little further and review doTERRA’s FAQ on CPTG (Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade):
Q: doTERRA’s essential oils are trademarked as “CPTG Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade™”. What does this term mean, and what evidence is there to prove the efficacy and purity of your oils?
A: doTERRA’s essential oils are trademarked and registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office as CPTG Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade™. This term means that our essential oils will always maintain the highest quality standard in therapeutic grade essential oils for purity and efficacy.
It seems that over the years, they’ve switched the “certification” from the FDA to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). However, the USPTO isn’t in the business of doing certification of essential oils… just like they aren’t in the business of determining who is the best blogger. McDonald’s has trademarked the “I’m Loving It” slogan, but it doesn’t mean that everyone actually loves McDonald’s. BMW has trademarked “The Ultimate Driving Experience”, but it doesn’t mean that the USPTO has declared the BMW’s driving experience to be beyond all others.
The trademarked term of CPTG (Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade) is simply their marketing slogan designed to confuse consumers into thinking that it has been certified and that therapeutic grade essential oils exist. They don’t.
A research article here says the following:
CERTIFIED PURE THERAPEUTIC GRADE:
This is a relatively new trademark by a multi-level marketing company. It gives the appearance of being approved by some kind of higher authority and it has been said that the company states it is a FDA approved to use this label. According to Elston (2009), ‘This registered word mark has not been provided to them by the FDA as they claim and is meaningless in proving that an outside certifying body has declared or designated that DoTERRA’s essential oils are certified pure therapeutic grade. DoTERRA, LLC owns the right to exclusive use of the mark (however not the exclusive right to the actual words ‘Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade’ which is revealing). This seal or word mark is nothing more than a commercial trademark that they have registered and paid a fee for.”
This is really all I need to know to form the opinion that the company a scam. The definition of a scam is a “confidence trick.” This appears to be a confidence trick by doTERRA in creating and using a marketing term with the word “certified” in it when it hasn’t been certified by anyone and “therapeutic grade” when the FDA hasn’t approved it as being a therapy for anything.
I really shouldn’t go further, but there’s another reason why I wrote this article. I noticed that a blog I sometimes read called Pick the Brain published an article of: 3 Health Issues to Mitigate Using Essential Oils.
That title clued me in right away. This was another MLM with distributors illegally claiming that their dietary supplement can help with medical conditions without the FDA’s approval. Sure enough, if you look at the author’s (Heather Koenig’s) bio at the bottom and go to her website (EssentialOilsUS.com), she is a doTerra salesperson. You are looking at a cleverly designed advertisement.
If a product can help with a condition, it can be certified with the FDA just like calcium and vitamin D are for bone health. Alas, it doesn’t look like doTERRA has gone through the process which tells me they believe in their product to prove the claims.
The article on Pick the Brain was almost comical. The author suggested that essential oils can help with weight loss, but gave no reason why. There was no research presented. It was simply stated to be an alternative to popping pills. Well, carrying my lucky rabbit’s foot in my pocket is an alternative too… it’s just not a good one. There’s no scientific basis behind it… just like essential oils. The rest of the weight loss section was filler. There was no information about essential oils and their efficacy. Instead, it was about it taking patience and endurance to lose weight. Maybe the author should have written an article about that instead of essential oils.
Unfortunately, it only goes downhill from there as the author suggests that people treat mental conditions with essential oils. That’s the kind of advice that could lead to suicide… very irresponsible.
The clincher (do we need any more evidence?) is this article on Science-based Medicine on doTERRA. Dr. Harriet Hall covers in detail how the claims made on the website are vague… vague enough to not get them in trouble with the FDA. However, the claims are also specific enough to lead distributors to make illegal health claims. For example, “supporting a healthy insulin response” is likely to be stretched to “helps treat diabetes!” In fact, here is a website making that claim.
This leads to doTERRA’s message. They explicitly say on their website, “This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease.” Their salesforce explicitly pitches the products to treat diseases.
It’s insanity.
In fact it is so insane that the FDA sent warning letters to both DoTERRA Essential Oils and Young Living Essential Oils on the same day: September 22, 2014.
As a side note, Dr. Harriet Hall’s article refers to the Young Living’s Essential Oils with information about its founder, Gary Young, and accounts of his fraud and extensive arrest record including how he “contributed to the death of his own child by performing an underwater delivery and holding the newborn infant underwater for an hour.” Once again, we’ll save that for a future article on Young Living if we get around to it (I have to be honest, it took me more than 2 years to get to this article).
It looks like doTERRA is one of the many MLM companies where they lead distributors to make illegal health claims. Once again we can apply the logic and science that shows No, the MLM Health Product Does Not Work. I invite doTERRA to prove me and Dr. Harriet Hall wrong by getting the products approved by the FDA for conditions like calcium and vitamin D are for bone health.
Update:
People in the comments have criticized me for not trying the products. This is a very flawed logic in health products for the reasons I cite this in this article. (There’s no point in rewriting all the logic here.) This Christmas I got this ZAQ Noor Essential Oil Diffuser and this NOW Foods Essential Oils 10-Oil Variety Pack Sampler – 1oz Each. I’ve tried them and they smell great and work just like the ZAQ diffuser company suggests. A few drops go a long, long way and each 1 oz bottle should last for 150 uses (20 drops are equal to 1ml… there are 30mls in an ounce… so the 600 drops equals 150 total 4-drop uses.) At $50 for the 10 bottles, I paid $5 an ounce for the 100% pure, well-reviewed NOW products that work great (yes I’m stressing the quality because it is a quality product).
It makes no sense to spend 5x more for 1/2 the product (15mls or a 1/2 ounce) for the DoTerra label. As a consumer advocate, I have to say that your money is best spent buying what you want from cheaper vendors where you get 10 times more product for your dollar.
Other Great Reading
Mickey says
Depending on what you are using the oils for you may not want synthetic oils. If you put them on your skin they will absorb into your body.
The lack of facts in this article are appalling.
Lavender oil if a person purchases retail is $28. The FDA DOES NOT support progress, there are cures for Cancer as well as many other diseases that are being supressed as it affects Big Pharma sales and that’s who controls the FDA. You have the opportunity to help educate people, instead you are on a defamation campaign, with so many incorrect facts it’s reprehensible. Shame on you
There are tons of facts in this article Liz. The $28 lavender oil you referring to is the 15ml size, not the 45ml size that I am referring to.
The FDA does support progress and there are not cures for cancer being suppressed by Big Pharma who has no control over the FDA. You’ve stated about 4 incorrect facts in one sentence.
doterra doesn’t offer a 45ml size. I have no idea where you would have seen this. If you are looking on ebay or amazon they are counterfeit.
There are absolutely cures out there, some of them can be found on pubmed.
There are tons of facts in this article, too bad they are inaccurate.
If you click on the link where I state my source, you can see that you can buy a 15ml bottle for $23.10 on Amazon. I’m giving DoTerra the benefit of the doubt of the cheaper pricing rather than the $28 retail price. Three of those bottles (45ml) would cost you $69, which is within a dollar of the $68 price I wrote about. Pricing on Amazon changes over time, but that’s pretty minimal.
You have no authority to say that the products on Amazon or Ebay are counterfeit. Those companies work very hard to eliminate counterfeit products from the site. Plus, 484 reviewers on Amazon is a strong indication that it is NOT counterfeit.
If there are cures for cancer on PubMed, we’d have solved the problem. Maybe you should point out to a specific cure you see?
Liz…you do realize that scientists still do not know what CAUSES cancer, right? (Don’t say “toxins.”) If all of our cells are constantly mutating and multiplying, then why do some people get cancer and others do not? Besides knowing that genetics and environment have something to do with this…THEY STILL DO NOT KNOW! There is no cancer cure. Big Pharma would make TONS OF MONEY if there was a pill someone would need to take for the rest of their lives.
Your 45ml Lavender link pulls up a 15ml bottle of lavender being “sold by LoudMouseDeals and fufilled by Amazon.”?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004O25R8A/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004O25R8A&linkCode=as2&tag=lazymanandmon-20&linkId=XZUYZWT6LRFRDF5W
?Your aformentioned link is not for a product coming from the company d?TERRA. Consumers have been warned repeatedly not to purchase a variety of products from Amazon due to counterfeits. Apple iPhone chargers sold on Amazon were just in the media for being counterfeits. http://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2016/10/23/apple-nearly-90-of-genuine-iphone-chargers-on-amazon-are-fake/#413b14d923f6
https://www.amazon.com/forum/-/Tx3JF42QNUCXS63/ref=ask_ql_ql_al_hza?asin=B004O22328
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/08/amazons-chinese-counterfeit-problem-is-getting-worse.html
d?TERRA has legit ways to buy their products and Amazon is not one.
https://doterra.com/US/en/yearly-wholesale-membership
There are a few solid facts for ya!?
I am all for opinion pieces, but this entire article is a novice at best. I got a laugh and a little scared for consumers who actually thought your article was legit!?
GL. Would love to see your revised finished product with references and solid facts!?
Yes, the link goes to a 15ml version, because DoTerra doesn’t make a 45ml version (to the best of my knowledge). Fortunately, math is an easy thing and you simply buy 3 of the 15ml to get 45mls… which is where the pricing of around ~$68 comes into play.
The DoTerra product on Amazon is highly rated with 762 reviews. If you are going to accuse it of being counterfeit you have to come with specific proof. The reviews of diluted product could be explained by DoTerra salespeople who are defaming the seller so that they can make the sale.
Amazon is a legitimate way to buy products… it’s why it is one of the world’s largest retailer. However, the reason I linked to Amazon was that the pricing was transparent. Your link to DoTerra’s website didn’t include pricing for 15ml or 45ml of the lavender oil.
Getting an estimated price was necessary to people how they can save so much money with other companies’ 100% pure products. Heck, I could get 8 ounces (240 MLs) of Now’s lavender oil for the membership fee.
You are who most people that understand the basics of science, government, critical thinking skills and education as a term you may understand which is “retarded” I believe that fits your mind perfectly.
Shame on *you* for perpetuating the lie that cancer cures are being suppressed. Do you really believe that thousands of doctors, nurses, and researchers in cancer centers all around the world are lying in order to enrich themselves?
I agree
I agree that the FDA would not likely want to say anything about essential oils. It really is not their realm. Progress is not something the FDA gets involved in. They don’t regulate vitamins, but we all know, at least those who use them, that they work for most of us, but we have to find a brand we trust. It is hard. I wish there was an agency to oversee supplementation, including essential oils and herbal supplementation. But there doesn’t seem to be any. In any case, the oils have proven themselves to me and my friends. But I have to say, the MLM companies do charge more, if you are not a wholesale member, but if you are, with all the freebies, you actually pay about the same as you would for a lower quality, less researched oil such as those found on store shelves. Keep in mind, I grow lavender in my yard, I could extract its oil, but the quality would be poor, it would not have the strength needed for the things people are using it for. I admit I am marketing doTERRA, and I also feel Young Living has great products, as well as a few other companies out there. But I feel doTERRA has a lot more research, which is what I like about them.
Actually the FDA seems to be very involved in progress. How else can you explain Viagra, right?
I believe the FDA does oversee vitamins. And despite what you say… we know that vitamins are scientifically a waste of money. That’s simply scientific research from hundreds of unrelated scientists in a journal that isn’t affiliated with the FDA.
MLM companies still charge more even if you are a wholesale member. Typically they are 10x more money as I showed in the article. Even the wholesale price for distributors doesn’t touch the price I paid for my awesome non-MLM oils on Amazon.
What do you mean that lavender oil extracted from your backyard wouldn’t have the strength needed for the things that people are using for? I use my lavender oil for its calming smell. I’m sure your lavender would do the same.
I’m not sure I’ve seen DoTerra’s “research” in any established scientific journal, so “more research” seems to be zero relevant research in the scientific community’s eyes. Is that fair?
Ginny Edmunds (DoTerra distributor) said: “I agree that the FDA would not likely want to say anything about essential oils. It really is not their realm. Progress is not something the FDA gets involved in.”
It is not the FDAs realm because no essential oil companies have ever submitted any products to the FDA for approval as medicinal agents. If companies were to make such submissions, the FDA would review them accordingly. The FDA reviews new drug applications constantly; those that meet the standards for approval (based on strength of evidence from well-designed phase 3 clinical trials) are then legally marketed. It’s ludicrous to say that the FDA does not get involved in progress. For decades, pretty much every single incremental advance that has been made in medical therapy in the US has been overseen by the FDA.
Ginny Edmunds (DoTerra distributor) said: “They don’t regulate vitamins, but we all know, at least those who use them, that they work for most of us, but we have to find a brand we trust. It is hard.”
In reality, the FDAs jurisdiction does include vitamins, and vitamins are regulated (look up DSHEA); just not very stringently. And actually, vitamin supplements do not work for most of us. Time and time again, nutritional experts and medical organizations have bemoaned that so many Americans continue to waste their money on vitamins and other supplements that, according to research, offer no conceivable benefits or may in fact even be harmful. Most users are flushing their money down the toilet on worthless products that are often promoted with misleading hype – never more so than with snakeoily MLM companies.
Aside from the fact that vitamins do not “work for most of us”, most individuals who take them would have no way of assessing whether or not they are working, as consumers do not routinely have blood tests taken to determine whether taking the products resulted in increased blood levels of the supplemented nutrients.
Ginny Edmunds (DoTerra distributor) said: “I wish there was an agency to oversee supplementation, including essential oils and herbal supplementation. But there doesn’t seem to be any.”
Again, such an agency exists – the FDA. What you seem to be asking is for the FDA to broaden its mandate and regulate supplements more stringently, which I and many others would strongly favor. Mind you if they did, companies like DoTerra and Young Living wouldn’t be able to operate as they have in the past (i.e., fraudulently). You can be sure, however, that the last thing that companies like DoTerra want is to be regulated more stringently. The supplement industry, vis a vis it’s lobbying arms (e.g., Council for Responsible Nutrition, Natural Products Association, etc.), wants the exact opposite of what you are suggesting – they want a free for all with as little oversight as possible.
http://time.com/3741142/gnc-vitamin-shoppe-supplements/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/21/how-lobbyists-will-keep-you-hooked-on-vitamins
Broadening the FDAs mandate to include supplements would require an act of Congress, but the supplement industry has gone to great lengths to grease the palms of those very politicians (e.g., those in the Supplement Caucus) to ensure that it won’t happen.
https://www.unpa.com/About-Supplements/Dietary-Supplement-Caucus
Ginny Edmunds (DoTerra distributor) said: ‘In any case, the oils have proven themselves to me and my friends.”
Proven to smell nice perhaps; not much more.
Ginny Edmunds (DoTerra distributor) said: “But I have to say, the MLM companies do charge more, if you are not a wholesale member…”
Correction – they charge more (versus retailers) even if you are a wholesale member – a lot more. Horrendously over-bloated pricing and terrible value is a baked-in feature of the MLM model, and it is necessitated by high overhead costs due to paying commissions to multiple levels of distributors in the pyramid. A good example of the ridiculous pricing is Monavie, which retailed for $50 a bottle but wholesaled to distributors at about $35 – for a bottle of worthless, shitty, low-grade, preservative-laced fruit juice!!! It also was fraudulently promoted by sick lying a-holes (i.e., their distributors) as a cure for a myriad of diseases. Does $35-a-bottle, low-grade, fraudulently-marketed fruit juice sound like a good wholesale value to you? It’s no different with the essential oil and supplement MLMs.
Ginny Edmunds (DoTerra distributor) said: “..but if you are, with all the freebies, you actually pay about the same as you would for a lower quality, less researched oil such as those found on store shelves.”
That statement is wrong. It simply does not pass a basic math test. And what research are you talking about? DoTerra has done none as far as I have seen; certainly no reliable clinical trials, which is the only kind of research that would be relevant to consumers. The company’s “Science” webpage lists zero research on their products.
https://doterra.com/US/en/about-science
Ginny Edmunds (DoTerra distributor) said: “Keep in mind, I grow lavender in my yard, I could extract its oil, but the quality would be poor, it would not have the strength needed for the things people are using it for.”
You’ve created a false Hobson’s choice. The options don’t boil down to setting up a lavender distillery in your basement versus buying overpriced products from an MLM. Simply buy a reputable retail brand and you can avoid the cost bloat associated with MLM.
And to which “things people are using it for” are you referring? I hope you mean “smell pretty”, because the products have no validated medicinal uses.
Ginny Edmunds (DoTerra distributor) said: “I admit I am marketing doTERRA, and I also feel Young Living has great products, as well as a few other companies out there. But I feel doTERRA has a lot more research, which is what I like about them.”
Your claim of the products’ greatness is unsupportable and seems to be borne from a profit motive rather than any objective facts. That’s just one of the many things that suck about MLMs.
I joined doterra to use the product for my daughter who is chronically I’ll & the products have helped our family so much that I cannot even express. The money is not even a factor! Your view is so skewed & one sided – you should really open up your mind & try to see both sides instead of being so closed minded. If something is helpful to one person then so be it. If it didn’t work for you, try something else & leave the others alone. There is plenty of scientific research to back up the product. You seem to be someone with a vendetta out to get those who have been successful with a product that has blessed others. Why? I use doterra EVERY DAY & love it!
Chronically ill with what medical condition? Let’s understand that essential oils are not a medical treatment.
My mind is has always been open, but one should never open their mind so much their brains fall out.
Please present the scientific research that backs up DoTerra’s specific brand of oils in the chronic illness that you state.
I have no vendetta against anyone, just want to help people save money and reach financial freedom. It is hard to help people do that if they are throwing away their money on snake oil.
Doterra are amazing products.the proof is right under your eyes..if you care to open them..For one thing ..you pay for what you get…don’t expect to get a good result if you get a cheap product from a chemist..and the staff cant tell you nothing about the product..You want a good result..I sugest you try the Doterra range..what…..scared it might work…And for one thing …if the big boys can’t get something out of it…that’s when the spit the dummy..cheeper oils are not a better value they can be dangerous.. why put something cheap and nastsy into your body…You want a cheap oil….would you put a cheap oil into a good car…well if you want to put a cheap oil into your body…you cant value your body too much…..expect cheap results…If you had a really sick child you would only want the best…pull you head out of the sand…and wake up….I’ve been to enough medical conventions. .the things I have seen and heard would make any one go grey over night….It is nice to be able to take back control…of what we want to use and take to make our health better…
Andrea
No where did this blogger mention that people are not benefiting from essential oils. In fact quite the opposite was claimed when further explanatiatiins are given when this blogger goes on to talk about how essential diffusers and oils are used in thier own home. The point of this article was to show that quality essntial oils do not need to be purchased at extremely inflated prices from an MLM to be JUST AS effective as Doterras oils. I spent waaaaaay to much money on DoTerra oils to try to help my various health issues. I continued to reorder for several months in hopes that it would just take some time for the oils to work. Some worked for relaxation and anxiety such as lavender and wild orange. Melaluca helped clear my daughers acne and got rid of my sons athletes foot. Eucalyptus is great for coughs. However, Doterras membership regulations meant I had to order every single month to get my “discount”(a discount from a hysterical price down to a laughable price that is) and keep a membership. Some months I wasn’t out of any oils yet but felt I had to purchase. Note that I could not leave my basket empty and not order if I chose jot to that month. It always left at least one oil in the shopping cart basket and auto shipped debiting my acct wether I needed more oil or not. I had to cancel the debit card to get it to stop because getting ahold of someone to cancel was an even bigger ordeal than replacing my debit card. Now what I learned was that Doterra does in fact sell quality oils that do in fact work for some things. I have also found that there most certainly are other essential oil companies out there that are just as quality and still keep my daughters acne gone and sons athletes foot gone as well. But I wasted hundreds of dollars on oils that were claimed to help my various ailments. They did not help at all and now I buy my essential oils from my local health food store and get the same results for the oils that do work with a much more affordable price. And these other oil companies I currently buy from are not reaching in to my bank acct every month just so I can be a “member” of a MLM. If you sell Doterra or have just wasted money on oils from them that you could have bought somewhere else for a more realistic price, now isn’t the time to go on a witch hunt claiming that this blog poster is saying things that were never written. Now would be the time to check some other essential oil companies that can save you money while benefiting your familes health as much as doterra has.
Many people have tried to say they very same things that this blog poster said in hopes of saving people some money and informing the public that Doterra is not only company capable of making quality, safe, effective products. And then die hard Doterra “members” or “wellness advocates” (haha) will inevitably claim that anyone who tries to let the public know that Doterra is ripping people off are evil. Stop it. Just stop the essential oil MLM maddness and go out there and find an essential oil company that doesn’t sell oils at outrageous prices unless of course wiping Doterras fanny with your money is what you would rather keep doing. Be my guest. I already feel bad enough that I spent so much time and money on this company.
Don’t shoot the messenger. Tell Doterra to stop charging astronomical prices to hard working individuals under the guise that they are the only company that has oils that can help people. I so wish I could get the money back that I spent on oils from Doterra.
Good post Glorie. A couple of points I would argue with though.
Glorie said: “I have also found that there most certainly are other essential oil companies out there that are just as quality and still keep my daughters acne gone and sons athletes foot gone as well. But I wasted hundreds of dollars on oils that were claimed to help my various ailments.”
If your kids don’t have acne and athlete’s foot, it’s quite a stretch to think that essential oils are preventing those conditions from occurring. I eat toast and don’t have athlete’s foot or acne, so I could just as easily argue that toast is what keeps those conditions away. Seems that you are still wasting money on EOs.
Glorie said: “Doterra is not only company capable of making quality, safe, effective products.”
There is no reliable evidence that DoTerra’s products (or any other EOs) are safe or that they are effective for anything.
Essential oils smell nice and they can help lift your mood, and maybe help a little with sinus conditions and things like that. I buy essential oils because I think they do have some mildly therapeutic properties. But they will not cure things like cancer, measles, tuberculosis, infertility, or other serious problems.
The DoTerra representative wanted me to sign a contract and pay with my credit card. I am always suspicious if a business won’t let me pay cash, or wants me to sign something. So I said no.
Other than that, they have very nice smelling oils.
I have no problem with things that smell nice. I agree they may even lift my mood.
However, that supports my point that lower priced, highly-rated oils like the ones I suggested are a better value.
I’m not a doterra person, consultant whatever they are called, in fact I have never used a doterra brand oil. I also am not arguing whether or not its a pyramid scheme. I dont really care. Essential oils have been around for hundreds even thousands of years and have some healing properties for sure. However, using the FDA to argue against them because “they’re basesd on science” is ignorant to say the least. The FDA approves many things that are harmful to humans, in fact most of the drugs they approve to “cure” things often have worse side effects (ever seen a commercial for a new drug?! “side effects including ..blah blah blah and death”
I’m not saying the FDA is evil either, yes, I appreciate anesthesia when I have surgery. And yes, I go to the Doctor and believe in western medicine (to a point). But to argue the pyramid scheme is fine I couldn’t care less, but don’t argue with people who believe that something works for them just because the FDA doesn’t approve it. They don’t approve many things that humans find useful. When did we become a people that lets our governing agencies tell us how to live and what to do with our own bodies. And you being so about the “facts” should know that better than anyone. You’re quick to point out the scam in everything except the things that are forced upon you. Sheeple.
Katrina,
Not sure why you went into a long comment about the FDA instead of DoTerra, which is the topic of the discussion. Typically if you don’t have something to add about the topic, you move on.
The point was made that if something can show to the FDA that it works for some condition it gets approved. For example, calcium and vitamin D are approved for osteoporosis. I don’t see any essential oils getting that approval, which tells me no one has shown it to work for any condition. I’m happy to be proven wrong if someone can provide me the relevant documentation on the FDA’s website.
Your argument about the FDA seems to be that its like a seat belt. You want to blame it for not working in every car accident. Having the FDA is certainly a lot better than letting the snake oil people run amok unchecked. It is also better than letting drug companies push anything and everything out there. You should be looking for the FDA to tell you how to live, because otherwise you are left with the quackery that gets Dr. Oz in front of a Congress for promoting things that he knows are simply untrue (as Congress stated). That’s much, much more dangerous than an FDA system that is designed to eliminate quackery. Again, it’s not perfect, but it’s far better than anything else in existence. And if you don’t agree, take a minute to realize that almost every civilized country in the world has a similar governmental body to aid its citizens.
You do realize that the side effect statements in commercials are legalese, right? You similar disclosure statements in investing commercials or even commercials with car stunts. Welcome to a world that has lawyers who sue people.
If you care about arguments about pyramid schemes, you should probably move on from this discussion. You are admitting that this really isn’t the place for you, so you might as well not waste anyone’s time.
Exactly why
Oh my how very self important all of you are!
Essential oils are amazing and I am so glad for them. My grandmother taught me that Lavender is used to help you stay calm, so I cut fresh from the garden and made into a potpourri and put in in my pillow. Now I use a crushed and concentrated form called an essential oil! Oh my how scarry!??? Really? Relax all you people. No one is trying to cure mental illness with oils, they are merely educating people who are truly interested in the powers of the plants put on this earth by GOD for bringing relief. And if they are healed then HALLELUAH!!!
This is American, and last I heard still somewhat free to choose if we want to try an oil or a perscription.
It is even biblical. To think that the Christ child was given Francincence and Myrrh and equated with such value as gold and given by Kings. Wonder why? Because THEY knew their value. Oh but for the highly educated people, that is just a mythical story.
Get off your high horses and wake the hell up. There is a place for essential oils in this world and the BIG DRUG companies can’t stand it.
It’s okay for them to rape and pillage people’s pocket books, and for American’s to worship the almighty MD, but heavens, we must not allow simple people who are passionate about oils and their use and for themselves to spread the word and maybe even make a living doing it. You don’t have to sell this stuff, people are ready for such an alternative. Sign me up now!
How hypocritical to be so scared and closed minded of something that clearly helps people. And if they make money, then more power to them!! I might like to try that! Better them than all the other DRUG CORPORATIONS.
Melinda,
There’s nothing wrong with good smelling things. I’m all for relaxing/invigorating scents, etc. In fact, I’m going to be investing in some for Christmas myself. I’ll be buying the reasonably priced products that I mention in the article and not something that appears to be priced like a pyramid scheme (like the Pen Pyramid Scheme).
And yes, people are claiming their use of essential oils cured things that haven’t been shown to be true in any kind of scientific setting. It wouldn’t surprise me if mental illness was on that list of miracle cures. If you do your research you find that such claims are much, much more common when people are paid tell sell the product. So instead of “HALLELUAH!!!” it is “GIVE ME YOUR MONEY FOR MY SNAKE OIL!”
Yes, it is America and people are free to choose an oil or a prescription. However, in America we have something called consumer protection. People are free to get and use the information available to avoid snake oil charlatans.
Big medicine companies do not care about essential oils. Essential oils don’t threaten their business, because as you say, “no one is trying to cure mental illness with oils.”
It’s fine to be ready for an alternative. This may be time to launch my Lazy Man Rabbit Foot line of alternative medicine. You carry it in your pocket and you are good to go. I’ll sell it through a pyramid scheme and people will spread the word.
I’m not happy with the business of medicine myself. If you can show a scientifically effective alternative, I’m all for it. In the meantime, let’s try to fix the human problems (such as pricing) in the medicine that have been scientifically proven to work. We don’t need to re-invent the wheel.
So I repeat back to you, get off your high horse and wake up.
Melinda said: “Oh my how very self important all of you are! No one is trying to cure mental illness with oils…if they are healed then HALLELUAH!!! This is American, and last I heard still somewhat free to choose if we want to try an oil or a perscription…Get off your high horses and wake the hell up. There is a place for essential oils in this world and the BIG DRUG companies can’t stand it. It’s okay for them to rape and pillage people’s pocket books, and for American’s to worship the almighty MD, but heavens, we must not allow simple people who are passionate about oils and their use and for themselves to spread the word and maybe even make a living doing it…How hypocritical to be so scared and closed minded of something that clearly helps people. And if they make money, then more power to them!! I might like to try that! Better them than all the other DRUG CORPORATIONS.”
Comments like this are hard to fathom. You seem to be confused as to what essential oils do. On the one hand you say that no one is trying to cure illness with essential oils, and then you flip your position, equating essential oils with prescription medicine and raging against drug companies and MDs. None of what you say makes any sense whatsoever, and to make matters worse, you cop a sneering condescending tone by accusing people of being “self important” and “close minded”. Framing this as a battle between essential oils versus drug companies and MDs is delusional. If essential oils cured or mitigated diseases, then the onus is on the manufacturers to prove it. It’s not like we are ignoring evidence that essential oils cure diseases – there is no compelling evidence — being highly skeptical of such claims is the proper position to take.
Interesting how you try to divert attention away from essential oils and the lack of evidence supporting their efficacy, and instead focus on conspiracy theories, while trying to frame this as an issue of consumer choice. What we’re really dealing with here is a pyramid scheme that uses overpriced mundane products (essential oils) as the admission ticket and deceives consumers by pretending that those products can treat diseases. Some people might be desperate or ignorant enough to ignore commonsense and join a scam like this, but you can’t expect people to sit by idly and say nothing while witnessing all of this exploitation and blatant BS. Shame on you for stooping to idiotic conspiracy theories; for your bitter sneering attitude; and the utter lack of substance and insight in your stale comments.
First, let me start out by saying I do not sell doTerra, nor have I ever sold it. I don’t even have family members who sell it. I also am not a fan of their products. But I had to chime in when you started to talk about price and how you can get the same thing for cheaper on line.
First, lets talk qualify. Have you officially tested these two oils together to see what their chemical makeup is? Does one have synthetics, carrier oils, or perfumes added to them to help keep cost down? If so, does one have more carrier oil or synthetic than the other to water it down?
This would be like comparing a top of the line craftsman screw driver to a cheap dollar store screw driver and trying to say they are the same quality, but you pay way to much for a craftsman (yes this is only an example people). If you have never tested the qualify of the product, to give a review as to its ability to be top notch, without the facts, would be wrong!
I am not saying doTerra is better, or than NOW is worse, I am only saying that if you talk about how this is a scheme without proof of actual tests, then this too makes the information you are giving non-factual and untrustworthy.
Facts and research are very important, along with tests to back up the facts. Without proof that the quality of the oils are better or worse, you cannot confirm that the price isn’t worth the product. It is similar to a dime store bottle of perfume and trying to compare it to a high quality perfume. What you may find to be lacking, others may find to be of top quality and test would back that.
You are correct, you do have a right to your post, but without tested facts to confirm it, this post is as irrelevant as the company you are bashing…
I love when people like Jackie post on an article that is 9 months old and claim to have no affiliation and not even be a fan of the products. I’ve written more than 2000 articles and this kind of thing only happens with my MLM reviews. It has been two years since anyone commented on my NutraBullet review.
Jackie, I’m going to enumerate a few of the problems with your comment (other than the above point)
1. You should notice on this site is that it is Lazy Man and Money. I most definitely have to talk about price and value.
2. The cheaper competing product that I mentioned states, “100% pure, and steam distilled to ensure high concentrations”, which means no carrier oils, perfumes, or watering down. So if one does have that then it would be the higher priced one… unless you are going to call NOW Foods a fraud. If that’s the case, you better present proof.
3. I don’t believe you need to test two things that are 100% pure. It is like testing Shell vs. Exxon gas. As long as the gases are what they say they are (and we have no reason to believe they are not) we don’t need to do extensive testing. If Shell is pricing its gas at $20 a gallon and Exxon is happy at $2 a gallon, it is up to Shell to make a case for why it is worth ten times more. That’s the position that DoTerra finds itself in. Why are it’s products worth 10x more when they appear to be the same.
4. You go on about the quality of the product, but the NOW products are extremely highly rated on Amazon with even more reviews. So if you had to pick a better quality the reviews seem to point in NOW’s favor. When you consider that DoTerra’s distributors may be stacking the deck to make their product appear better (and easier for them to sell), it only looks better for NOW.
5. MLM companies are increasing being found as pyramid schemes today. The WORST thing an MLM company can do is price its products high (and 10x over NOW more than qualifies). Why? Read this story of the Pen Pyramid Scheme to understand it.
6. Aside from the products themselves, I showed questionable, misleading practices by DoTERRA itself. So even after all the above, if you were to try to give them the benefit of the doubt, a reasonable unbiased consumer (as you claim to be) would not.
Dear lazy Man: Essential Oils have been used since Biblical times. There is nothing wrong with essential oils, they have therapeutic properties, but the assumption that they cure all diseases is also a misleading statement. I do agree with you that doTerra is a Pyramid or MLM business or Network scheme and that their oils are 2 or 3 times overpriced. But I disagree when you use the omnipotent and omnipresent FDA as the last word to define if a product works or not. After all FDA had approved all of the pharma Poison that consume millions of patients in the USA every day. The fact that the third cause of death in the USA is the consumption of prescription drugs is undeniable and all of those drugs are FDA approved. To be honest with you FDA will never approve any natural treatment that is not back up by big pharma industry, and logically big pharma is not going to produce or promote the use of natural remedies… there is not business on it. I do use essential oils for different symptoms and they work greatly but I get them from different stores like vitamin shoppe or whole food market and they cost a fraction of those promoted by doTerra or Young living. By the way do you know anything about Kyani. I recently quit my affiliation with this MLM company but not before throwing into the garbage $ 750.00 dollar in overpriced super blue berry magic juicers and Omega 3 pills business package. best regards,
Josh
I wrote this article a long time ago, but I don’t think I said that there was something wrong with essential oils. If you read the update at the end, I’ve purchased some myself.
I wouldn’t say that DoTerra is 2-3 times overpriced, but it seems like they are 10x times overpriced from what I’ve analyzed.
You are correct that essential oils don’t cure all diseases. As best I can tell any potential therapeutic uses are unproven. If you have conclusive information from the FDA (or some equivalent) we can have that discussion. One or two studies does not equal conclusive (read this NY Times article).
I understand that you disagree with me about the FDA. They aren’t flawless and I’m the first to admit that. I certainly don’t hold them on any kind of pedestal for being well-run organization. However, in the world of snake oil salesman, they are the best gatekeepers we have from junk science and people trying to defraud you of your money.
The FDA does not approve poison. They take anything like that off the market. You can look up Vioxx, Phen-Fen, and probably more than a few other examples. They don’t have perfect knowledge on every medication, because such a thing doesn’t exist. They do the best they can to balance the reward with the risk. If you want to have no risk then feel free to carry a rabbit’s foot in your pocket and see how that helps you with your medical condition.
The FDA isn’t a business. It is a government agency funded by taxpayers. They have no interest in supporting Big Pharma. The FDA has nothing against natural remedies which is why they promote vitamin D and calcium for strong bones.
You may think that essential oils are working, but what if it is the placebo effect. Have you done the clinical trial to know that they are clinically effective?
I haven’t looked into Kyani. Your experience with Kyani mirrors that of every MLM that I’ve covered… probably a few dozen in total now.
First of all, there is no law against MLM. Look at Amway-talk about expensive!
Second: DoTerra is overpriced for what it offers and it’s always pushing itself as “the best and the only organic therapeutic grade EO company” and this is a lie.
Third: NOW is not in my opinion a very good product, I would rate DoTerra above NOW based on my use of NOW, which I will never buy again.
Fourth: ALL THE FDA CARES ABOUT is how it’s going to lose out on money from big pharma, because everyone knows that essential oils – that are pure plant extracts of a quality producer, can help heal the body in a variety of ways-by promoting the body’s ability to fight disease. THE FDA is ridiculous and no one takes them as a credible source of information.
Fifth: People need to think for themselves by asking questions about these oils. If you don’t get answers that makes sense, if you don’t get answers at all, if you get stalled and put on the back burner-run! The problem with DoTerra for those who are interested in education and use-is that it only helps those who are in the business-it’s a business and if you can afford to spend money every month, like you would on Amway–or any other MLM business, you can do ok on DoTerra and you will have to recruit—but—DoTerra is not pedaling bad stuff. The women who sell it are giving advice they should NOT be giving and it’s not accurate and it’s not allowed.
Valerian Root,
1) There are laws against pyramid schemes… see the the FTC’s guidelines. The problem is that even the NY Times can’t seem to differentiate an MLM from a pyramid scheme. And earlier this year, the FTC shut down Vemma for being a pyramid scheme even though it’s been running the same way for years.
2) Agree.
3) I’ve used NOW products and I agree with the thousands of reviews on Amazon that it is a quality product. I think there are other products around the pricing of NOW.
4) The FDA doesn’t lose money from Big Pharma… it’s funded by tax payer money. Yes, the FDA receives a small amount of money from the pharmaceutical companies in the forms of user fees. However, without user fees, the tax payers would pay more. The FDA is going to be funded either way. It isn’t a company looking to profit or in fear of “losing money.”
I’m not a fan of the FDA, but they are the ones that protect us from snake oil salesman running amok and defrauding people. Additionally, educated and intelligent people take the FDA as a credible source of information.
5) People should think for themselves, but they would be best served asking a medical doctor and not snake oil salesmen. Unfortunately if everyone asked their doctor about essential oils, we’d be wasting millions of hours of doctor’s precious time. That’s just another way to bog down healthcare and prevent people from getting useful care. In the meantime, just read: Essential Oils Scam: NOT a Medical Treatment.
Bonus point: Please don’t consider MLM a business. It really isn’t. It fails all the fundamental commandments of business such as making product and pricing decisions. You are simply a salesman who isn’t offered benefits like minimal wage, health care, or vacation time. Read more here: The Business of MLM (or What Gives Freddy Krueger Nightmares).
Valerian Root said: “First of all, there is no law against MLM.”
To clarify, there are laws against the practices that most MLMs seem to engage in.
Valerian Root said: “Third: NOW is not in my opinion a very good product, I would rate DoTerra above NOW based on my use of NOW, which I will never buy again.”
That evaluation is far too subjective to be of any value. Objective criteria have to be applied in assessing whether any of these oils are “good” (e.g. purity, price, reputability, etc.)
Valerian Root said: Fourth: ALL THE FDA CARES ABOUT is how it’s going to lose out on money from big pharma, because everyone knows that essential oils – that are pure plant extracts of a quality producer, can help heal the body in a variety of ways-by promoting the body’s ability to fight disease. THE FDA is ridiculous and no one takes them as a credible source of information.
At least as far as essential oils are concerned, your rage against the FDA is misdirected. So-called “natural” products aren’t precluded from FDA approval; in fact, the FDA has approved many. The FDA has nothing to lose or gain from approving or not approving essential oils. If essential oils had significant clinical effects, their manufacturers would go through the necessary steps to gain marketing approval for medical purposes and would reap a phenomenal windfall as a result. The fact that essential oils have been around for eons and to date have not been demonstrated convincingly to have any dramatic ability to promote “the body’s ability to heal” argues strongly in favor of their inefficacy. Your ire shouldn’t be directed at the FDA but rather at the manufacturers of essential oils for not stepping up to the plate to support their claims.
This type of senseless FDA-blaming is used as a distraction technique by virtually every purveyor of health-related MLM products on the market today. Virtually every one of these companies claim that their products have miraculous medical benefits and yet none have sought FDA approval. One would have to be incredibly naive to not realize that their claims are simply BS.
Valerian Root said: “Fifth: People need to think for themselves by asking questions about these oils.”
What does thinking for yourself mean exactly? Are you suggesting that people can figure out something about essential oils through introspection alone? What is needed are factual analyses from diligent people who apply a skeptical eye. People like Lazy Man for example.
Valerian Root said: “you can do ok on DoTerra and you will have to recruit—but—DoTerra is not pedaling bad stuff.”
Again, terms like “good” and “bad” require context and operational definitions. DoTerra is almost certainly bad with respect to price/value. The MLM model necessitates that it must be so. In every example I’ve seen to date, MLM products are exponentially overpriced relative to their non-MLM counterparts, sometimes by as much as 30-fold, and this is so because of high overhead from commission payouts to multiple levels of distributors. MLM is a virtual guarantee of poor value for the end user.
Secondly, MLM companies are typically third-rate fly-by-night operations that seem to be far more prone than their non-MLM counterparts to offer up products with cheap overhyped ingredients. They employ sketchy characters and operate, at best, in the gray zone of legality, with blatantly misleading and illegal claims being rife in the industry. So when it comes to reputability, MLMs absolutely suck. I wouldn’t trust any product they sell under any circumstances, because the industry has abused the public’s trust far past the breaking point.
Lastly, buying products from an MLM like DoTerra supports an exploitative pyramid scheme that attempts to deceive people and bleed them dry. Every dollar spent on such products perpetuates the human misery.
People need to investigate, ask questions and read. If one is is interested in EO use there are tons of journals, periodicals, and more to educate you on what EO’s are and how to use them.
DoTerra oils are priced the way they are for the MLM plan. I don’t buy them, I buy oils from reputable companies that provide sourcing information.
The FDA has too much power in the wrong places and is not protecting us the way it should be, period.
You tell me why FDA allows big pharma to peddle drugs in the free market that actually kill people and make other sick–for a few small fees?
Yet the FDA storms into someone’s home because they choose to develop and drink their own raw milk from one cow grazing on a plot of grass?
DoTerra is a legitimate company that is pedaling ordinary oils to people who are too lazy to research on their own, who are gullible and will believe anything without researching for themselves, and for those with money to burn who lose nothing if it doesn’t work and they throw it away.
Valerian Root said, “People need to investigate, ask questions and read. If one is is interested in EO use there are tons of journals, periodicals, and more to educate you on what EO’s are and how to use them.”
I’m not sure that people want to take a full-time job reading tons of journals, periodicals and more. Before you get there you should read, what do scientific studies show and some of the misinformation in such studies.
It’s easy for people to get a link to a journal and think that’s accurate, but that’s always true. This is why we wait until the medical community as a whole repeats the process and comes up with definitive results. These are the ones you want to read. So far, there doesn’t seem to be much if anything on essential oils.
I think I said previously that I’m not a big fan of the FDA, but it’s much better than the alternative which is nothing. Fire fighters are not 100% perfect, but you’d rather live in a town with a fire station that one without one, right?
I’m not sure what you mean by the FDA having too much power in the wrong places. I don’t think they have any power outside of what their jurisdiction (i.e. the right places).
The FDA doesn’t allow pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs that kill people. If there’s a link, such as in Vioxx or Fen/Phen, the drugs are pulled from the market by the FDA. You’d probably have 10,000 or more damaging pharmaceuticals without the FDA.
I don’t think you understand the user fee system. You might want to get some background here. Here’s a little excerpt: “The move towards imposing user fees to pay for the regulatory review of new medicines was the result of dissatisfaction among consumers, industry, and the FDA. All three groups felt that drug approvals were taking far too long. Pharmaceutical companies had to wait to begin to recoup the costs of research and development. The FDA estimated that a delay of one month in a review’s completion cost its sponsor $10 million. The FDA argued that it needed additional staff to end its back-log of drugs awaiting approval for market. The FDA had not received sufficient appropriations from Congress to hire them.”
Essentially the FDA is requiring pharmaceutical companies to foot their own bill in the approval process. It was underfunded by the government and this allows the FDA to have the necessary people to approve medicine to help people faster.
It’s funny, but people go nuts when “Big Pharma” makes too much money. So we come up with an idea that taxes them to ensure that they can be properly regulated. Now everyone is upset that Big Pharma is spending money and being regulated. And people are upset that the regulating organization isn’t doing enough, but they want to take away its funding leaving it in a worse position.
Seriously… what the hell system do you want?
The FDA doesn’t storm into people’s home for drinking milk from their own cow. Do you think the FDA has cameras on every cow in the US to prevent this from happening? Where are you getting your crazy information.
If a company is a legitimate company as you claim DoTerra is, why do they choose a plan that is fundamentally the same as Vemma’s which was shut down for being an illegal pyramid scheme? Why do they come up with terms to mislead consumers such as Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade and claiming it was from the FDA? Why are they getting warning letters from the FDA about illegally marketing their products.
I don’t believe that any of this is a sign of a legitimate way to do business.
Valerian Root said: “You tell me why FDA allows big pharma to peddle drugs in the free market that actually kill people and make other sick–for a few small fees?”
Only if you can tell me how that baseless accusation is relevant to essential oils.
Valerian Root said: “Yet the FDA storms into someone’s home because they choose to develop and drink their own raw milk from one cow grazing on a plot of grass?”
That sounds like a fairy tale to me, but for the sake of argument, if the FDA didn’t storm into someone’s house for drinking raw milk, would it make essential oils any more or less legitimate?
The point I’m getting at, as I hope you now recognize, is that taking blind shots at the FDA has absolutely nothing to do with essential oils. As I pointed out already, the FDA bears no blame for the failure of essential oil manufacturers to seek approval to legally market their products as therapeutic agents. They don’t seek such approval because they know that the products lack efficacy.
I love this article. Even though I use some essential oils, I know that they cannot cure anything. I use lavender to help me sleep. I blend a couple of oils together to help relieve my husband’s muscle pain at times, and I use tea tree oil to dry out the occasional cold sore. I wouldn’t trust any salesman telling me that they’ll cure my child’s asthma or heal my husband’s bad back (Scheueremann’s Disease). Both conditions can be controlled, but they can’t be cured. Essential oils can be used to lessen the discomfort of certain conditions, but that is all they can do.
I use a brand of essential oils (Plant Therapy) that is about half the cost of using DoTERRA. I can currently buy a 1 ounce bottle of lavender on Amazon for either $14.99(Plant Therapy) or $23.10(DoTERRA). One ounce of tea tree oil is $9.89(PT) or $20.90(DoT). Why would I spend twice as much for the same quality product?
Still, if people want to waste their money and feel that they must rabidly defend doing so, let them. I believe we all know the saying about fools and their money.
I’m fine with people spending money how they see fit. I’m not fine with people lying to sell snake oil as part of a pyramid scheme. They only rabidly defend it, because they need to in order to continue to recruit people into the scheme.
Thanks for this article. I got invited to a “girls night” tonight only to find out it was a presentation for this crap.
Are there some benefits to these oils? Maybe. But it seems pretty outrageous and irresponsible to claim it as a cure for their laundry list of ailments.
It also scares me the mob mentality and the people who defend it/buy into it. I wouldn’t trust an MLM no matter what they were selling. And the principle of selling to friends and everyone you know is dirty. But this seems almost dangerous to me. I hope doterra gets slapped with a big lawsuit someday and goes bankrupt. Thanks for the article for shedding more light on it in the meantime.
A friend of mine coined these oils “Suburban Witchcraft”, which I think describes perfectly whats going on here.
Doterra oils are amazing! MLM is just a business platform they are using, and it works. Instead of paying Hollywood actresses millions for TV commercials, they are paying regular people who love what they do. Nothing wrong with that! As far as cost, YES, when we go out to buy a car, we know we are going to pay more for a Mercedes than Kia. When it comes to my health, I want Mercedes S class quality, YES, I want the best! Once I bought an oil from Whole Foods and it gave me such a rash, I took it off with Doterra lavender and never looked back. My daughter has NEVER (i mean never) been to a doctor, learns about the oils, holistic living and I can’t be happier. Doterra rocks and thank you for raising the bar in essential oil production!!!
KD, here’s Why MLM is NOT a Business.
As for what’s wrong with MLM please see let John Oliver explain it to you.
There’s no evidence that DoTerra is any healthier than any other products. Evidence supports that people buying MLM products are doing the equivalent of buying $8/gas. The brand doesn’t matter and you shouldn’t be conned into pay $8/gallon for gas under the illusion that it is much better for your car.
Please don’t brag that your daughter has never been to a doctor! That’s a terrible thing. Keep in mind that DoTerra products are not medicine!
oops… forgot to add… I don’t brag about my daughter, it’s a fact! My daughter was born at home, was not vaccinated and has never been to a doctor. Well, there’s no need, she is never sick. Oh, LOL…and she has not been to MacDonalds either… hehe…We use good nutrition, nature, herbs and essential oils for our health remedies. We have medical insurance for emergencies only and are so glad to have that option. And… I don’t care what FDA or NAHA says, I make my own decisions! Until FDA stops Monsanto on it’s tracks and cleans up our food, I don’t give a sh.t
I’m going to choose not to feed the troll. Good luck with your life KD. I wish I could help you be healthier, but I know you won’t listen to me.
You are very naughty Lazyman, I like you a lot… ;)… Hit me up for a drink or something, we have more in common than you know- I’m quite lazy we well! Till then be nice to your readers and keep approaching them with loving heart ;)
I didn’t do anything naughty KD. I simply said that I wasn’t going to engage in conversation with you.
Once you said that you didn’t have your daughter vaccinated, you entered the territory of believing in a zombie apocalypse… except that such a decision could end up ruining her life.
Such a discussion is much more serious than the types of scents you like to smell.
Sorry, I’m not here for the debate tho I appreciate your response. I’m doing MLM as a business for the past 20 years, I work 2-4 hours a day and I make aaaawwesome income. I get to travel 3-6 months out of the year and I take as many “sick days” as I want. It’s just not for everyone I guess. I love the freedom to create my own schedule. Some people like to work from 8-5pm and live a predictable life. As long as they are happy to do it… but it’s not for me! MLM is a wonderful platform, I live this platform day in out, it’s the most rewarding business in many aspects- empowering people as well as self development. I’m my own living proof, so I don’t need to watch any videos about it… Peace and love to all! As long as we agree to disagree, respect each other and our views, we can all coexist in this world regardless of what we do for living or what we believe in! I don’t agree with almost anything in what you said in this blog post but I still respect you and admire the effort you put into it! XO
KD said: “Sorry, I’m not here for the debate”
You say that now only after realizing that your BS won’t fly here. You won’t debate because your position is completely indefensible.
KD said: “I’m doing MLM as a business for the past 20 years, I work 2-4 hours a day and I make aaaawwesome income.”
BS! Anyone can invent a bogus claims like that. For it to be compelling, you would have to provide proof, but you offer none. And we both know why — you are a BS artist. The stats on MLM paint a very different picture. The odds of not losing money are about 1/100.
KD said: “I take as many “sick days” as I want.”
It’s called being unemployed dolt. You don’t get paid for your sick days. You don’t get any other standard employee benefits either; not even minimum wage.
KD said: “It’s just not for everyone I guess.”
Nope. Just for idiots and desperadoes with a broken moral compass and no other options in life.
KD said: “I love the freedom to create my own schedule.”
Yes, that’s one of the few benefits unemployment offers. Lots of time flexibility.
KD said: “it’s the most rewarding business in many aspects- empowering people as well as self development. I’m my own living proof,”
Your development seems stunted to say the least. How pathetic that you rob people and call it “empowerment”.
KD said: “I don’t agree with almost anything in what you said in this blog post but I still respect you and admire the effort you put into it!”
Lazy Man deserves your respect. As an MLM apologist and con artist troll, you deserve none.
Great. My wife just bought a load of this snake oil. Most definitely a pyramid scheme creating a culture that breeds lies in order to create sales.
My stepmom is a DoTERRA salesperson and has been for a few years now, and she is always trying to force me to use this crap; even choosing it over actually taking me to a doctor. When I was younger I always refused because I can’t stand the smell. Now I’m 19 and I can see how ridiculous and dangerous it really is. I agree wholeheartedly with the term “Suburban Witchcraft”
Great article! I use essential oils to scent my soap, and I’m always researching. There are so many bogus and harmful claims criculating about essential oils. One that I find particularly disturbing is that the companies you mention also tout ingestion as being beneficial. This can actually result in death. MLM misanthropes are completely scary!
Thank you so much for posting this article. I was looking into buying essential oils and I noticed DoTerra being 5 times more expensive! A friend gave me a sample and I got more from NOW brand; so I didn’t notice a difference on the quality. But everything you are saying makes so much sense about the why! The MLM, Pyramid Scheme, lies, deception, wanting you to join, etc, etc! Now I know what’s the difference, LOL!!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!
There are many many companies producing essential oils. Like ANY product there are ‘good’ ones and not so good ones. I have used several different brands and doTerra is my favorite. They are food grade and have so many tests run on each herb used, it amazes me that any pass the stringent inspections and tests run. I do have knowledge of the companies beginning and I do know there are those out there with a ‘axe to grind’ or you may say ‘disgruntled’. This is NOT a ‘fly by night’ or a ‘snake oil’ business as some have said. Do your homework, investigate for yourself before you slander someone’s reputation, business, and/or hard work. I would and DO recommend doTerra to anyone interested in a good quality EO. Remember, even Jesus had those were intimidated by Him and crucified Him because of their own insecurities. ;) Have a blessed day oiling.
I don’t know of any not so good essential oils. There might be some out there, but all you need is one great one like Now (see the Amazon reviews) at 1/10th the cost to make DoTERRA irrelevant. It simply doesn’t matter if DoTERRA is also good, it is ten times more money.
If you have the choice between to types of 93 octane gas are you going to pay the one costs $2.50 a gallon or the one that costs $25.00 a gallon?
I always recommend that people do their homework. The results of my article was me doing my homework. If you have other homework for me to add please do.
And yes, MLM companies are attempting to intimidate me with frivolous lawsuits because of their own insecurities. Read more about how you can help me voice my opinion and exercise my freedom of speech here: http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/le-vel-brands-is-suing-me-to-silence-criticism/
Lazy –
After reading this article that I link I came back to your site to see if you had written anything on Doterra. And here it is!
I do t think you linked this article but it adds further evidence of Doterra’s misleading marketing ploys.
https://www.naha.org/assets/uploads/The_Quality_of_Essential_Oils_Journal.pdf
Good find Julie. I’ll add it to the article.
“Remember, even Jesus had those were intimidated by Him and crucified Him because of their own insecurities.”
You are using Christ to defend an overpriced essential oil company. STAHP! That is belittling the sacrifice that Jesus made for you, and He won’t thank you for it.
Hi, I’m a doTerra user, not a seller. I get allergies and severe migraines and the doTerra oils I use help me a great deal. I could use other oils but I don’t because I have more faith in products that are 3rd party tested for quality and honesty in ingredient labeling, which doTerra does (other’s probably do, too). Among those that are tested higher in quality, doTerra is cheaper for me. I researched other companies and compared what I would pay and that are not MLM but found I couldn’t afford them. When it comes to what I put in and on my body (not akin to choosing gasoline), quality and verified ingredients are important to me. I will say that I am turned off by the MLM aspect of doTerra but as far as the benefit and cost, it has worked well for me. No more allergy meds and headache’s/migraines are relieved if I catch them early on with oils. Just thought I’d add my two cents as a user.
Andrea,
I’m confused. What exactly are you allergic to? Which doTerra oils are you claiming help you with allergies and/or migraines?
I have used essential oils daily for months now and I’ve experienced… good smells.
As I mentioned in the article, pure is pure. If you are the type who question that, I certainly hope you don’t ever eat food at restaurants where purity is far from guaranteed. I hope you don’t breathe air in an office building as that air would not be tested for quality either.
I certainly hope you don’t take any supplements as there are reports like these in the NY Times.
Which non-MLM essential oil could you not afford? Can you supply some brands, because I’d like to find the ones that you can’t afford. My research shows that the MLM ones are the most expensive ones that people would find most difficult to afford… hence my confusion.
If you are turned off by the MLM aspect, I would at least hope you’d recommend that people by all their doTerra products from Ebay which avoids that.
Essential oils can be very good but the way said company works seems very scammy at first appearance, where they try to sell you “packages” and “registration fees” and setting you up with some free samples.
If you are serious about essential oils (and boy do I love them) then I recommend looking somewhere else….
It’s easy to write an article on something by quoting other articles and claiming foul. MLMs are everywhere. Even Tupperware is an MLM but it is still a good product. Distributors of DoTerra are not making illegal claims as you state. If they are following the company’s policy that is. Essential oils are easily misunderstood by folks who haven’t done their research. I am curious to know if you used any of them or just made assumptions. Things aren’t as cut and dried as you may think when it comes to Essential oils and their quality and potency.
Mary, it’s easy to criticize a consumer advocate. In fairness, the FDA claimed foul as cited in the article. If distributors are following the company’s policy, I don’t think the FDA would send such warning letters… is that fair?
As I pointed out in the article, I’ve bought and used essential oils. They smell great in my diffuser. They are great quality as per thousands of Amazon reviews and listed as 100% pure (as best I can recall).
It’s easy to play the “are they quality?” card against Now’s product for 1/10th the price, but I’ve showed that they have thousands of top reviews on Amazon for their essential oils. They have the same for many of their supplements if I recall.
Mary said: “It’s easy to write an article on something by quoting other articles and claiming foul.”
Easy for some people, but I bet you couldn’t write a cogent compelling article if your life depended on it.
Mary said: “MLMs are everywhere. Even Tupperware is an MLM but it is still a good product.”
Nice attempt at distraction. Tupperware has nothing to do with Doh-Terra, and even Tupperware’s CEO admits that the MLM industry is rife with impropriety and pyramid schemes:
“CEO Rick Goings said, ‘Direct selling left us, because the industry became dominate by buying clubs and what looked like pyramid schemes’.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100366770
Mary said: “Distributors of DoTerra are not making illegal claims as you state. If they are following the company’s policy that is.”
That’s just dumb. It’s like saying that Americans do not commit crimes, IF they are following the law. We all know full well that DoLTerra distributors are constantly making illegal and unsubstantiated claims.
Mary said: “Essential oils are easily misunderstood by folks who haven’t done their research.”
That certainly applies to the suckers involved with DoltError; not as much to the population at large.
Mary said: “I am curious to know if you used any of them or just made assumptions.”
Nope, since trying Doperra would require giving my money to hucksters for an overpriced product that fuels a pyramid scheme.
Mary said: “Things aren’t as cut and dried as you may think when it comes to Essential oils and their quality and potency.”
Ooo, the hidden mystery argument. Please enlighten us MLM drone.
THANK YOU for this! I started seeing a new doctor, who (as it turns out) pushes doTERRA. To the point where that is all he prescribes. I thought my red flags were going up because I was being a “baby” about how expensive these supplements and oils are. I didn’t order what he prescribed, so I started getting calls from his office wondering why. That creeped me out, I don’t recall a doctor ever checking with the pharmacy to see if I filled my prescription… Since I don’t want to deal with the embarrassment of admitting that I don’t trust him enough to spend $200 a month (that I don’t have), I will likely just quietly find another doctor. Thanks, again, for this article. It showed me my gut is trustworthy.
Thank you for this excellent article. Medical professional here (physician) and I’ve treated three patients this year who have undone the work of their endocrinologist looking for an alternative to taking actual FDA approved medications for thyroid disorders. The results were near fatal in one case. The vendors that they purchased their doterra oils from claimed that using the oils instead of what their doctors prescribed, would be a natural alternative that would provide better results. The truth is, they don’t. The oils smell nice and that’s it. Oils may make you feel nice because of their pretty scent but are NOT substitutions for actual medicine. The aforementioned vendor was so far down the pyramid and so far removed from the parent company, that no one was going to get in trouble for giving out bad medical information. Bottom line: if you want to smell nice use the oils and that’s fine. But do not except these as valid medical treatments. One of the three patients that I mentioned above eded up in the hospital with a near toxic goiter. Not to offend anyone that sells oils and considers themselves and herbalist, but my 20+ years studying and practicing medicine that is backed up by over a century of strong medical literature carries far more weight then a two week essential oil course or an online certificate. This is fact. Thank you and please keep yourselves safe from the snake oil salesmans of Facebook.
Hello!
This article is wonderful. I never leave comments ever….but after reading this article and all your responses—>>> just wanted to say thanks! Body wraps are my current MLM pet peeve but this is a close second.
Hi, thanks for the information on DoTerra. I was introduced to the products this weekend when someone convinced me to do a quick “compass” report of what my body is missing. I was fine with the $10 charge for that, but as soon as she mentioned the registration fee and the outrageous prices, my spidey-senses were tingling. She also suggested that I ingest the oils, and informed me that they are the only oils on the market that are FDA approved. I thanked her and walked away. I suggest you do the same.
It’s easy to write an article with a closed mind. It’s also easy to get fooled with a mind that is too open. Maybe you should try to write an article in the same way about a pharmaceutical company that provides a certain medicine. Maybe in a couple of years you may find out that their slick marketing and lobby at the FDA had you fooled… But all that time you were taking their toxins and poisening your body. Ain’t it weird that we try to cure ourselves with toxins from very, very, very rich companies?
Try writing about this kind of swindle, instead of these easy targets backed up by the lobby of pharmaceutical companies.
Remember… it’s all about the money.
Interesting name “BeOpen”, you seem to not want to “BeOpen” yourself. There are enough other people writing about the pharmaceutical industry and I haven’t found enough writing about MLM and specific MLM companies. To me it isn’t weird that we wouldn’t try to cure ourselves with products that are undergo a scientific, clinical process to work. And hey, not too many people get polio or TB nowadays, so they seem to be doing a lot right.
I have to disagree with this article. I do sell but I also use on my family, which ivlude my 3 children. Fda is a multi billion dollar company, does that really mean that there medicine is always good?
Look at all the side effects and lawsuits they go through. We are actually now health canada approved on 20 of our oils. If you were told that it is going to cure cancer or going to cure altimers then the person that was teaching the class was not properly trained and should not be working for our company. I have seen first hand the benifits to these amazing oils, but just like drugs they have to be used properly. I have 2 nurses on my team and have done a lot of research and I am taking a aromatherapy coarse. How can I truly help people use these oils properly if I don’t know how myself. Yes doTERRA is a mlm company not denying that, but that does not make them a bad company. DoTERRA could have went straight to the store and sold that way but they chose not to,would rather have people like myself be able to deminstrate on how they are used and give samples. I went to purchase a lemon oil in a store, which I will not name becouse I am not about knocking companies expecially ones I do not know enough about.Anyways I baught this oil and they did not tell me how to use it or the cautions that they do have nothing. In my opinion not everyone should sell them . That lady should have Atleast told me that should I have got oil in my eyes not to put water,had I of not been trained properly I would have went straight for the water. I am not trying to push my company on you or say buy our products bit do not just jump to conclusions about the quality over one persons blog. If anyone would really like to sample our product message me for more info and I would be happy to share with you. Have a great day?
[Editor’s Note: Promotional material from Jennifer is removed.]
Is it “TRUE”? the labeling industry in the US allows a product that contains 100% ,,,let’s say LAVENDER OIL ( 1%),,,, then ADD a “filler oil”@ 99%,,, to claim “CONTAINS 100% Lavender Oil….. AS LONG AS THE BOTTLE HAS (100% Lavender oil) in it,,, they can MISS LEAD you into thinking the WHOLE BOTTLE CONTAINS “100% Lavender?
Yes Kelly it is absulutly true that they can. By law there only has to be a certain percent in each bottle to call them selves pure. People can say that we are all scammed and other products are just as good. I am with a group that actually testes other bottles and I hate to tell you that you are wrong. If you get oils off the Internet do u actually know where they are coming from and what’s inside. You can say they are more expensive but there are a number of reasons why doterra rises above others. If you buy an essential oil out of a retail store or the Internet are they going to tell you the cautions or show you how to use them. That is the reason doTERRA went this way. Word of mouth is a very powerful thing, you would take your friends or families word before you took some average Joe right. doTERRA thought it would be better to actually be able to show you how the product works and explain how doterra is where it is today. We are are the #1 essential oil company. I am not going to sit here and knock other companies becouse that is just not my style, I just warn you whatever company you use make sure the quality really is there. Ask them where it is harvested? What type of year? There are so many factures in what makes the value go up or down on an oil. If there were so many red flags in doTERRA why were they just health canada approved. There is no scientific proof that backs up your article. It is based Strickland on your opinion. If anyone would like real information or studies done or doctors articles send me your email or add my closed group on essential oils facebook. [Editor’s Note: Contact information deleted. Jennifer, please don’t try to take conversations private. This isn’t the place for your sale’s pitch. We ate only a successful company today becouse we are able to show that infact our oils do help and they are great quality, so please so not base your opinion on a article that is just one guys opinion that has not even infact tried the oils and is going off the mlm side and that’s all he really has. I wI’ll not use any other company on myself or my children and I have not used any medication in 4 months. That’s my opinion though I am not a doctor and I did go to my doctor before I started using them as well. I am happy with my choice aND becouse of it I now have more knowledge on oils and how to use them properly.
Jennifer Cassie said: “I have to disagree with this article.”
No, you don’t “have to”. But since you did anyway, it would have been nice if you had delineated precisely what it is that you disagree with instead of just creating straw men to attack.
Jennifer Cassie said: “Fda (sic) is a multi billion dollar company, does that really mean that there (sic) medicine is always good?”
(a) The FDA is not a company; (b) the FDA doesn’t make or sell medicine. Your question is pointless and ignorant.
Jennifer Cassie said: “Look at all the side effects and lawsuits they go through.”
Why? Drug side effects have nothing to with DoTerra essential oils. People are more than willing to risk a side effect (especially mild ones) in order to cure or alleviate a disease. DoTerra’s products don’t cure or alleviate diseases.
Jennifer Cassie said: “If you were told that it is going to cure cancer or going to cure altimers (sic) then the person that was teaching the class was not properly trained and should not be working for our company.”
What’s “altimers”? Did you mean Alzheimer’s disease? Do you realize how absurd it is for someone so woefully lacking in knowledge to be dispensing advice? Aside from that, we all agree that DoTerra’s distributors shouldn’t be making misleading and illegal claims about disease treatment, and yet they do, and the company takes no action. The article is critical of such practices and yet you prefaced your comment by complaining about how you disagree with the article. There’s no rhyme or reason to your approach.
Jennifer Cassie said: “I have seen first hand the benifits (sic) to these amazing oils, but just like drugs they have to be used properly.”
Firstly, why bother stating that the products have benefits and are “amazing” without providing any details?
Second, it is extremely misleading for you to directly compare DoTerra’s products with drugs. You could have said “just like a hammer, they have to be used properly,” but instead you went with a purposely misleading statement likening them to drugs. And yet you wonder why people condemn your turd of a company?
Jennifer Cassie said: “I have 2 nurses on my team and have done a lot of research and I am taking a (sic) aromatherapy coarse (sic).”
So let’s recap. You have the writing and reasoning skills of a third-grader; you can’t spell to save your life; you don’t know the meaning of the word “paragraph”; you have deluded notions about what the FDA does; and you seem to think that taking an aromatherapy course is an educational credential. Do you still wonder why people scoff at the simpletons who sell and relentlessly hype DoTerra products?
Jennifer Cassie said: “How can I truly help people use these oils properly if I don’t know how myself.”
But you seem to know nothing, so I can’t imagine what kind of help you could possibly offer anyone. Besides, what kind of help does someone need to know how to apply a dab of oil behind their ear, and wouldn’t a simple product instruction sheet take care of that? You provide no value whatsoever.
Jennifer Cassie said: “Yes doTERRA is a mlm company not denying that, but that does not make them a bad company.”
Well, yes, in fact it really does. The MLM pyramid system with its multiple levels of distributor payouts (most of it going to a select few at the top level) ensures very high overhead, which necessarily translates to horribly overpriced products. Horribly overpriced products are next to impossible to sell unless they are hyped using deception; for instance, telling people that the products are miraculous and do “amazing” things, or that they can get rich selling them.
So to recap, BS overpriced products sold deceptively. Got it?
Jennifer Cassie said: “DoTERRA could have went straight to the store and sold that way but they chose not to,would rather have people like myself be able to deminstrate (sic) on how they are used and give samples.”
In theory DoTerra could have chosen to sell their products in retail stores, assuming any retailer would be stupid enough to stock them, but the products would never sell because they would be situated next to similar products that sell for 10% or less of the cost of DoTerra oils. The only way they can sell the products at such an unjustifiably high price is via the MLM model and with a healthy dollop of BS.
Jennifer Cassie said: “I went to purchase a lemon oil in a store, which I will not name becouse (sic) I am not about knocking companies expecially (sic) ones I do not know enough about. Anyways I baught (sic) this oil and they did not tell me how to use it or the cautions that they do have nothing. In my opinion not everyone should sell them . That lady should have Atleast (sic) told me that should I have got oil in my eyes not to put water,had I of not been trained properly I would have went straight for the water.”
So, sifting through the fluff, what you’re saying is that, in contrast with the way retail products are sold, you bring value to the equation because you’re there to tell customers to not put DoTerra oil in their eyes or try to wash it out with water? That’s pretty worthless. A package insert/instruction sheet would accomplish the same thing without the need for someone like you to suck out a commission payment from the transaction.
Jennifer Cassie said: “I am not trying to push my company on you or say buy our products bit (sic) do not just jump to conclusions about the quality over one persons (sic) blog. If anyone would really like to sample our product message me for more info and I would be happy to share with you. Have a great day? (sic)”
So to recap, you prefaced your comment by saying that you disagree with the article, and then you proceeded to spew a bunch of illiterate nonsense that addressed precisely none of the points expressed in the article. And then to add insult injury, you say that you’re not here to push the company or its products, but then in the next sentence you start offering samples and requesting people to message you. That’s just dazzlingly dumb!
I hope you realize that rather than demonstrating any deficiencies with the blog article, all you did was to reinforce the perception of DoTerra salespeople as clueless pawns.
Young living saved me when conventional doctors said I was in the “normal range” of EVERYTHING!!! I was led to a better doctor as well and now am on the road to healing and living better being more balanced and happy. I no longer depend on big pharmaceutical companies and all the side effects. My husband was convinced they were snake oils too until he had a toothache one day. I put a drop of thieves oil on a Q-tip and it took the pain right away till we could get him to the dentist next day or when he stepped wrong and DoTerra’s deep blue made his hurt foot feel better than the non-hurt foot. I am not a seller or trying to sell. I joined for the benefits. Different strokes, I guess. Be careful using other oils as I have tried them too and they aren’t recommended for topical or internal use. YL’s peppermint clears my sinuses and helps with my headaches daily!! No need for advil or tylenol. I just discovered DoTerra and am switching. I have been getting better results. Thanks for reading. Have a blessed day!! (:
Esther said, “Young living saved me when conventional doctors said I was in the “normal range” of EVERYTHING!!!”
Are you saying that board certified and trained physicians suggested you were healthy, and the young living made you not healthy? This is a very confusing statement, because it sounds like you weren’t sick, but then Young Living came along and made you not in the “normal range” anymore?
Esther said, “I was led to a better doctor as well and now am on the road to healing and living better being more balanced and happy. I no longer depend on big pharmaceutical companies and all the side effects.”
Does this doctor have a financial bias to push essential oils over scientifically and clinically tested medicines? Did this doctor suggest you were unhealthy when the previous doctor(s) suggested you were fine? Why were you depending on medicines if other doctors said you were fine? I’m sorry, but everything you are saying is extremely confusing.
Esther said, “My husband was convinced they were snake oils too until he had a toothache one day. I put a drop of thieves oil on a Q-tip and it took the pain right away till we could get him to the dentist next day or when he stepped wrong and DoTerra’s deep blue made his hurt foot feel better than the non-hurt foot.”
Esther, I found a couple of actual medical articles on the subject, and none have suggested that essential oils help with these particular issues. Also, from this article, http://childrensmd.org/uncategorized/return-essential-oils/ there was one section that really stuck out to me because they describe the placebo effect.
“I can jabber on about PubMed research and most people don’t care– they’d rather try some essential oil themselves. If it works, who cares about the research? Here’s the problem with that approach: once you spend $79 on a tiny vial of Frankincense, you’re going to be looking for it to work. You’ll note every little improvement in your condition and attribute it to your lovely smelling treatment. But could you have achieved the same outcome with a hot bath, massage, and scented candle?”
Take a moment and think about that…did you try other things that weren’t drugs or essential oils?
Esther said, “Be careful using other oils as I have tried them too and they aren’t recommended for topical or internal use. YL’s peppermint clears my sinuses and helps with my headaches daily!! No need for advil or tylenol.”
I’m not sure how much Tylenol or Advil you were taking, but they are actually FDA approved, and clinically tested. Acetaminophen is not harmful, and for you to suggest that essential oils work better is completely ridiculous.
Thank you for the attack!!(NOT) This was a mistake commenting on here. What kind of cruel hearts You have. I was just speaking from my own personal experience. I refuse to explain myself any further. Peace be with you. Feel free to read more about whatever YOU believe and I will cease to exist in your world.
Esther said, “Thank you for the attack!!(NOT) This was a mistake commenting on here.”
Where did I attack you? I asked very reasonable questions, and was very non confrontational. It was not a mistake for you to comment. It is important for people to give a different perspective, but you should also be open to other people’s views.
Esther said, “What kind of cruel hearts You have.”
You seem to be very emotional about absolutely nothing. I would suggest taking your emotional temperature before responding hastily and rereading the information that was being presented.
Esther said, “I refuse to explain myself any further. Peace be with you. Feel free to read more about whatever YOU believe and I will cease to exist in your world.”
You haven’t explained anything…and your post ignored any counterpoints that were given. I don’t just read articles that support my opinion, because that would not encompass the entire point. I don’t believe you were ever in my world to begin with, and your melodramatic response does not substantiate any of your previous beliefs.
I have enjoyed reading this article, along with the following discussion and opinion. I guess what it boils down to in my opinion is personal preference. I bought a starter kit from Young Living but I do not distribute and probably will not continue to belong to this MLM company. One of my oldest and dearest friends is a very successful distributor and swears by most of the products for her and her household. That is her choice and conviction.
Personally, I am a single income household and simply don’t have the income to buy these products on a regular basis. Nor do I have the time to market and I am certainly not a sales person, so I have not made a single dime from this company. I have only contributed to others’ commission with my limited purchases.
I can’t attest to any benefits or side effects from essential oils as I haven’t used any one oil consistently since getting the kit. I am sure there are probably benefits to them. I am also sure there are benefits as well and draw backs to modern medicine. I am exploring a more natural holistic approach to health, but I am taking it slow and doing research. That is my choice and preference, just as someone who fully relies on and trusts EOs or Pharmaceuticals.
I appreciate this post, as it helped open my eyes and think again about multi-level marketing as a whole. I believe I will think twice before spending my money on products marketed and sold this way. It has me thinking and wanting to research alternative brands for myself. These companies will continue to come and go in the future, I am sure. To participate or not is up to each individual and how they choose to spend their hard earned money and conduct their lives. I am glad I stumbled upon your site today researching a totally different MLM company. Thank you for the information and for allowing people to comment, discuss and draw their own conclusion on these topics.
Thank you for this objective article. We purchase some DoTerra Essential Oils each month. But we are not on the Pyramid structure. My favorite is the Peppermint oil. One drop spread out on my face and neck and chest produces a warmth and uplifting aroma that lifts my spirits significantly! One drop! The Breathe lozenges and oil help clear the air passages quite well. The Deep Blue cream seems to sooth sore muscles and aches. It smells very similar to ointments and creams that I used on sore muscles when I was a college athlete. I am a retired scientist.
Jerry K, I’ve found the same thing can happen from one drop of the Now version I have for around 1/5th or 1/10th the price (whatever it was). There are any number of cheap, but great, practically-equivalent alternatives you can buy without the expense of the “structure” (as you put it).
LOL…come for the info and stay for the train wreck.
I am a new user/buyer of doTERRA. I probably would have to agree with the smell makes you feel better, but doesn’t cure or prevent disease. Well, isn’t that what you want, to feel better? The lavender relaxes my whole family with a couple of drops. Haven’t tried the difuser yet, but that’s next. The oil that I swear by the most is the Deep Blue. I am a cancer fighter and have a lot of nerve damage, especially in my lower back. This used every morning with the coconut oil relieves this and lasts longer than any of the products you buy in the drugstore. Since using Deep Blue, about 6 weeks, the once constant pain has been reduced to when I overdo, which is normal life.
It sounds like you are essentially saying that the value is the same as a scented candle. I have the NOW lavender which I think is about 1/10th the price and it does the same thing.
So I’m not sure why people would pay 10x more than they have to for smells. As you mentioned, curing or preventing diseases isn’t in play here, so let’s leave that out of the discussion to avoid confusing people. Thanks.
Sounds like you need to do some research and do an article on the dangers of scented candles.
Thanks Mick… open fires always have a danger. I hope that’s obvious and not in need of an article.
You might also get great scents from the “tree” in your car. If you believe these scents are dangerous, I suggest you report it to the FTC.
I have essential oils, from NOW as I disclosed, and that’s an option as well.
This article is not about aromatherapy… we can agree on that, right?
It’s not about an open flame. Have you ever heard of BSD (black soot deposition)? Ever seen black spot stains on ceilings, walls, furniture, etc? Well the EPA and ALA have determined breathing particulate matter 2.5 microns or smaller is very detrimental to human health. These particles are dangerous because they are inhaled deeply into the lungs, causing irritation and respiratory problems, and possible long term health issues.
Fantastic article! Thanks!
LazyMan, you lie in your first paragraph so how can we trust anything else you may say?
Never has DoTerra sold Lavender for your so-called researched price of $68.00.
Sojourner, if you follow the link to Amazon you’ll see that one bottle (15ml) is $23.10 and two bottles (each 15ml) are $46.20. The total of the three bottles is 45ml as I state, for a combined cost of $69.30. That is ~$68 noting that “~” means around.
I didn’t say that DoTerra was selling these, just that one can buy the products for around that pricing on Amazon.
If you lie about my lying, how can we trust anything you might say?
I am a Wellness Advocate with doTERRA but I do not do it to make money. I started using them on myself for minor things like skin care, my hair, diffusing at home in 2009. I saw countless Advocates selling these oils online and not having a single clue about what they do and how dangerous they can be, it was all about reaching Diamond or Presidential level. I could easily have done that myself but I didn’t and haven’t. In 7 years, I have no one working below me – it’s just me. I’ve taken aromatherapy courses and am on my way to being certified. The things I have learned along the way make me cringe when I see uneducated Advocates on FB and blog sites “selling” this stuff and trying to recruit other uneducated Advocates. I have friends that buy from me, if they want. I don’t push it. I make recommendations if they ask. And they buy from me at my price and I keep the points for products later. That’s all I get out of it and I’m happy with that. Nine years I’ve been doing that! In the meantime, I’ve had 2 children and I have to say that I have used the oils on the girls for minor colds and aches and I am happy to say that they have helped their ailments. Now when my girls have a cut or a tummy bug or a bug bite or a bruise/scrape, they ask for the oils. I’m happy with that too! I just WISH that all these Advocates are educated and well informed about the oils, their uses, their components, what they can counteract with, etc.
Lesley, maybe you can tell me why you pay as much as 10x more for oils when you don’t need to.
How do you justify asking people to pay your price of 10x more when they can save so much money with the functional equivalent from other non-MLM companies?
Lazy Man – they can buy whatever oils they want. I don’t push doTERRA on them. They ask me for advice on what oil might help and I give them the ones I know. I tell them they don’t have to buy them from me, they can do their research and buy from wherever. I told you – I am NOT in this to make money. In 7 years, I have NO ONE working under me. It’s me, myself and I. Granted, I am helping someone above me make money. And I choose to pay what I do for the oils because I like them, I have done the research and I appreciate the support I get from the company in terms of education.
Of course anyone can buy whatever they want. I’m not sure anyone forces anyone to do anything.
It just feels very odd. It’s like spending $250,000 for a Toyota Camary instead of $25,000 for a Honda Accord and justifying it as, “Well Toyota told me how to obey basic traffic laws.”
I understand that you aren’t in this to make money. Why not do people a huge favor and save them from paying 10x as much? I can’t think of a single reason why someone would do that unless they hate people… and I don’t think you hate people.
Your logic simply on the trademark issue is flawed. A business such as doTerra created a trademark in order to raise the bar on the quality of an essential oil. You have failed to do real research into doTerra, because these essential oils are made to be consumed, not just diffused. Therefore, they become more expensive by the need to put relentless effort into having the necessary concentration. They aren’t cheap, because other companies use synthetic chemicals to make their products cheaper. Therefore, they can only be diffused rather than consumed. Consumption and topical application of any plant would be the most effective, would it not? Then, why do essential oils differ from plants? Oil is the “personality” of a plant. It is what can have a positive or negative effect on a plant. I am shocked at the ignorance and shallow nature of this article. Poison ivy is harmful, why? The “greasy” nature of the oil on the plant causes a harmful reaction with the skin. It is the OIL that hurts people! Therefore, oils from other plants can have a positive effect. It isn’t supposed to substitute modern medicine; that would be absurd. You are right to say that anyone selling the product shouldn’t say that is does substitute. It is to help where medicine can’t help. You even mentioned mental illness. Modern medicine made my brother’s mental condition worse. It deteriorated his mind. So it right to assume that all medicines work? No. Pharmaceuticals obviously have side effects. If you know about chemistry, then you would understand such a concept. Side effects come from the side chains of a molecule that can negatively effect the body. Just like any oil from a plant can be positive or negative to the body. It is right to experiment with good quality while paying more, because I’d rather pay more then have serious problems with synthetic chemicals. Money becomes a trade off for the ability to use the essential oils in the most productive way, rather than just the smell as you mentioned. Please don’t fuel the fire of other’s confirmatory thinking. Do your research properly.
Thank you for your opinion, Mikey.
It would be easy for me dismiss it on the basis that people who don’t understand how paragraphs work might not be in the best position to lecture about trademarks.
Companies do not create trademarks to raise the quality of an industry. Trademark, by definition on my quick Google search, is “a symbol, word, or words legally registered or established by use as representing a company or product.” Thus it is only about doTerra. That’s not a bad thing… The Patriots trademarked Do Your Job, not for awareness of football, but to protect the brand.
If you want to raise the bar on the quality of a product or service, you do so by working with others in the same industry and funding a quality control of that. One good example is the National Dairy Council. You don’t just put together a phrase/slogan that sounds authortative and say, “Hey, this will improve the quality of all essential oils!”
Mikey wrote, “You have failed to do real research into doTerra, because these essential oils are made to be consumed, not just diffused. Therefore, they become more expensive by the need to put relentless effort into having the necessary concentration.”
Can you tell me the benefits of consuming essential oils? As I mentioned in the article, I bought 10 of them. I don’t see an FDA-approved medical reason to consume any of them.
Mikey wrote, “They aren’t cheap, because other companies use synthetic chemicals to make their products cheaper. Therefore, they can only be diffused rather than consumed. Consumption and topical application of any plant would be the most effective, would it not? Then, why do essential oils differ from plants? Oil is the ‘personality’ of a plant.”
Whoa… I’m going to go John Oliver on you. Other than Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, plants don’t have personalities. And if they did, I don’t think they’d appreciate attributing it to “oil.” Would you like your personality attributed to oil? Maybe Life cereal could make a comeback if it was 50% canola oil… Mikey likes it!
I might agree that consumption or topical application of a plant might be most effective. We aren’t talking hemlock or poison ivy, right?!?!
Oh wait we are!
Mikey wrote, “Poison ivy is harmful, why? The ‘greasy’ nature of the oil on the plant causes a harmful reaction with the skin. It is the OIL that hurts people! Therefore, oils from other plants can have a positive effect.”
I’m going to suggest that your conclusion is ABSURD. What if we think of that reaction as a defense mechanism. If a bee stings me and it hurts, does it mean that wasps stinging is healthy? Of course not.
Perhaps, we determine healthy things by science and the scientific method… not analogies that don’t hold water.
Mikey wrote, “It isn’t supposed to substitute modern medicine; that would be absurd. You even mentioned mental illness. Modern medicine made my brother’s mental condition worse. It deteriorated his mind. ”
I humbly suggest that it would be less absurd than what you’ve suggested above… and that’s saying something, because I used ALL CAPS on that.
Mikey wrote, “It is to help where medicine can’t help.”
That seems to be an endorsement that essential oils CAN HELP. Is that fair? Maybe you should watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U
If that’s what you are suggesting, I think we’re back to discussing the concept of “therapeutical” and “certified pure” with the FDA as it relates to mental illness.
Mikey wrote, “It is right to experiment with good quality while paying more, because I’d rather pay more then have serious problems with synthetic chemicals.”
I think that to make this claim, you need to prove that other products are synthetic and that synthetic have problems. The products from NOW as I bought are not, in any way that I know synthetic and of lesser quality.
Please don’t push brands and FUD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt) here.
Mikey wrote, “Money becomes a trade off for the ability to use the essential oils in the most productive way, rather than just the smell as you mentioned.”
Anyone can use essential oils however they want to. I can’t prevent that. I just want to tell people that the only productive way seems to be smell according to my research. If you have another FDA approved use for essential oils for medical conditions (mental health or otherwise), please submit it!
Mikey said: “doTerra…they become more expensive by the need to put relentless effort into having the necessary concentration.”
ROFL! Who do you think you’re talking to here, junior? The reason their products are so stupidly expensive is simply because of the nature of the MLM payout structure; i.e., with half to two-thirds of revenue going toward payouts to the pyramid scheme participants (and obscene profits for the ringleaders).
Mikey said: “Modern medicine made my brother’s mental condition worse.”
And apparently it hasn’t helped yours much either.
Mikey said: “Side effects come from the side chains of a molecule that can negatively effect the body.”
Haha. Nothing like listening to an MLM baboon pretending to know biochemistry! Really, just too damn funny!
Ok article and entertaining comments that I wasted way too much time reading instead of exercising. To any reader who is reading this: I guide you to Michael’s comment made in May 2016 as one that would be helpful to read. He allegedly is a real doctor who has several cases of folks who have been dangerously close to injured or dead because of relying on doTERRA oils. The only person I know who does doTERRA is a friend of a friend, who is actually really successful (I think Blue Diamond level, from what I can tell on facebook) and she does this full time. She does however pawn her goods at everything I see her at (weddings, baby showers, etc.) which gets to be odd at best. I thought I’d also chime in as even though she’s fairly high up, she CERTAINLY claims that oils cure everything from the common cold to mental illness (she herself is bipolar, I think stopped taking meds in favor of oils, and appears to have had a few episodes based on some disturbing posts on facebook. I believe she’s gone back on meds). I just thought I’d share my perspective from a sample size of 1.
Also, this was a fun article.
http://www.utahstories.com/2014/08/damning-evidence-that-young-living-and-doterras-essential-oils-are-adulterated/
Apparently doTerra was started from Young Living’s former employees, and so Young Living sued doTerra for copying their production process. An unintended consequence was that it became public that neither Young Living nor doTerra’s oils are “pure” like they claim and in fact have synthetic elements to them.
And it’s probably the nature of the MLM being kind of like a religion, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that denigrating folks re: pretty base things like spelling and grammar probably isn’t the best way to convince someone that your side is right. I mean, maybe no one’s mind is changing anyhow, but I guess it provides some entertaining, if not somewhat mean, fodder to read.
Late to the party here, but I just wanted to reply to the comment that someone made about Young Living’s Theives Oil helping a toothache. A quick look at YL’s website shows the first ingredient is clove oil. The same thing my dentist recommended after I had my wisdom teeth taken out and got dry socket (ugh), and my dad’s dentist recommended when he had a toothache.
Point being, you don’t need YL’s overpriced snake oil… You need a little bottle of clove oil, which you can pick up cheaply from CVS, etc.
You are absolutely, positively paying for the “brand” when you buy from any of these MLM s. You’re not paying for scientific research, you’re paying for marketing research.
I purchase oils fairly regularly, as perfumery is a hobby of mine. I purchase from suppliers that often deal directly with producers, have independent analysis done on their oils, and post this information freely. Their prices are nowhere near as inflated as these MLMs.
Can I ‘steal’ this? Great explanation (in my opinion)!
“You are absolutely, positively paying for the ‘brand’ when you buy from any of these MLMs. You’re not paying for scientific research, you’re paying for marketing research.”
My favorite part in reading these comments are all the people with different names who respond by breaking down others people’s messages in the exact same way. Hmm… Maybe the same person? Also, Lazy Man, almost every time you comment you mention NOW oils but seem to be talking about the uselessness of using essential oils at all. If you’re really in it for just the scent, you can get a candle at your closest grocery store for $5 or less. Poor execution on your end, buddy. And as a side note, I think it’s extremely rude to comment so nastily on someone’s spelling and grammar. You have no idea who that person is or what they’re like. Just because they don’t have the correct grammar or spell correctly DOES NOT make them incompetent. Let’s be adults and be able to state our opinion without making other people out to be idiots because they don’t share it.
As best I can tell the people with different names are different people. They use different email addresses, different IPs, and things of that nature. Maybe people respond to the comments in the same way because comments in MLM articles are repetitive.
I mention NOW oils because I actually bought them and they are a great value in comparison to DoTERRA’s pricing. When I originally wrote the article, I didn’t have any experience with essential oils, so maybe that’s why you see a change. You shouldn’t view the article and comments as something that happened in one day, but something that has evolved over time.
I do, and I think I always have, recognized the value of aromatherapy. If you read my comments, you’ll even see that I mentioned scented candles as well. Without doing a rigorous financial analysis, a few drops of the $5 essential oils I bought in a diffuser lasts a long time, similar to a scented candle. I’ve got no problems if people decide to save money with scented candles.
I openly make fun of myself for my grammar. Despite having a linguistics degree, I often make grammar mistakes. My brain often thinks faster than my fingers type and I leave out valuable words like verbs in sentences. Sometimes, I go back and edit words and the rest of the sentence doesn’t agree with the change. I rarely comment on other people’s grammar, but in extreme cases, I can’t help but point it out. If people don’t understand paragraphs and have around a dozen spelling errors in a 75 word comment, I have to point it out.
I think such extreme cases are an indication of their education level, which I believe explains why they might spend 10x more on a different brand of a “pure” product.
So Kristin, do you actually have a useful thing to add to the discussion itself, or do you just like to give comments on the comments?
Kristin, I can assure you that I am no one but little ol’ me commenting here. I have no intention of “breaking” anyone down. My comment was intended to encourage people not to buy into any company’s hype, and to do their own research. There are some great little suppliers out there, selling wonderful, high quality products. They don’t have marketing teams or sales pitches. They do have honest, upfront information about their product and its origins. They do publicly post Certificates of Analysis on their products, so you know precisely what you’re buying, rather than vague statements about “purity”. And yet, their prices are still very reasonable.
If saying that makes me a big ol’ internet meanie, so be it. At least I’m not a sucker.
Kristin,
Did you actually have anything of value to add to the conversation, or were you going to be hypocritical and nitpick the style in which LM responds instead of his content?
For the record, and I am not speaking on LM’s behalf (as you insinuated multiple people are responding in the same form to prior comments), I believe LM has shown an unbelievable amount of patience for ignorance. He has responded to people who have said the same things now for years and continues to post everyone’s comments. He has also engaged people constructively, even when they have gone off on emotional tirades or steered the conversation away from the subject matter (Ring any bells Kristin?). LM’s blog has generated more positive and constructive conversations about MLM than any other I have read, and is an unbelievably powerful resource for people who have questions.
It may be time to look in the mirror Kristin.
FYI – this appeared on my FB feed yesterday from a seller: “No scientist researched this blend…it was created by a fellow cross-line doTERRA Wellness Advocate who knows there are ALOT of people who would also feel this way some days (who can relate??)
Now, next week at convention I’ll learn from Johns Hopkins about their research on all of our oils and blends!
Yes, Johns Hopkins is researching all of d?TERRA’s oils and blends…they won’t work with any other essential oil company! If you don’t know, d?TERRA is a science and research company working with the best in research!”
That reminds me of Nerium throwing around the Princeton name. Don’t get caught up in a confidence game.
Lazy man- You are a very ignorant individual. Does it help you sleep better at night making fun of people and how they spell. You are a very ignorant idividual who’s opinion is wrong and you talk about others not being educated I think that you should be ashamed of yourself treating others that way. People do not always have the same opinion as you but to make fun of them is uncalled for. You are a pompous ***. If anyone has any real questions about essential oils and does not want to listen to this tart anymore please email me and I would love to help you. [Editor’s note: Email removed. Please don’t include contact information in comments]. You have shown no actual facts and if you would like to kill all of your organs using medication you go for it. If you are going to knock a company Atleast have all the proper facts.
Maybe I have to look back, but I don’t recall making fun of anyone’s spelling in some time. Maybe several months I did in an extreme case. I did make fun of someone’s lack of using paragraphs, because 1) it was hard to read and 2) he seemed to be lecturing me on trademarks (of which he appears to be wrong about).
The rest of your comment Cassie is much worse name calling than I ever did, which comes across as hypocritical.
What does “killing all of your organs using medication” have ANYTHING to do with this discussion of essential oils? Please stick to the topic of essential oils and not medicine which helps heal people from sicknesses and other maladies.
Thanks
Thanks for this article- it is information that is helpful to me. I have a friend at the convention now who is so hook line and sinker into Doterra. She tells me there are doctors from Johns Hopkins there who have done trials (of course Doctors are compromised- who funded the trials is what I want to ask) It worries me for her sake as she is a good smart person who just wants to believe and on the whole, essential oils are helpful and from nature but for me it is Doterra and the culture it promotes and the moneymaking aspects of it that say “danger, danger will robinson.” . I suppose the nature of the MLM or pyramid schemes has rung “false” to me. Your article informs us about this a bit more and then we can all judge for ourselves based on the facts. But that said, my friend is a generous, believer type and I am a generous, doubter type- we are different and there are pros and cons to our respective personality types. She is a wonderful person and I do not want want to see her going down a rabbit hole and her desire to find work and help people is a genuine one.
My sentiments are along the lines of Thea (comment 53-55) as well I should add that Lazyman as much as I appreciate and find humor in your comments, they do sting and can be hurtful and so respectfully ask that we try to be a bit kinder so as not to take away from the legitimacy of what you are saying. We can all read that the person with the spelling and grammatical errors- well there is something really sad about everything she is saying and the form in which she is conveying her thoughts… that speaks for itself. So I’m not adding much except for my thanks for the article and my hope that we can exchange information while being decent to one another.
PS, I realize that i should have checked my comments. I’m missing a lot f commas and haven’t capitazlied or ( e.g. hook, line, and sinker; good, smart person; Will Robinson) the auto correct capitalized things- the quickness of pressing that “send” or “post” button!
Funny story. Just now a DoTERRA rep left my house after a wonderful presentation. She is a true believer and just returned home from a convention.
I’m a skeptic by nature, almost to a fault but also curious. I revealed that to her upon our meeting. I do think that oils have a lot of benefits and they smell wonderful. I guess my skepticism lies in spending $275 in a start up kit ( that’s the medium price) and being charged $35 a month to be a part of this elite group. Honestly, I was on board until she broke out with the order form.
Towards the end of the presentation I googled DoTerra and came across your website. Thank you. Very informative. You confirmed what I suspected. If I do decide to order essensual oils I will go with Now.
Essential oils are for those who look for alternative methods..modern medicine itself is not exempt from false claims itself. You can go get a flu shot..and still get the flu. You can buy congestion syrups but still stay congested. As for cost it’s what the consumer believes is the better product. If you goto a steak house..chuck steak is much more affordable and you can get more of it for the same price rather than a New York strip. Obviously it’s not a better cut of meat but it came from the same cow. Same with your theory on the this Now essential oil product you promote yes it’s an essential oil..but you pay for the quality not the quantity when you compare it to doterra. So in ending do you want the chuck steak or the New York Strip..it’s all in what a person really preferes.
Kenn, keep in mind that essential oils aren’t typically shown to be effective medical treatments. Whenever I read a comment like that, I ask myself, “If I were to take out the word ‘essential oils’ and replace it with ‘dog pee’ does it still make sense?” In this case, it does. You didn’t explain why essential oils are effective, so we might as well just assume that dog pee is just as effective.
It appears that there’s no noticeable difference in quality between the highly-rated versions of essential oils and many are all billed as being 100% pure. It seems like you are just peddling 87 octane at 10x money and calling one a prime cut.
If people are really preferring it, let’s take the pyramid selling out of the equation. We saw that when the FTC did that with Vemma, the CEO had to beg people to buy the product. Turns out that people weren’t really that interested in the product, but in the business of selling “business opportunities” were a vast majority of people lost money.
Are you really that stupid? have you checked any of this as facts.. People like you should not be writing stupid ignorant articles for others to read your biased nonsense. doTERRA’s frankincense cured me of breast cancer a few months ago you idiot. A health food stores brand never did that.
Hmmm, joelle leaving a comment with an email address of “noiwontgivemyemail@gmail.com” say that doTERRA’s frankincense cured her breast cancer.
I challenge anyone to get doTERRA itself to officially support this anonymous person’s unfounded, nonsensical claim.
People wonder why so many are against MLM. I submit to you joelle as exhibit A. She’s asking me if I’m “really that stupid?”, really?
Oh, Joelle. I can only assume by your statements that you are either,
a. a delusional lunatic
b. a complete and utter moron
or
c. a despicable, scamming, steaming pant-load
Though I must admit, this statement is quite compelling:
“doTERRA’s frankincense cured me of breast cancer a few months ago you idiot. A health food stores brand never did that.”
So, am I to infer that all of the other times you got breast cancer and used that inferior, jive-ass frankincense from the health food store, it didn’t cure you and you died? I hate when that happens!
You are spectacular, Joelle. Never stop being you.
I don’t know you Chris, but I suspect that I would love hanging out with you.
As a computational geneticist, I can tell you, that modern scientific medicine is leading us to the era of precision medicine, which is actually allowing us to better treat the hundreds of diseases that constitute ‘cancer’. People please be careful of quack remedies and anecdotal (and coincidental) evidence.
Lazy man the name suits you well..one day someone might have to open your eyes for you.
Carol, I’m not sure why you are putting essential oils in your body and implying that they might “work.” Maybe you should have someone open your eyes. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t see DoTerra themselves making such claims about their products.
I’m also not sure why you’d speculate that cheap oil would be dangerous. Do you think Bed, Bath, and Beyond wants to hurt its customers? It’s a much, much bigger business than DoTerra.
If you have “a really sick child”, DO NOT USE ESSENTIAL OILS… SEE A DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY!
Wake up, Carol.
Carol said: “Lazy man the name suits you well..one day someone might have to open your eyes for you.”
The name Carol suits you well — assuming that “Carol” means “idiot” in some foreign language.
I use DoTerra Vitimin pack twice a day and my blood test are great. My numbers have gone down. I am a Cancer Survivor and looked for a natural way for my system. DoTerra did the trick for me. Just saying!
It’s worth noting that vitamins aren’t shown to help with cancer. I don’t think DoTerra itself claims that its product help with cancer.
It doesn’t “do the trick” despite years of MLM salesman falsely claiming that they work for medical conditions.
Cindy said: “I use DoTerra Vitimin pack twice a day and my blood test are great. My numbers have gone down. I am a Cancer Survivor and looked for a natural way for my system. DoTerra did the trick for me. Just saying!”
You’re not saying anything; just vomiting a stream of meaningless words with no substance. What “numbers” and “blood test” are you talking about? This is exactly the kind of idiotically vague and illegal marketing claim that MLMers are notorious for. And what does a “natural way for my system” mean. Again, a stupidly worthless, hollow claim — the kind that parasitic MLM trolls routinely make in their attempts to rob the public. DoTerra products don’t do shit except for make dummies poorer.
I have been using Doterra for 7 months now.. My experience has been outstanding. Since I was a teenager I was on anti depressants. About 5 years ago I was diagnosed with PTSD, depression, bi polar and anxiety. I was seeing a therapist for years and they had me on 7 different medicines. I was not myself EVER. One day while working one of my customers knew that I was going through a bad time in my marriage. She brought me a blended oil and told me to put it on my neck. Well, I’m not really big on people trying to sell things. But I put it on and went on with my day. Did I feel anything than? No.. I put it on for about a week. Still didn’t realize anything until a couple days after not putting it on my husband told me wow last week you were in a great mood most the time. What happened now? I thought to myself, well it wouldn’t hurt just to use the rest that I had in the bottle.. So when it ran out I decided well it wouldn’t hurt just to go to a class and see what it’s about. Still walking in to the class doubting I was really gonna try it out. That day I bought my first kit. I have used my oils everyday since. 2 weeks after me buying the kit, I decided I’m gonna stop all the medicine I’m taking. Call my therapist and they put me on med call just incase.. Well I went to therapy 3 times after I stopped. My last session my therapist said, maybe we should just put you back on you anit depresses just incase. Well I decided that would be my last session because I knew that I felt so much better. Not just about myself but with life. I put lavender on mE 2 times daily. I use other oils depending on the day. Is it the oils that saved my life? To some maybe not. But I believe they have and will use them the rest of my life for sure. And about the pricing. I paid well ovet a 1000 dollars a month on therapy and medicine. So now each month I get super excited when I order my oils. Because after spending a few hundred a month I still have a lot of extra money. So my opinion, DoTerra will always have me as a customer. If it’s some lazy guy pocketing the money, I want to thank him for all he has done to make DoTerrace what it is..
You DoTerra folks amuse me. Lazy Man isn’t saying that their oils don’t work, though I suspect he doubts that they work in the ways that y’all are claiming. He’s just saying you’re overpaying for a product, and, zombie-like, you have nothing to defend DoTerra with but personal testimonials of how paying $300 a month for oils you could get for $60 a month is awesome and how saving yourself money by shopping outside of your cozy MLM scheme is simply unthinkable.
You know what? If you want to waste your money, have at it. I’ve never tried DoTerra, because I was lucky enough to know someone who shared this website with me: http://www.learningabouteos.com/. This site rises money to test the purity of different EOs by a third party, so that a buyer can make an educated decision about how much they’re willing to pay for a quality product. For example, they tested 5 myrrh oils (DoTerra, Young Living, Mountain Rose Herbs, Essential Vitality and Aura Cacia) and all were of the same quality. 15ml of Aura Cacia Myrrh runs about $16. 15ml of Mountain Rose Herbs Myrrh cost $25. The same amount of myrrh from DoTerra would be $58.
Call me crazy, but I’d rather not spend $42 for the same product because I was too lazy to do my research and find the best price for my money. But, I guess that’s just me.
Well thank goodness I work hard for my money and get to choose on what I want to spend it on. I’ve done enough research and experienced it first hand to know that a person like you couldn’t even change my mind. Like you said it’s my money and I decide on what I want to spend…
Hildreth Lengacher,
Yes, everyone gets to choose what to spend their money on. That’s a central freedom and a tenant of this website. I believe everyone should make an informed decision.
I’ve seen time and again that when you take the MLM scheme away from a product, very, very few continue to pay the extreme premium. There are very few people who decide to pay $40 for a bottle of MonaVie juice without the scheme. There weren’t many people willing to pay $5 for a bowl of Yevo oatmeal without the scheme. Vemma’s CEO resorted to begging other MLM companies to buy its products when their scheme was restricted.
If you are in the less than 3% (or whatever it is) who actually wants to pay the premium for the MLM structure, that’s certainly your business. However, I politely ask you to accept that this website is about getting the best value for a dollar, saving money wherever reasonable to invest it to achieve financial freedom faster. Please respect that just like I respect your ability to spend your money however you wish.
Wow, this discussion has become quite heated!
To the DoTerra folks reading, I would simply say one thing – when I’m shelling out my hard-earned money, I don’t simply take a company at their word.
A preferred supplier I buy from gives me far more information about what I am purchasing. I’m not just told “lavender” – I’m told what species it is, its country of origin, its growing condition (organic, grown w/o chems, etc), I am given 2 independent lab reports, one of which is gas chromatography – I can see a break down of the individual chemical constituents of the oil.
Heck, I’m not a chemist. I got a C in high school chemistry. But a willingness to provide a broad amount of information about their product gives me a certain amount of confidence. Because they are confident enough in their product to put it all out there for those more knowledgeable than I to scrutinize.
And their oils are substantially less expensive, even their organic ones.
Spend your money wisely, because you deserve the best product your money can buy. The best product doesn’t always have a slick sales pitch. Please, PLEASE educate yourself. Someone doesn’t become an expert by reading books by only one author.
I’m reading about the health problems some folks here are dealing with, and it breaks my heart, really. Particularly the person replying about their mental health struggles, I’m there with you 100% and still trying to deal with it day by day.
Long story short, I’d simply encourage you to look around and see what else is out there. Buy some samples (many suppliers offer them) and judge for yourself.
And honestly, I really do wish you all the best. Arguments can get heated. Words can be said in haste. But I think the DoTerra detractors here aren’t speaking out of malice. But out of frustration for what we perceive is a company taking advantage of (often vulnerable) people.
(The troll assuming the nom de guerre of…) Hildreth Lengacher said: “Since I was a teenager I was on anti depressants. About 5 years ago I was diagnosed with PTSD, depression, bi polar and anxiety. I was seeing a therapist for years and they had me on 7 different medicines.”
If I believed you, I’d say that I was sorry to hear your story about having a history of major psychiatric disorders. For anyone to be taking 7 psych meds, the underlying disorders would have to be very serious.
(The troll assuming the nom de guerre of…) Hildreth Lengacher said: “She brought me a blended oil and told me to put it on my neck…I thought to myself, well it wouldn’t hurt just to use the rest that I had in the bottle…Well I decided that would be my last session because I knew that I felt so much better…Is it the oils that saved my life? To some maybe not. But I believe they have and will use them the rest of my life for sure.”
Wow! What a laughable crock of shit. I don’t know for sure what motivated you to come here and post that colossal pile of BS. Maybe your psychological disorders are to blame; maybe it’s a side effect of the 7 meds you’re allegedly taking; or most likely, it’s just one more example of a con artist trick being used by a devious scheming MLMer. The “why” isn’t really important. The act itself is unconscionable.
What’s really amazing is that you seem to think people might actually be swayed by your ridiculous horseshit story, even though you haven’t provided an iota of evidence that could support your claim; that it’s inconceivable that a couple of dabs of oil applied to the neck could cure someone of multiple chronic psychiatric disorders; that MLM snakeoil con artists who tell lies like these are a dime a dozen within the snakepit of the MLM world. Shame on you!
I’d challenge you to provide some evidence to support your insultingly stupid fairy tale, but we both know you have none; that your story is BS from front to back; and that you will walk away vowing never to return because you’re offended that people don’t fall hook line and sinker for your moronic sales pitch.
And if my tone offends you, too F-ing bad! You know what could happen if you actually managed to convince someone with chronic depression to ditch their meds in lieu of DoTerra’s BS products? Suicide is a very real possibility. So yeah, your F-ing around so callously with other people’s lives unleashes my righteous wrath.
(The troll assuming the nom de guerre of…) Hildreth Lengacher said: “And about the pricing. I paid well over a 1000 dollars a month on therapy and medicine. So now each month I get super excited when I order my oils. Because after spending a few hundred a month I still have a lot of extra money. So my opinion, DoTerra will always have me as a customer.”
There’s another statement illustrating that you’re full of shit. DoTerra’s oils are scandalously overpriced. No one in their right mind would be OK with that when the retail market has better quality products for a fraction of the price. It’s a typical MLM con artist claim to say essentially “yes, it may be stupidly expensive, but that’s OK with me!”
Real people (versus the disembodied voices of MLM grifters) don’t sound that way – ever. It’s akin to saying “the bag of sand my MLM company sold me costs $1000 a month but compared to my car and my house, that’s such a bargain, so I’ll keep buying that company’s thousand dollar bags of sand every month for the rest of my life”.
And how could you run up well over $1000 a month in copays? That’s a virtually impossible scenario for treatment of the disorders you described.
BTW, nice fake name you chose! According to Google there isn’t a “Hildreth Lengacher” anywhere on the planet. You and DoTerra can go burn in hell. Parasites!
“Burn in hell”? Seriously?
Time for someone to back away from the keyboard…
Sutsop said: “Burn in hell”? Seriously? Time for someone to back away from the keyboard…”
It shouldn’t be hard to understand why the sick Fs who sell bogus medicine to people with diseases merit condemnation; not to mention that bearing false witness and cheating people are mortal sins.
Well, I’m an atheist, so I guess I’ll just have fun burning in hell with all the MLMers.
Have fun spewing vitriol on the interwebs. I’m sure that’s gonna be real successful I’m changing people’s minds.
No more commenting for me, and I’m gonna try unsubscribing from these comments again.
Thank you for your fine blog Lazy Man, but the comments on this one have gotten a little too hateful for my taste.
Sutsop, there’s a lot vitriol on the “interwebs.” If you want to support pyramid schemes and illegal health claims, be prepared for “hateful” comments.
If you want your mind changed, just watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6MwGeOm8iI
As someone who sells d?TERRA, your information is not current. We’re not allowed to even say in our sales pitch that an oil treats any sort of medical ailment, if a client does have a medical ailment and there is an oil that can help with modern medicine, then we simply say “Please consult with your physician before using this essential oil to treat said condition.”
We also give a book called Essential Life to our clients that actually lists with each oil we sell multiple scientific studies (both within d?TERRA and independent of d?TERRA) supporting what the oils can be used for.
You also have to understand, if the FDA approves essential oils, then pharmaceutical companies will have to give up on drugs they’ve made big money from to also incorporate the use of essential oils, because they DO work. For most people, they still need modern medicine, but I know a handful of people who were able to fix their health using essential oils.
D?TERRA is also expensive because the people who farm, harvest, and distill our products are paid reasonably so they can support their families instead of being paid slave wages like most other any sort of company does when they move to other countries to build their products. I would much rather pay a pretty penny for an authentic product that pays it’s hardest workers a reasonable wage than pay a cheap price for a company that doesn’t care for it’s hardest workers. Not only that, d?TERRA has donated thousands of dollars to countries in need, they have helped build medical facilities and schools in third world countries. D?TERRA is pricey, but they give back and they have a decent product. If you don’t want to spend your time trying to make sales, then I suggest to your readers that they stop looking at companies like d?TERRA to earn money. All jobs are a pyramid scheme, all jobs require you to work to build someone else’s dream unless you figure out something that doesn’t require you to work for anyone but yourself.
I think that reporting something that happened in the past is “historical” rather than “outdated.” If you want something more current, a couple of weeks ago, Truth in Advertising found that 97% of MLM supplement companies are making “illegal health claims”. It seems to have gotten so bad with DoTerra that they had to send a letter to their salespeople just last year.
I’d like to see this Essential Life book as it feels to me that it could violate the point of making claims. My understanding, which may or may not be correct, is that you can’t present scientific studies as part of a sales pitch as it is tacitly making that claim. My understanding comes from this FDA warning letter to Nature’s Pearl that states: “When scientific publications are used commercially by the seller of a product to promote the product to consumers, such publications may become evidence of the product’s intended use.”
Now that I covered that part, you completely violate the spirit of the point about making medical claims by saying that they “DO work.” If they “DO work” then I believe DoTerra can get FDA approval through the standard process just like pharmaceutical companies. It’s open and transparent and pharmaceutical companies couldn’t do a thing to block it. I believe it’s just filing the paperwork and conducting the clinical studies. If DoTerra “works” shouldn’t they do this to help everyone? If you can PROVE something to be effective for a medical condition, you do it. It will make you billions. As someone who sells DoTerra, you WANT them to take this step, but DoTerra hasn’t.
Where’s the proof of what DoTerra pays to farmers and distillers? Please provide the sourcing for the products and the price that DoTerra pays to produce the products. I find the numbers on their website.
Competing essential oils are “authentic” too. I don’t see how you distinguish the two.
As far as thousands of dollars donated, I can say that I’ve donated thousands of dollars as well. I challenge DoTerra users to pick a competing product and donate the thousands of dollars you’ll save to worthy charities of your choice.
Corporate America is not a pyramid scheme!
Dear Mr blogger please go to pub med and type in any essential oil and you will find plenty of research of essential oils on a vast number of maladies. There are countless articles in well established scientific journals. I will gladly give you any cited article to refute your ignorance. The FDA is a shill for the big pharmaceutical companies. Why not blog about their collusion. 4th leading cause of death is conveniently written as unintentional death, drug overdoses and accidents, but someone with intelligence can read between the lines. Essential oils have been used for thousands of years for their curative properties. I think we need to go back to our roots…no pun intended..to gain our health and vitality back. Thank you for time.
Dear Mr. J Miller,
Please read this article and understand why searching PubMed isn’t useful unless you are a doctor. There is a lot of junk science produced by supplement companies. It’s not even that hard to get spread purposeful junk science.
In fact, just today, essential oils were covered in this snake oil article from The Outline.
I’m not really concerned about the FDA, because they aren’t presenting a “business opportunity” where more than 99% of people lose money like MLM. They also aren’t charging their customers 10x for a commodity product. This is a personal finance website, so the money angle matters. Thanks.
Your variety pack contains ‘fragrances’ and not all ‘oils’.
Just thought you should know. Lots of lies when people want to make money.
From the advertisement they are “pure essential oils.” Also they give instructions, “to use the oils as a personal fragrance…” which implies that they are not fragrances. I bought them myself and have used them. They appear to be oils by any reasonable definition that I have of the term.
I agree that there are lots of lies when people want to make money. It’s why I write about MLM. It is also probably why the FDA sends warning letters like this one to DoTerra.
That’s rich. “Lots of lies when people want to make money.” Oh, the irony.
Just out of curiosity… if when I eat a particular food I feel sick and when I don’t eat it I don’t feel sick well isn’t that science…that food affects my body in a negative way.
Just like if I use an essential oil and it completely dissolves my 3 large breast cysts (that a doctor told me you can not get rid of other than a needle injected into the breast to drain it) well isn’t that science! Is it necessary for that to be FDA approved. How about 2000 years + ago when there was no FDA and apothecaries only used oils and herbs etc for healing. Are we saying that that is not science.
[Editor’s Response: Sounds like you have a food allergy. Have you had it diagnosed by a doctor? It could be science. For example, patting cats makes me itchy. It doesn’t mean that dog kiss cures my cancer. That’s simply not science. For us to call it science, it usually goes through the scientific method which in this case would include large-scale, placebo-controlled studies.]
I think with many essential oils on the market one has to really investigate and go to the farms and workout the whole process. What are the quality of the seeds being planted…the quality of the soil they are planted in, the distilling equipment…are chemicals used in the distillation process etc.
[Editor’s Response: There are at least two problems with this. First, I don’t think a consumer is going to be an expert about the seeds being planted and I don’t think they are going to have the opportunity to analyze the soil. The exception being if you do it yourself in your own home… and good luck with all that. Second, this is like saying only the dog licks from a rare purebreed dog works. We didn’t validate that dog’s licks worked at all, so why are we jumping to types of dogs?]
There are many labelled 100% pure and even therapeutic grade oils out there that are only required to be 5-25% for pure and 35-65% for therapeutic grade.
[Editor’s Response: You should sue such companies! You could make millions. Let me know how it works for you.]
The price of the oil can also be a big factor in the quality of the oil.
[Editor’s Response: It’s not likely as companies can set whatever price they want. 100% Pure is the highest you can get, and the price is very cheap.]
Many essential oils have been adulterated or have fillers in order to cheapen the product. This then cheapens the medicinal value of the product. Rose oil for example requires approx. 7 truckloads of rose pedals to produce 1 5ml bottle of rose oil. If you can purchase that for anything less than $300 it is guaranteed that oil may have some pure rose in it but it will definitely have fillers as well.
[Editor’s Response: If you are paying $300 for 5ml of rose oil, you deserve to get punched in the face (in my opinion). Remember this website is about getting the most for your money. Why not feed the hungry instead of wasting 7 truckloads of rose… if that’s even true. By the way, I found more than a few 1 ounce (30ml) bottles on Amazon for $30-50.)]
I am with you in saying becareful as YES there are many frauds out there but do your research and always experience both sides of anything before making judgements.
[Editor’s Response: Yes be careful. Here’s some research from a doctor on the topic. Here’s his quick conclusion: “Don’t waste your money or endanger your health—stay away from the multilevel marketing of essential oils.” Sounds like it could be dangerous to “experience” that side, which is why I’m warning people like that good doctor.]
Also in anything you read online be sure to research who is offering the information and what do they have to gain from the information being offered. You will find often that slandering emails regarding oils are coming from individuals selling similar products.
[Editor’s Response: Facts are facts whether they are told by Mother Teresa or Hitler. Sometimes the messenger matters, but if the messenger cites his sources (as I do), then there’s nothing wrong. Also, I don’t recommend essential oils at all. So by your logic, I’m a very reputable source. Thank you. By the same logic, it doesn’t make sense to buy essential oils from any MLM company as it is clear to see what they have to gain by the information they are offering. You wouldn’t take a shady used car salesman’s advice over a doctor’s health advice, would you? So why do that with essential oils?]
Just one more thing. The other day while walking down the street in Sydney, Australia a women was choking and bent over. It appeared she was having a fit of some sort. (we thought a heartattack). My friends and I ran over to assist her and she was having an asthma attack. I offered her a drop of peppermint under her tongue as peppermint assists in opening the passage ways. Within one minute she was perfectly fine. That one drop of oil did the same job her inhaler would have done. The only difference being that the long term effects of the inhalers are quite extreme ranging from hoarseness of the voice, moodiness, behaviour changes, weight gain, hyper inflation of the lung, weakened immune system, cardiac arrhythmias, bronchospasms and even an in increase in asthma-related deaths.
I am sure Inhalers are FDA approved!
Jacqueline,
We have no proof or evidence that your story is true. If so, it seems really irresponsible of you to not call 911 or ask someone to do the equivalent in Australia. What if the person was allergic to peppermint? And you just happen peppermint oil with you on a walk? Yeah, that makes sense.
Your examples of what you think constitutes “science” demonstrate that you clearly don’t have even a rudimentary understanding of what the scientific method is or how it’s applied. By your logic, it’s like me saying, “I had a sinus infection and then ate barbecued ribs everyday for a week, and now my sinuses seem better, therefore, barbecued ribs cured me. BOOM, SCIENCE!” I’m just thinking about all those poor MD and medical researcher suckers, sacrificing and wasting years of their lives earning their doctorate degrees. If only they had consulted you, with all of your great wisdom and scientific expertise, and learned that bullshit anecdotes could be substituted for painstaking, methodical research and analysis. Why, just imagine how much easier their lives could have been.
And, I seriously hope you’re not saying that the way disease was studied and treated 2000 years is comparable to modern scientific research methods and medical protocols? If their methods had been so effective, everyone would’ve already been satisfied with the status quo. There would have been no reason to look any further. But, in reality, disease was rampant, and people’s lives sucked compared to now. You’d have to be a complete idiot to believe that 2000 years ago people were living in an illness free utopia, because herbal teas, incense, and magical salves cured all of their ailments. Some of the things they did actually had legitimate therapeutic benefits, but a lot of it was nothing but superstitious bullshit. Certainly, many modern pharmaceuticals have been derived from plants. Specific components are identified and isolated, refined, modified, improved, and (most importantly) LEGITIMATELY TESTED in controlled studies for safety and efficacy. Good luck treating your leprosy with oil of oregano. Feeling a little tuburculosisy? A few drops of frankincense oil in your diffuser will clear that right up! “Timmy’s not going to be in school for the next couple of days… Yeah, he’s got malaria again, but I’ve already applied a poultice made from some leftover pesto and horseradish to the bottoms of his feet to draw the toxins out, so he should be back on Tuesday.”
As far as your personal anecdotes are concerned, ummm, yeah, I’m gonna file them in a folder labeled, “Shit that never actually happened,” as you appear to be someone who is full of more excrement than a constipated dinosaur. Peppermint oil doesn’t do squat to treat asthma or airway constriction, and essential oils do not shrink breast cysts. To imply this is (depending on you motives) irresponsible at best, and down right evil at worst. Suggesting this kind of dangerous and unsubstantiated garbage to advance an agenda of making a few bucks hawking pyramid scheme snake oil makes one nothing short of a greedy, low life scumbag. People suffer needlessly, and sometimes die, from delaying proven life saving treatments because some asshole convinced them that essential oils would cure them.
For someone to make the kind of statements you’ve made, that person would have to be either a willfully ignorant imbecile, or an unethical, lying, Scammy McScammer-Pants. But, you seem like a real go-getter, Jacqueline, so I think you’ve earned both descriptions.
There seems to be an awful lot of butthurt Doterra fan boys and girls here I totally agree with this article and there is plenty of facts to back up everything that this person has said
I am originally from Peru living in Boston for many years, well educated. For many years, my ancestors the Incas and the American Indians, have used natural products to cure different illnesses. I believe that natural medicine is effective and a low-budget option. The FDA will fight all that goes against big pharma. Also there are big financial interests going against these businesses, see: http://www.healthnutnews.com/recap-on-my-unintended-series-the-holistic-doctor-deaths/
I have never bought essential oils but as an MBA, I believe that the price depends on the quality of the natural product. You will pay cheap for a cheap product.
The FDA doesn’t fight anything that goes against Big Pharma. If it did, it would simply require supplements prove that their products are what they actually say they are. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/herbal-supplements-are-often-not-what-they-seem.html. In addition the FDA requires proof that medicine is effective, which doesn’t apply to supplements.
For more damning evidence of alternative medicine follow the money:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/12/29/do-alternative-medicine-cancer-treatments-work-the-truth-is-in-their-price-tag/#c91551d70c5a
100% pure is 100% pure… quality is the same at the cheaper price. If I sell 87 octane gas at $10 a gallon, it doesn’t make it better or worth the price.
Christian, give me a break with that link you provided. ‘Erin the Health Nut’ is a personality disordered, conspiracy theorist wack-job. That’s a fake news site, run by a complete loon and all-around despicable human being.
As an MBA, you should really have a better understanding of marketing. Automatically assuming that everything that is more expensive is, by definition, made from higher quality materials, is pretty naive. I would expect someone with a graduate degree in business to be a little more savvy than that. But then again, you cited a bunch of nonsense from a tin-foil hat wearing wing-nut, sooooo…..
Big pharmaceutical charge 10,000 x and when you inquire you’re told R&D whatever.
Lazy man you are completely one sided because it has mlm in the name.
People like you hate it when others are successful in life.
That store front you go to buy cheap how much slave labor is involved?
Go to a pon shop in almost all cases you’re buying stolen good.
Go to wall mart and you’re supporting un ethical labor practices. You know to get those prices you had to buy from a depressed economy.
Dude you have a money creation problem and are trying to save the world the way of big government and more regulations.
Go make some money ya big whiner. I might join doterra just tick you off.
I own 2016 camry guess what I paid more than msrp because don’t you think that the sales man deserve to get paid? I do. I don’t think that people should get stuff for free. I bet he made 2k off of me and good for him.
Stop wasting time trying to save money and go out and get some. Did you that there is enough money in the world for every man woman and child to have over 6 billion dollars and that is a conservative number.
Lazy man yep thats what you are a lazy lazy man puking your ideology all over the world wide web.
Dear “Happy new year”,
I love when people are successful, which is why I help them succeed. Have you read my site? It’s all about helping people be successful. I wrote the article on how to be successful years and years ago and it has nothing to do with MLM.
I have no problem with labor or people selling products legitimately. I have a problem with pyramid schemes and snake oil salesmen ripping people off. I don’t think you can say that Wal-Mart is either… and they charge an extremely fair price for their products.
I’ve got enough money, I don’t need to be greedy… I’d rather help people with theirs. And no there’s not close to enough money for the 7.4 billion people on the earth to all be billionaires 6 times over. Maybe that’s you think the store is called, “wall mart.”
(Ironically Named) Happy said: “Big pharmaceutical charge 10,000 x and when you inquire you’re told R&D whatever.”
BS! You never made any such inquiry and no “big pharmaceutical” company ever told you “R&D and whatever”. Don’t come here and tell us fiction. Regardless, R&D is a legitimate expense. Would you prefer that Pharma defer these expenses by simply pulling new untested products out of their arses like the MLM charlatans do?
(Not Very) Happy said: “Lazy man you are completely one sided because it has mlm in the name.”
He’s not one-sided at all. If there is something in particular that you believe was omitted and should be included, why don’t you just say what it is instead of grousing?
(Un-)Happy said: “People like you hate it when others are successful in life.”
ROFL! Ridiculous MLM cult BS! Ninety-nine percent of MLM distributors are utter failures – you’re no doubt one of them. Rest assured, no one envies them or you.
(Delusional) Happy said: “That store front you go to buy cheap how much slave labor is involved?”
Um, none. In which third-world slave nation do you shop? Here in the U.S., all the employees get paid at least minimum wage, which is more than can be said for the MLM industry, where almost all distributors lose money.
Happy (the English scholar) said: “Go to a pon shop in almost all cases you’re buying stolen good. Go to wall mart and you’re supporting un ethical labor practices. You know to get those prices you had to buy from a depressed economy.”
What’s a “pon shop” and why would I want to go there? What are “stolen good”? What’s your damn point? I’ve never heard of “wall mart”. Did you mean Wal-Mart? I don’t shop at Wal-Mart, so your point is moot. Why on earth are you picking all these random things to rail about?
Happy (The Angry Clown) said: “Go make some money ya big whiner. I might join doterra just tick you off.”
Ha! Yes, please, dick, go join DoTerra just to piss us off. After that, burn all your cash with a blowtorch, just to piss us off. It would also piss me off royally if you were to hit yourself repeatedly in the head with a 2-by-4. Grrrr!
(Slap) Happy said: “I own 2016 camry guess what I paid more than msrp because don’t you think that the sales man deserve to get paid? I do. I don’t think that people should get stuff for free. I bet he made 2k off of me and good for him.
Ha! You paid more than MSRP because that was the price being charged by the dealer — i.e., you had no choice — it had nothing to do with largess or your ideology of not getting things for free.
The markup on cars is razor thin. The markups on MLM products are astronomical – a necessity to sustain the pyramid scheme. The comparison is asinine. People shouldn’t work for free, but that’s what the vast majority of MLM distributors end up doing. DoTerra is trying to get something for free – human labor.
Happy (the misanthrope) said: “Lazy man yep thats what you are a lazy lazy man puking your ideology all over the world wide web.
Nope, but you’re a bitter, painfully dumb, sociopathic a-hole – a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and everything that’s wrong with BS MLMs like Dolt-Error.
Happy, it’s evident from your reply that you are not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to dealing with money. I’m not going to fault you for your misspellings, grammar errors, etc., but when you say things like, “I own 2016 camry guess what I paid more than msrp because don’t you think that the sales man deserve to get paid? I do. I don’t think that people should get stuff for free. I bet he made 2k off of me and good for him,” it’s evident that you don’t know much about getting your dollar’s worth.
If you’d bought a 2015 Camry with less than 10K miles from a reputable dealer like Carmax, you would have paid about $6K less for the same car you bought. It would drive the same, look the same, and still be under warranty. The company that sold you the car would still have made a decent profit; the salesman would still get paid. The only difference would be that you would have $6K to invest in something else.
I don’t believe in cheating others, but I also don’t believe in allowing them to cheat me. I guess that’s why, though I use essential oils at times, I would never pay the exorbitant amounts that Doterra charges. Why? Because I’m not stupid.
Did I just read that correctly, Happy new year? Did you seriously just BRAG about paying above MSRP for a car. Holy crap! You spouted a whole lot of stupid throughout your entire post, but that statement deserves a prize. Being a sucker is NOT a virtue, and if you actually knew someone who worked at a dealership, and knew how they described fools like you, I doubt you would feel so generous. It’s not like tipping your waiter or hairdresser for good service. It’s more like having a shark bite off your arm and then saying, “Awwww, you’re still lookin’ a little hungry. Go ahead, have a bite of my foot while your at it.” That doesn’t make you a good guy. It makes you a putz. I’m really curious to know if you have any polyps within view right now, because it would seem as if you have inserted that numb skull of yours quite an impressive distance up inside your colon.
Furthermore, if you do decide to join DoTerra, just to spite LM, please keep us all posted. I, for one, would love to know when you finally start rolling in all that sweet, sweet mlm coin. You see, I have this 1998 Pontiac Grand Am, and seeing as how you enjoy paying so generously for vehicles, I’m thinking that you would welcome the opportunity to buy it from me for the reasonable price of $34,999.
doTERRA is not a scam and one day you and others like you will realize that. Do you honestly think the likes of John Hopkins hospital, Vanderbilt Hospital, University of Utah Hospital and Huntsman Cancer Hospital would be doing research that will be published in the near future if it were a scam? Oh and plus in 8 short years they have become the biggest essential oil company in the world! I suggest you do some research about doTERRA, their oils, their sourcing, not to mention their ethics. I’m wondering if you have been paid by one of the other highly jealous essential oil companies out there to discredit doTERRA by writing this uneducated rubbish?
MonaVie and Vemma distributors said it wasn’t a scam either and that we’d realize it one day. Turns out they realized it the hard way. Please show me details from those hospitals (NOT doTERRA’s marketing) that they are researching doTERRA’s brand of products? I have not read any such thing.
MonaVie claimed to be the fastest company to a billion in sales before their pyramid collapsed. I doubt that doTERRA sells more essential oils than all other companies.
I think I covered doTERRA’s ethics in the article quite well, but you are free to have a different opinion. Also Truth in Advertising covered it.
I explained clearly why I wrote the article at the beginning of the article. I was not offered nor did I receive any compensation for writing the article. If you feel it is uneducated, please explain what specifically is uneducated about it. I’m very proud of the research that I put into the article and many, many readers have agreed with me on it.
Lmao. It’s uncanny how the only people who seem to use the term “do your research, ” and suggest that others are “uneducated,” are those who have never worked in any kind of field of research (and have absolutely zero understanding of how actual research studies are conducted) and are the ones who usually have little more than a high school/trade school education. Am I getting warm, Lesley-Ann ?
Your list of hospitals doing supposed research is a joke. You must be high if you believe the bs the DoTerra Kool-Aid dispensers tell you. I found mention of a microbiologist at Johns Hopkins studying the anti-microbial properties of essential oils. That’s nothing new. By the way, a lot of things kill microbes in vitro. That doesn’t automatically translate to curing disease in the human body. If you fired a 9mm at a petri dish, I’m sure you could kill a few microorganisms. That’s hardly a rock-solid case for bullet therapy. The other hospitals you mentioned were experimenting with using aromatherapy. Using essential oil diffusers to cover up the hospital smell, to please employees and/or patients. A lot of people found the smell pleasing. Wow! That’s some amazing scientific research right there! Lol, the same results could probably be achieved by piping in the aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. THAT DOESN’T MEAN THEY F*^%ING CURE CANCER, YOU IDIOT!
Pointing out DoTerra’s growth indicates nothing more than that there are a lot of gullible schmucks who are willing to sign up as distributors and buy their overpriced crap (and of course, recruit, recruit, recruit!) So, I will agree, it’s a very lucrative scam for the owners of the company, indeed. It’s hilarious that you mention the company’s ethics. It’s a pyramid scheme that sells useless snake oil at rip-off prices! They survive by exploiting people who are often lacking in education and/or marketable skills, who are struggling financially, and don’t have good employment prospects. They brainwash them into thinking they’re going to achieve great financial success, when in fact, 99% of these distributors are destined to fail (and piss-off/alienate a lot of family members and friends in the process). They have gullible people believing dangerous nonsense, such as that their crap-oil-a cures everything from cancer to diabetes to asthma, and everything else in between. They truly are about as UNETHICAL and sleazy as you can get.
For the record, accusing someone of being a paid shill, because they criticize the company, is about as desperate and pathetic as it gets. It’s straight out of the MLM handbook, and a tell-tale sign of a know-nothing, brainwashed conspiracy theorist. You might want to consider not saying things like that, because it makes you sound like a complete dolt.
Lesley-Ann, I wonder if you’re an indisclosed DoTerra ‘wellness advocate’ or whatever the hell they call their sales flunkies. And a note to DoTerra: manage your sales people better – it defeats its dishonest purpose when so many people refute the very reasonable claims in this article ie. it’s over-the-top obvious these comments are from people who flog DoTerra guff, without the honesty of owning up to their relationship with this scammy company. See my post below though, the thing is about to collapse given the bad press it’s getting, and the saturation of the market. Just like every other MLM scheme out there (Amway notwithstanding, although they’re a shadow of their former selves). Yeah, I know, I’m a DreamStealer (doesn’t the fact DoTerra need to create this concept tell you there’s something suspicious going on? – I guess not if you’re gullible, which is the #1 trait required of an MLM sales flunky). Disclosure: I have nothing to do with DoTerra, think essential oils are nice but not medicine, and believe you can get much better deals on essential oils without forced-purchasing of $100/month by DoTerra. By the way, that was a genius stroke on their part – make your sales people buy tons of your product each month: that way you’re guaranteed to get revenue off even the most hopeless sales people. Smart move to whoever owns the thing!
there are plenty of cures for cancer, but the government wouldn’t tell you that because cancer research is worth billions every year. believe it or not, even 9/11 was fake. watch the videos captured. those planes didn’t hit the building, and the explosions resulting were exactly the same as a directive explosive. this article is very accurate. I am not saying that these oils don’t do something at all, but people need to use their heads about things, and actual do the research and experiments. people are so quick to make opinions and get defensive about products because they either hope or want to believe they actually do everything they say. but i get it, its a good sense of security.
Dalton, why don’t you give us one of those cures for cancer? If 9/11 was fake, where are the Twin Towers? Have you been to NYC to investigate the area yourself?
(Sadly, these are the people who comment on my MLM articles.)
LazyMan I think (or rather I hope) that Dalton is being sarcastic. I know irony is not an American trait, but surely people can’t be this stupid? Oh wait: look who just got inaugurated!
Great article LazyMan! Given DoTerra is a few years old now, I expect it collapse like the majority of MLM schemes in the near future. The market is nigh on saturated, and once the word gets out (ie. DoTerra becomes known by the average idiot in the street), the game is all but over. The owners have made a killing, and thousands of people are left with overpriced products they never really needed in the first place. These MLM’s are all the same: vague statements about benefits that just skirt the law, a propensity to get your cash and make it hard to leave, and cult-like aspects. DoTerra has a thing called ‘DreamStealers’ (probably TMd too). This is there way of closing down any objective criticism of their product, and is a key part of any successful (for the ‘upline’/owners) MLM scheme. I’d laugh about it all as the only victims are those stupid enough to fall for DoTerra’s claims, but there is still damage: damage to relationships where the MLM person invades/abuses friendships to get sales. This is the final cost of being part of an MLM that will be remembered, and a source of shame for all those MLM victims in a year or two’s time. Re essential oils: they smell nice, they might even make you feel slightly better, but they don’t cure anything. To claim otherwise is bullshit. Thanks for exposing a bit more about DoTerra – they must hate you though, as you’re at the top of google when searcing for ‘DoTerra’ and ‘Scam’!!!
Lastly, I just had a thought. It really reflects poorly on Mormonism given the links betwee DoTerra, Utah and this religion. A multi-level marketing scheme is the antithesis of the Christian message, particularly the bit about abusing your relationship with your friends/family to make sales. A very ugly attribute of these schemes. Before anyone signs up to flog DoTerra oils, ask yourself: do you really want to be that person that your friends avoid because you pressure them to buy? You’d flip if you heard how your ‘friends’ talk about you. In 5 years time, you’ll realise it really wasn’t worth it, although statistics show you’re hardly likely to make any money out these schemes anyway.
I like this article. I use essential oils in my lotions that I make, simply because it is cheaper and essential oils smell really good. I hate the smell of synthetic most of the time. The sales MLM people are defending the company saying that the products are thoroughly tested but I have personally seen other companies like Plant Therapy and many more, who do the same testing MLM companies do. They use the same test companies as well and some even list the testing on their websites.
I know in some peoples opinion one company is better than the other because of quality but the point is, that quality can be the same with proof and at the same time be more reasonably priced. Seeing the comments here, I really feel like majority have missed the point of this article.
What I got from this article is why spend more on a pyramid or MLM when you can get the same thing elsewhere for cheaper? I do not think it was saying a company is better than the other (maybe less trustworthy) but that we need to look at what is reasonable more than looking at what is smoke and mirrors to sham the consumer into spending more money.
Lol, I can’t believe people fall for Doterra’s MLM schemes. If you look at most people entrenched within the Doterra pyramid you will notice one common variable. These people deep down lack critical analysis at a basic level. It’s astounding how prevalent this scheme has become lately.
Doterra… more link Donterra! amirite?! lol
I hope my comments and questions haven’t already been asked but I didn’t read all the replies since few were using evidence-based arguments against your article. Briefly some background as to why I’m replying and, what my motive here is. Recently my girlfriend began using Doterra oils to help with back pain from a car accident. She had been getting injections for pain management which was taking its own toll so she tried a specific combination of DoTerras essential oils and has become a believer. I being much more skeptical decided to look into the research on essential oils.
Before going into my first comment let me briefly outline my background and qualifications. I have a PhD in experimental psychology and am both a researcher and professor. My expertise lies in research design, statistical analysis and interpretation. Thus, I am well qualified to judge the quality of research regardless of discipline.
Within your article you quote and provide a link to an article titled “The quality of essential oils” by Jade Shutes. You state that this is a research article when it is not. I first looked into the authors educational background and she is not a trained researcher. Second, this is not research, it lacks all of the necessary components required to be a research article: 1) A brief introduction describing the problem, 2) a methods section that outlines the experimental design, how the data was collected, and the statistical analyses applied. 3) A results section reporting the statistical results and 4). A conclusion section. Without those sections it is not research. Thus, calling it a research article is very misleading. If in “research article” you meant she went to the library or searched for readily available information online then that should be clearly stated or it brings into question the objectiveness of your article.
[Editor’s Response: A “research article” is an article has research. She cites her resource sources and you can’t deny it is an article. I wrote “research articles” on George Orwell’s 1984 in the 9th grade. This is not to be confused with a scientific study, which seems to be what you jumped to based on your background. It is misleading because I simply stated what it is in the most accurate terms I could and you misleadingly assumed it was something that I didn’t not state… and tried to shift the burden to me.]
Furthermore, Jade Shutes’s article focuses almost solely on the Business and Marketing practices DoTerra uses (which I have no interest in) and in no way provides any evidence against DoTerra’s claim of the “supposed” physical health benefits of essential oils. DoTerra’s business practices are not the important issue. The primary concern here, in my opinion, is whether or not the claims DoTerra is making have any scientific evidence supporting them. Additionally, I could not find the name of the Journal in which the article was published nor a publication date. This leads to me believe the journal is not recognized by the scientific community as a peer-reviewed research journal. If it is I would appreciate it if you could provide me with the name of the journal, the volume, and the publication date?
[Editor’s Response: While you may have no interest in DoTerra’s Business and Marketing practices, it is an important issue for the purposes of this article. You shouldn’t reject the article based on it not being published in a scientific journal. I don’t think that was ever the intended purpose, just like my paper on Orwell’s 1984 in the 9th grade. Instead, consider it a source that supports some of the opinions I made in the article. I notice that you don’t seem to have any issue with the research itself. You fail to bring up any errors in it.
Another issue I had is the big deal you make of DoTerra lacking FDA approval. Who cares if the company has FDA approval? The company is not the essential oil. It’s a brand. Regardless, this also is not evidence of any kind against the physical health benefits of essential oils claimed by DoTerra. Yet, you criticize the article from pick your brain” for not providing any evidence supporting the claim. In fact, scientifically it is more important to falsify a claim, which you failed to do, rather than confirm a claim which DoTerra failed to do.
[Editor’s Response: This is the problem with you ignoring the Business and Marketing practices. It has been well established by non-profit, independent organizations like Truth In Advertising “that there is a systemic problem within the MLM industry when it comes to health claims. Thousands of distributors are marketing MLM products to treat or cure diseases, with many relying on wildly inappropriate health testimonials to market their wares and the business opportunity. But federal laws and the DSA Code of Ethics require that such claims be supported by appropriate scientific backup and approval.”
That claim is substantiated by the thousands of documented claims they’ve provided in MLM health claims databases.
Scientifically, if I told you that someone has a juggling, blue unicorn in their garage, you wouldn’t accept the claim as true. I couldn’t put the burden on you falsify that claim by checking every garage in the world for proof. Any health claims of DoTerra’s products and be proven to work if they use the scientific process we already have in place. The FDA approval process would be helpful with that.
Lastly you direct your readers to the warning letter DoTerra received from the FDA which is simply warning the company that the way they are promoting certain essential oils causes them fall under the definition of a “drug” which would place them under the the FDA’s jurisdiction. This also is not evidence against the real issue. Again there is a lack of objectivity here as you did not provide a link to the FDA’s extensive list of approved essential oils found under the code of federal regulations title 21, part 182 – Substances generally supported as safe, sub-part A – general provisions,Sec. 182.20 Essential oils, oleoresins (solvent-free), and natural extractives (including distillates). I provide it here for you.
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=182.20
[Editor’s Response: The FDA’s warning letter is important. Consumers should be aware that disease claims being made may not be true. This is a simply consumer protection issue that this website is focused on. It isn’t clear to why any unbiased medical professional would push under the rug.
The FDA citation seems to be only for “Generally Recognized as Safe” or GRAS. When I refer to FDA approved, I am saying, “FDA approved for being safe and EFFECTIVE for the health conditions that are being claimed”. Toast is generally regarded as safe as well. Let’s not pretend it is effective in aiding a medical condition, fair?
You might have learned this if you read the well-cited research article by Jade Shutes that you dismissed. I think it was very misleading of you to leave out the important factor, EFFECTIVENESS in your link.
To conclude your article provides no evidence falsifying the physical health claims of DoTerra essential oils. Yet these is scientific evidence supporting health benefits. Take lemon grass for instance. The three articles I have attached here come from scientific peer-reviewed journal articles. Each of these articles describe valid experiments in which the essential oil lemon grass undeniably showed physical health benefits. 1) it significantly reduced the influenza virus by up to 90% without harm to MDK cells. 2) had very good anti-microbial properties against Escherichia coli (E-coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (staph infection). 3. Lemongrass reduced incidence of hyperplastic lesions (breast cancer) and increased apoptosis (cell suicide) of the cells.
These are 3 research articles coming from scientifically accepted peer-reviewed research journals reporting clear undeniable evidence using scientific experimentation that lemon grass essential oil has some extremely beneficial effects on health.
[Editor’s Response: I see no links to the articles. The first one (influeza virus) was an in vitro (in a test tube) study. You can’t be serious about it being “clear undeniable evidence” of having “extremely beneficial effects on health.” You couldn’t be more misleading if you tried. I couldn’t find the second one, but from the title it seems like you could use it to clean your kitchen counters as an anti-microbial agent. Fortunately, we have plenty of cheap anti-microbial agents, so there wouldn’t be need a here. The third one was for animals that were introduced to a certain kind of very specific carcinogen, which is only “extremely beneficial” if you happened to be those animals with that carcinogen. If they made it a large scale human trial and showed real cancer reduction rates, THAT would be notable.
I suggest you read this NY Times article for more information about studies. A well-published, well-cited article explains Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. So you have to be careful to have a lot of research showing and replicating the same things. You didn’t present anything close to a meta-analysis here.]
My question is, is it DoTerra the company you are against or their claims about essential oil? Because I have just provided you with three examples supporting DoTerra’s claim. Any article investigating DoTerra’s essential oils should focus on the oils and not the company. And these articles should provide real scientific evidence supporting or falsifying the purported benefits of essential oils.
[Editor’s Response: To answer your first question above, I don’t see why it has to be one or ther other. It could be both, right? Which specific one of “DoTerra’s claims” did you really provide examples of? I didn’t see the articles focus on DoTerra’s oils, but admittedly I didn’t read in depth. If you had read the introduction to the article I had written above, you’d know that I own essential oils. I’m against people paying 10x more than they have to, that’s for certain. I realize that is a business and marketing thing that you don’t care about, but I do.
You are going to have to try a little harder than 3 articles in published journals. Try to put enough together convince the FDA the research is sound and effective against a medical condition and you’ll convince me for that medical condition. That’s fair, right?]
Dr. William Battinch: “I have a PhD in experimental psychology and am both a researcher and professor. My expertise lies in research design, statistical analysis and interpretation. Thus, I am well qualified to judge the quality of research regardless of discipline.”
Really? And you can’t even spell your own freakin’ name??? Your forgot an “I” perfessur!
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1316178
Arguments from authority carry no weight here; even when they’re not as dubious as yours. The comments below prove that your judgement is sorely lacking.
William said: “Furthermore, Jade Shutes’s article focuses almost solely on the Business and Marketing practices DoTerra uses (which I have no interest in) and in no way provides any evidence against DoTerra’s claim of the “supposed” physical health benefits of essential oils. DoTerra’s business practices are not the important issue. The primary concern here, in my opinion, is whether or not the claims DoTerra is making have any scientific evidence supporting them.”
This is a consumer finance website, and as such, the company’s business and marketing practices are a paramount concern. Oddly, that seems to annoy you. Furthermore, the issue of scientific support for product claims is an aspect of the company’s marketing practices. Your comment really makes no sense.
William said: “Another issue I had is the big deal you make of DoTerra lacking FDA approval. Who cares if the company has FDA approval? The company is not the essential oil. It’s a brand.”
That comment doesn’t make sense either. It’s not companies that are FDA approved; it’s their products. The reason to care about FDA approval is a basic matter of U.S. law. If a company wants to market a product as a therapeutic agent, they have to go through the necessary legal hurdles with respect to evidence generation (i.e., high-quality phase 3 clinical trials).
William said: “Regardless, this also is not evidence of any kind against the physical health benefits of essential oils claimed by DoTerra. Yet, you criticize the article from pick your brain” for not providing any evidence supporting the claim. In fact, scientifically it is more important to falsify a claim, which you failed to do, rather than confirm a claim which DoTerra failed to do.”
That’s three nonsensical comments in a row. First, no one has even remotely implied that the lack of FDA approval is evidence of inefficacy – that’s a straw man. Second, the burden of evidence is always to prove an effect; not to prove that it doesn’t exist. That’s so fundamental I can’t imagine how you could not know it.
William said: “Lastly you direct your readers to the warning letter DoTerra received from the FDA which is simply warning the company that the way they are promoting certain essential oils causes them fall under the definition of a “drug” which would place them under the the FDA’s jurisdiction. This also is not evidence against the real issue.”
It’s simply being offered up as evidence that the products were being illegally marketed. That’s cause for concern; a red flag in fact. What about it do you not understand? Your obtuse comments beg the question as to whether you’re poorly educated or being dishonest on purpose.
William said: “Again there is a lack of objectivity here as you did not provide a link to the FDA’s extensive list of approved essential oils found under the code of federal regulations title 21, part 182 – Substances generally supported as safe, sub-part A – general provisions,Sec. 182.20 Essential oils, oleoresins (solvent-free), and natural extractives (including distillates). I provide it here for you.”
At this point, it’s clear you have no business impugning anyone’s objectivity. The CFR entry you refer to has nothing whatsoever to do with therapeutic claims. It is simply of a list of various oils that are “generally recognized as safe”. To suggest otherwise is painfully dishonest. You went on at length about how you were only interested in scientific evidence for efficacy, and this lame canard is what you bring to the table? Shame!
William said: “The three articles I have attached here come from scientific peer-reviewed journal articles… essential oil lemon … significantly reduced the influenza virus by up to 90% without harm to MDK cells. 2) had very good anti-microbial properties against Escherichia coli (E-coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (staph infection). 3. Lemongrass reduced incidence of hyperplastic lesions (breast cancer) and increased apoptosis (cell suicide) of the cells. These are 3 research articles coming from scientifically accepted peer-reviewed research journals reporting clear undeniable evidence using scientific experimentation that lemon grass essential oil has some extremely beneficial effects on health.”
Except you didn’t provide the articles you said you attached, and more importantly, even in the best case scenario, this evidence would not be sufficient to support marketing the products as therapeutic agents.
William said: “My question is, is it DoTerra the company you are against or their claims about essential oil? Because I have just provided you with three examples supporting DoTerra’s claim. Any article investigating DoTerra’s essential oils should focus on the oils and not the company. And these articles should provide real scientific evidence supporting or falsifying the purported benefits of essential oils.”
The company clearly sucks, so yeah, I’d vote strongly against. As for claims about EOs, I don’t really give a damn what anyone says or thinks about them as long as the companies and people selling them are in compliance with U.S. law.
I think it’s glaringly obvious that this “professor” is hijacking the name of someone they perceive as educated, though not in any field that would be meaningful to this discussion, to pretend that they can argue against someone they perceive as the enemy. I’m guessing it’s a DoTerra rep who doesn’t realize yet that that he or she is actually losing money. I find it interesting that he or she is pretending to be a psychologist, of all things. While psychology is useful for understanding the human condition, it’s a psuedo-science at best.
Anyway, she is pretending to be a scientist and trying to cast aspersions on Lazy Man’s critique of DoTerra. I hate to tell her, but she doesn’t at all refute the point of the article, which I think is, “even if (as I believe) essential oils are bunk, don’t pay too much for them from an MLM company. You can get a quality essential oil for much less than DoTerra charges.” It’s hard to argue with that, because it’s an easily proven fact.
As an essential oil user myself, I can say almost all of the claims about them are wildly exaggerated. They have their uses, mostly because they can make your hombrew face cream smell nice, but they’re not going to (as I have heard DoTerra reps claim) cure you from the flu. The flu is a virus. The only thing that is going to cure you when you have a virus is your own immune system. You can use them to help alleviate symptoms when you’re ill, but the only thing that’s going to cure you is your immune system. And if your immune system needs help, go to a doctor.
Focusing on Marketing and Sales, everyone knows that there are different prices for any product.
[Editor’s Response: Wait, not all products are priced the same? /sarcasm]
The price depends on the quality.
[Editor’s Response: I’ll sell you a great quality paper clip for $1000. Contact me and we’ll work out something via Paypal. Also as I wrote about recently the addition of a “get rich scheme” paired with a product can change the price of the product: Prostitution, Pot, and Pyramid Schemes. This is something the FTC Chairwoman noted in a speech to MLMs.
So that’s kind of the point, in MLM the price is not dependent on quality of product, but often more related to the “get rich scheme” that usually requires people to buy the product without regard to price.]
If Doterra is the highest price must be because their products are organic, natural and made in the best of the best locations such as Nepal, Haiti, Peru and others, and probably they pay fair prices to the producers.
[Editor’s Response: I’m not sure that all DoTerra’s products carry the USDA organic certification. Can you confirm that? I’m not sure those locations are better than any others, but I have no definitive proof of where any company’s oils come from. I also don’t have proof of what they are paying for the producers.
If they are truly the best quality and pay these premiums, can’t we agree that they’d want to distance themselves from MLM/pyramids schemes?]
If you want to buy cheap, go ahead, you may be consuming chemicals made in the lab, no natutal.
[Editor’s Response: If you want to pay 10x more, you should have proof that one company has harmful chemicals and the other does not. I don’t see any proof and you don’t even seem to attempt to offer any other than the products cost more money.]
People buy Mercedez, Apple, Coach for a reason. I love my Doterra Serenity by the way, makes me sleep like a baby.
[Editor’s Response: There’s a noticeable objective difference between a Mercedez and a Ford Pinto. There’s a notable difference between an iPhone and BLU R1 HD. Many people buy Coach for fashion/appearances, not because it is the most efficient carrying device.
I think you need to look into what a commodity is. No one would pay $8 a gallon for Shell gas if they charged that tomorrow. Aldi and Bed, Bath, and Beyond are selling essential oils at normal prices. The marketplace is set. I believe it is time for DoTerra to meet it.]
Things that cost a great deal of money in producing a quality oil, include non-use of GMO’s… outsourcing to a plant’s natural habitat (such as Frankincense from Somalia) for their full range of benefits (instead of a greenhouse tree here in the US). If the natural minerals aren’t there, it is not a quality product. Hashing an oil with synthetics, or plants within a similar genus and/or carrier oil is what most of the low-cost companies produce (nothing you want entering your blood stream). Also, the distillation process at doTerra is 100% legitimate. Only heat induced distillation for leaves and barks and cold pressed distillation of citrus peels are performed…rather than chemical extraction, which is how your conglomerate retailers manage to sell theirs so cheap.
[Editor’s Note: It seems like you are once again trying to claim a higher-quality product here. That’s been shot down time and time again. Your undocumented claims simply amount to FUD – Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Please come back with definitive 3rd party proof of objective, measurable benefits that separate particular brands. As I stated in my article, the NOW brand that I have is great.]
With regards to essential oils not having medicinal properties…where exactly do you think the majority of the compound in your everyday meds comes from…plastic? They come from minerals and plant-based form. Of course essential oils have the ability to make us feel better…Also, please remember that in aromatherapy..the diffuser emits the molecules of the oil into the air to be received and absorbed into your nasal passages, which still, in turn, enters your blood stream. What you don’t know…can inadvertently do you harm. I personally wouldn’t want Round-Up in my diet in ay way shape or form.
[Editor’s Note: If essential oils are medicine, what conditions does the FDA say they are approved for? Are you really concerned about the very minimal amount of molecules from essential oils that are added to the air. It’s would be like me throwing a rotten apple in the ocean and claiming that the majority of water in the world had just been ruined.
Finally, the pricing/quality comparisons with MLMs have been mentioned long ago with articles like:
http://www.mlmmyth.org/the-mlm-gas-station-and-8-gallon-gas/
http://www.mlmmyth.org/the-100-pen-pyramid-scheme/
http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/prostitution-pot-pyramid-schemes/%5D
Also…considering they save millions of dollars every year in actual marketing by being ingenious enough to have their “pyramid” protocol…they are delivering an incredible and well-acclaimed product at a price that is more than reasonable. I know several people that have in fact been able to discontinue the use of their regular medications, with regular and appropriate oils use (it is never suggested..and clients are always warned to discuss any medication changes with their physician for monitoring).
[Editor’s Note: Again, pyramids don’t save people money. They cost people a lot of money. I left a few examples in your previous article.
As the FDA made clear in warning letters, oils should not be marketed as a substitute for medications. You should cease and desist from ever suggesting that again unless you want to get DoTerra in more trouble with the FDA.]
The reason the pyramid works so well for doTerra is because once someone tries the oils….they want everyone to share in the benefits. So why not market their product in the cheapest and fastest way possible. Would you prefer television, radio, and benches all over the place having doTerra plastered across them? It doesn’t make sense to hate a pyramid plan, just because people work under one another and benefit as a group. It focuses attention on team building and success as a unit. Everyone makes it if they work at it…and they can get help from any and all angles.
[Editor’s Note: The benefits of good smells that you can get from all essential oils? What specific benefits are you claiming here? Perhaps you should read up the FTC’s actions against Vemma and Herbalife, which are similar structured MLMs. I don’t hate pyramid plans for the reason that you state. Pyramid plans don’t build teams and they don’t work as a unit. Teams don’t have levels and compensate people disproportionately to recruitment. However, those are common in pyramid schemes.
The truth is that in pyramid plans, you are recruiting your own competition. There’s only so much room for people dumb enough to pay 10x for product. Thus the real product often becomes the business opportunity of getting in and making a lot of money. It’s hard to conceive of companies operating this way as anything other than a pyramid scheme. I love word of mouth though, so why not just give everyone a straight 20% commission? If people really love a product and really want to promote it they will and there’s no incentive for recruiting people into a pyramid scheme. PROBLEM SOLVED]
Also, the gentleman that pointed out your lack of true research made valid points. Anyone can find any article with trumped up information. With regards to the FDA…any supplement taken orally, such as their citrus extracts, must meet certain FDA guidelines to be marketed as a supplement-not the oil, but the oil as an oral supplement. Therefore those products ingested orally must meet those standards….or they would be shut down as a company. Nutritional labels and lab testing had to take place prior to the oils being approved for oral ingestion.
[Editor’s Note: When I say approved by the FDA, I mean approved as an aid in a medical condition. Toast is approved to ingested, but it isn’t medicine.]
Updated your comments with some responses, Nancy.
[Editor’s note: This isn’t the place to promote specific companies. The examples are moderated. I presume readers can find these great prices. If not, I suggest Amazon.]
Hi Nancy. I suggest you look at [X] if oils are your interest. (I’m not affiliated with them). I’ll use Frankincense as an example like you. I just hate seeing people getting ripped off.
[X] Frankincense 30ml $63.10 ($31.55/15ml)
DoTerra $186 ($93/15ml)
[Editor’s Note: This pure Frankincense on Amazon is $16.75 for 30mls ($8.37/15 mls)]
Yep, you read that right! Also, DoTerra only came in 15 mls, [X] had several options getting cheaper the larger ml you buy. I used 30 mls for the comparison. Here’s some product info:
[Editor’s Note: Product information on Frankicense oil can be found elsewhere on the internet.]
Again,
[X] $63.10 – DoTerra $186 (or fake wholesale $139.50)
$16.75 – Reputable, well-reviewed Amazon product
If you prefer a different type,
From [X], a beautiful steam distillation of wildcrafted Frankincense resin from Somalia. $70.05….30mls
Just think, for every bottle you replace/buy from [X], and not DoTerra, you make yourself about $100!!!!!
Thanks Char. I don’t think is the place to promote specific companies.
If you aren’t affiliated with a specific company, I think you need to explain why you cite a company that charges 4x what’s highly-rated on Amazon. It’s not a good look for someone claiming to unaffiliated. At a minimum, let that Amazon product be your comparison to prove your point.
Thanks!
My take was that Nancy feels as though DoTerra is a speciality company and thus warrants the exorbitant pricing. If you believe the claims, and an artisan type company/product is what you want, I merely provided her another option from a company who charges a third of the price. I’m sure there are others too.
I personally ordered from them a few times directly without issue, so I cited them. And, as Amazon is like a mall, they might even sell on there, idk. I’ll check later.
Whether anyone’s claims about the difference in quality are legit, I gave her a non-mlm option “who specializes in oils” similar to DoTerra to “make her some money”.
P.S., Come to think of it, I’ll bet that (X) might have found my comparison highly offensive – comparing them to an mlm. I’m glad you removed it.
Anyway, I think I’ve made my point about “specialty companies” and the price comparison.
Sorry about that Char. I get a little defensive with MLM articles because the MLMers often accuse me of being paid to support a competing brand.
I’m not a big believer in quality claims if the reviews are good. At a minimum, I think the conversation has to start with explaining why the lower priced product is crap. It should be shown by unbiased third parties. As best I can tell, we don’t have solid information to judge quality other than the reviews.
My own personal opinion is the Now brand of essential oils smell great like I’d expect them to. That’s great quality at a fraction of the price in my mind.
DoTerra oils MAY be pure therapeutic grade oils, as are many oils available from reputable companies. DoTerra oils MIGHT aid medical conditions, to some degree (although all evidence to date is only based on personal accounts rather than true and factual research). DoTerra oils ARE extraordinarily expensive. Ok, all these facts have been thrown up by respondents in the comments to date, so let’s get onto the one obvious fact that all respondents seem to have overlooked, and yet it is glaringly obvious to me.
DoTerra oils are sold by anyone. I am gonna repeat this . . . DoTerra oils are sold by anyone.
If DoTerra oils performed as their hype claims, then the oils should only be dispensed by a qualified aromatherapist, one who has had training at the feet of a master and is certificated. And I don’t mean a 20 minute online course, or a weekend training. I mean 2 to 3 years training.
My friend’s grandmother is a dottery old bird and she sells DoTerra. Of course she does, as the DoTerra company do not screen their Wellness Advocates. The WA hands over the money and is given a kit and a booklet and a bit of training by the person who signs them up. My friend’s granny was telling people to ingest all sorts of oils for every ailment. And since she lives in a retirement village and is a very happy, likeable and social old soul, the old biddies in the village were buying her advice and buying her oils. Until recently. Nine old souls became very ill with gastro intestinal disorders and severe dehydration, and were rushed to hospital in the past 2 weeks. Unfortunately, for the past 4 weeks they had all been ingesting the oils 4 times a day, as prescribed by granny, and as granny emphasised the oils were SAFE, some of the old folk were taking more than a few drops each time in the hope of getting much better/cured/whatever. Granny’s oils have now been confiscated by the authorities.
Okay, so this all sounds rather extreme, but this is not an isolated case.
People who have an absolute passion and blind faith in DoTerra are prescribing oils with no qualified knowledge of what they are doing. Reading info in a booklet given by DoTerra does not make anyone qualified to prescribe oils. You don’t go to your plumber if you have a problem with your bowels, and you don’t go to your doctor to have your toilet unblocked. Similarly you wouldn’t ask your hairdresser for psychological counselling, just as you wouldn’t ask your therapist for a haircut.
If essential oils are potent medicine, surely DoTerra advocates realise that by prescribing specific oils for certain ailments without any qualification or formal training whatsoever, that they are perhaps risking the health of trusting (but naive) people.
I am a practising Aromatherapist and Naturopath of 25 years experience, and whilst I don’t have a problem with the efficacy of DoTerra’s oils, I certainly find it troubling that anyone with a wad of cash can sign up to sell the stuff.
By all means, purchase the oils for yourself (although you will spend 4 times the price of what a better therapeutic grade French essential oil company offers) and use it for yourself and your family EXTERNALLY, but never presume that you are qualified to advise others of what oils they should be INGESTING for their health.
And to be clear, I’m not sure what “pure therapeutic grade” means when it comes to oils. In my personal opinion it implies that they are to treat someone who needs “therapy”, which could be a medical condition. I defer to the FDA for their approval process of medication.
Thank you for providing your view and experience on aromatherapy. In my opinion this puts an end to the aromatherapy arguments that some have raised in the comments. I say that while noting that I use essential oils for their awesome smells myself… as I noted in the article.
I think people need to learn to separate the discussion into two conversations.
1) The MLM model (inherently flawed)
2) The product which that MLM is selling (open for debate)
So if asking, “Is [DoTerra] a scam?” Then the retort should be, “Is it an MLM?” Period. That’s it. And yes, it’s a scam. We can go on to discuss essential oils irrespective of MLM.
I do think oils have value, but I’d never buy “from” an MLM. Poopooing all products MLM sells I don’t agree with either as it confuses people and encourages debate. MLM isn’t about the product just as the 7-11 company and convenience store concept isn’t about Coke even though they sell it. MLM is the M-11 (get it, hee hee?)
Another analogy I try to use to explain it is, MLM is the alcohol. It doesn’t matter if you change the brand, you’ll still get drunk. And so on…
Okay. Did I make any sense? Because I’m searching for a way to succinctly explain this thought process. LM, I’m all ears if you have a better analogy – presuming you agree. By all means critique, correct, improve upon, or change completely. But can you sum it up with your writing talent. Help me find the right analogy easily understood.
The whole “Is [such and such] a scam?” is driving me nuts. I genuinely believe if we could get people to comprehend the fact that all mlms are the same, whether selling cryptocurrency or collagen, there would be fewer “willing victims” duped by mlm.
Char said,
“MLM isn’t about the product just as the 7-11 company and convenience store concept isn’t about Coke even though they sell it. MLM is the M-11 (get it, hee hee?)”
Comparing MLM to a legitimate business is inherently flawed. I understand you are trying to create the idea that a product and a distributor are separate entities, but that example is not good because it is comparing a very successful and legitimate company with a criminogenic syndicate (a la David Brear).
I believe a better example would be comparing a different inherently flawed system of distribution. MLMs utilize a pyramid payment plan similar to cash gifting schemes, and the only difference is how convoluted they have become. A cash gifting scheme suggests you pay $20.00 for the opportunity to get other people to pay $20.00 and once the first person has joined underneath you, then you will receive 100% of the monies generated from everyone else. This is something Ethan Vanderbuilt has gone over many times and continues to debunk, but it continues to be pervasive.
Char said, “Another analogy I try to use to explain it is, MLM is the alcohol. It doesn’t matter if you change the brand, you’ll still get drunk. And so on…”
I suppose this is a better analogy and closer to the old adage, “A leopard never changes its spots.” I like the reference to alcohol as people become intoxicated with cult-like dreams and mannerisms once they join MLM.
Just my two cents…hope it helps
I’d like to unsubscribe from this page please.
Al Wilkinson,
Please use the instructions at the bottom of any email that you have received. You should see something like “Manage Subscriptions” in the email with a link. It’s easy. Thanks.
I know many d?TERRA consultants that will GIVE you their product (not samples) at no cost at all, merely just to try. The company comes from good hearted people who genuinely want to help others, no strings attached. There aren’t many good people left in the world so who are you to bash those that are?
I had an aunt who suffered from chronic migraines and anxiety for nearly 20 years and couldn’t even fall asleep at night without taking some narcotic. She is free and clear of all narcotics for over a year now, thanks to these oils. Many miracles like these exist. I suggest you do a little more research on the pros, rather than the cons.
Whoa, drug dealers often give away product for free too. If a person really want to try to genuinely help others with essential oils, why not give away the product that is 90% cheaper with the great reviews that I mentioned in the article? That way they can give away 10x as much.
Often pyramid schemes will require distributors to be “qualified” to earn commissions. Most of the pyramid schemes allow people to qualify by extra product each month. I think the FTC makes it pretty clear that MLMs shouldn’t do that in this speech. In the schemes that I’ve looked at the distributors do give away product, but that’s mostly because they are stuck with more than they’d use.
I don’t believe essential oils are a replacement for the medication as you suggest. I suggest you provide the specific medical claim from DoTERRA’s website.
If you want to learn more about pyramid schemes, CNBC had a nice article a day or two ago.
**Lazy Man, I found your blog when I started researching an MLM a good friend of mine just invested in. I devoured your website this weekend. I am not sure where to put my questions, and I apologize if this isn’t the appropriate place. I attached the comment to the blog posting about the MLM that had the most recent comment. But please disregard my questions if they are out of place here. Love your blog, FYI.**
I think that Lazy Man is chastising the companies themselves, not the actual sellers of the products. And I agree with him completely. I have a lot of questions about the product development at these MLM companies — Do MLMs share who develops the products? Do the sellers have any input into the products or iterations to the products? In the companies I’ve worked with in my career, the sales team works with the product dev team in most cases. If a bid isn’t won, it’s never just the fault of one sales person. (And everyone on the team still gets their paycheck, as a side note here.) And, always, a lost bid (or a customer complaint) is a way to improve a product. It just seems to me that the “business owners” or “consultants” or whatever they’re called are sent a starter kit and told the products are godly. If a seller does well, it’s because the product is the best. If the seller does poorly, it’s because the seller didn’t do a good job. But NEVER QUESTION THE PRODUCT. This approach just seems so backwards. It leaves no room for product improvement. I feel like the blame is on the MLM leadership, not the sellers. These MLM companies are experts in taking advantage of people it seems.
Thanks Tracie,
I am trying to help to the victims/salespeople of MLM scams. As many before me have noted, those victims are simply indoctrinated into a cult. That’s their opinion, and I agree.
I rarely (if ever) say that the product is bad. Instead, I try to show where the products are a bad value. CNBC published something recently about this:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/09/pyramid-scheme-or-legit-multilevel-marketing-job.html
Tracie, the FTC seems to agree with you that the MLM companies are to blame. Please note this scathing keynote from the FTC:
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/993473/ramirez_-_dsa_speech_10-25-16.pdf
I went to a doterra thing today. It was advertised to me as working with essential oils. A bit if background info on me is that I’ve used eo to make my own body butters and soaps, but also I kind of suck at it so I was hoping this class was going to just help me get better at my measurements and stuff like that.
What I ended up attending was a gathering on how doterra has helped people get cured of cancer, suffer from 3rd degree burns and sprayed oil on their faces and now have no scars, suffered from nearly fatal car crashes and with some oil just healed themselves. Never in my life have I heard such f bs! And for these reps to be selling to people who are desperate for relief of whatever ails them and then trying to pressure them into getting a membership was disgusting. My friend and I left in the middle of the presentation because it was so ridiculous.
Stop trying to sell people oil saying it’s a cure for f cancer and big pharma is trying to hide it! Oh my favorite story that was told was how a guy went camping and his finger got chopped off and they put the finger on ice and sprayed it with lavender oil and his wound with it and because of that the doctor was able to reattach it. Could not keep my laughter in at all!!!
Stef, I think every health MLM has more than a few people saying it is the cure for cancer and big pharma and doctors just want to keep you sick so they can cash checks.