Young Living sources oils from three types of suppliers:

    1. Corporate Farms – owned, managed and run by Young Living
    2. Partner Farms
    3. Seed To Seal Certified Suppliers

The same level of quality is expected regardless of where we get our oils. Whether they come from our farms, our partner farms or one of our Seed To Seal Certified Supplier, the bar is always the same. 100% Seed to Seal quality.


Seed To Seal Certified Suppliers


Every single supplier has to must meet Young Living’s standards. We do stringent quality testing. We make sure all of the documentation is there. This testing is done every single time we get a batch of oil from a supplier. We are very serious about what we expect from our suppliers. Each supplier must go through Seed To Seal training and certification. They cannot supply to us unless they go through this process.


Then once through the training process they must sign a declaration that they WILL comply with Seed To Seal. It’s a contract and they are held accountable. They are also required to understand strict compliance rules and must comply with their country’s rules but also laws within the US.


Enhanced visits
Many supplier distilleries are shocked when YL comes to visit. They say none of the other companies they have supplied have ever come to see how we do things. The only way you can check all of that is if someone is there. So we go there to make sure they are following the rules.


When we visit a supplier, we want to know some things that contribute to the quality of the oil. Where do their seeds come from? In the example of ylang ylang trees, where did they get those trees 15 or 20 years ago when they were first planted?
As you replant, where did that come from? We watch the distillation process. We also ask to see record keeping. How do they
keep track of their distillation. How do they keep track of inventory. How they keep track of the people who work for them. How are they being paid? Business licenses, proof of taxes being paid. We don’t just want to be sure the oils are being produced the right way, we want to make sure they are running their company the right way.



Next Level is Partner Farms


Once a supplier qualifies to this level, Young Living then provides significant capital investment in the farm. We rebuild the distillery. Resources and go there for the long term to teach them each step of the process and give them even more skills than they had to date. More tools and resources. Longer term contracts. Exclusive relationships with them. They only sell to Young Living and not to a competitor.


New Partner Farm in Quintis Farm in Perth, Australia – Sacred Sandalwood


Newest Partner Farm – Balkan Botanical Farm in Bulgaria
This farm will be producing Roman Chamomile and Valerian. We have not had these oils in over 2 years. Over the years many samples of these oils have been submitted to Young Living but they did not meet Seed to Seal quality standards so they were rejected. We are not willing to compromise our quality standards. We would rather not have the oil, than sell a lower quality product.

Be

sides the corporate owned farms, there are currently 7 Partner Farms. This number is growing as we turn Certified Suppliers into Partner Farms.


Corporate Farms


Corporate farms are owned and operated by Young Living. More on Young Living Farms


young-living-labYoung Living, the World Leader in Essential Oils, has completed a major upgrade of its state-of-the-art testing and quality control laboratory in Spanish Fork, Utah. The newly expanded lab will further advance the testing methods of Young Living’s genuine authentic grade essential oils and supplemental products.


The new space is equipped with the most sophisticated testing equipment available. These high-tech instruments include a gas chromatograph and a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC/MS), which break down components of the oil, identify purity and strength, and recognize any possible contaminants. An ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) instrument is used to test the occurrence of vitamins and other critical components in Young Living’s dietary and personal-care products. This process further verifies the ingredients listed on every label of the products Young Living offers.


The lab, which has recently doubled its staff, employs PhDs, chemists, scientists, and young-living-labsmicrobiologists with decades of experience in the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical fields. The lab is an integral part of Young Living’s Seed to Seal® process, which ensures that every step of essential oil production is closely controlled—from the seeds sown to harvesting, testing, and bottling.


“We test everything that comes through Young Living—from raw materials to all finished goods and even the packaging to ensure optimal quality,” said Marian Curtis, Young Living’s director of quality and process optimization. “In addition, we utilize third-party audits to verify that purity and potency standards are consistently met and surpassed.”


About Young Living
Young Living Essential Oils is world renowned for its essential oils and oil blends, oil-infused nutritional supplements, bath and body products, skin-care solutions, and natural preparations for the home. Its direct-selling system offers thousands of Independent Distributors a unique business model for sharing Young Living’s message of wellness, purpose, abundance, and vitality.



Young Living currently owns 11 farms and distilleries.


Does your Essential Oil Supplier use any of These 9 Dirty Tricks and Adulterations to Extend Profits?


Unfortunately not all essential oils are created equal. In fact many, if not all the oils on the market are what is called “perfume quality” or “4th & 5th quality oils.


These are over-processed, chemical laden, highly adulterated and de-natured products that, in reality, are little more than cheap perfume made from various odorous plants. This includes oils found in health food stores. Many people think that when they buy an oil that is labeled as “100% pure” they are getting good oils. This is far from true.


Pure unadulterated essential oil is very hard to come by & can be very expensive. One reason for this is because it can take as many as 500 to 2,000 pounds or more of raw plant material to produce just a pound of essential oil.


Fact: The words “100% Pure” on the label can mean nothing more than the oil has not been diluted with a carrier oil or another cheaper essential oil.


Fact: In the U.S., a company can have the word Pure on the label with as little as 5% essential oil in the bottle. This just means that they have some of the real oil in the bottle.


Fact: Chemical additives can be included in some so called Pure Essential Oils.


Fact: Chemical additives fracture the molecular structure of essential oils, altering their chemical constituents, thus destroying their beneficial properties. And, of course, the chemicals themselves may present a health risk.


Some ways Essential Oils can be ADULTERATED


  • A common way to extend the volume of an oil is to simply add alcohol, propylene glycol, or acetate to the distilled essential oil.
  • Some oil producers add synthetic oils to the so called “Pure” oil.
  • Some oil producers do not actually add chemicals to their oils. Instead, they inject chemical solvents into the water in their boilers during the distillation process, increasing output by about 18%.


    Imagine what happens to essential oils when chemicals are added to water, which is boiled into steam and then forced into plants to extract their oil. It IS impossible for an essential oil extracted through this method to avoid containing at least SOME of these chemical additives.

  • Many essential oils are produced by solvent extraction and can wear the label “pure” essential oils.


    With the solvent extraction process essential oils are extracted by immersing plants in chemical solvents, such as hexane, petroleum benzine, ether, or carbon tetrachloride. These solvents are later removed by vacuum distillation. But . . . like the solvent injection steam distillation process, do you think it is possible to completely eliminate all chemical residue from oils extracted by immersing plants in harsh chemicals?


These extraction processes both destroy essential oil’s beneficial properties and bring their own health risks from the residual chemical additives which remain in the essential oils they produce.


Depending on the plant, it takes from 250 pounds to several tons of plants to produce a SINGLE pound of essential oil. It takes about 250 pounds of lavender to produce a pound of lavender oil, and several TONS of rose petals to produce a pound of rose oil.


As you might imagine, producers can dramatically extend their profit margin by extending the oils. The volume of lavender oil shipped from France is 100 TIMES the volume grown and distilled there! This suggests that 99% of all lavender oil coming from France has been extended, adulterated with chemical additives.


Other Dirty Tricks that will DESTROY oils:

  • Redistilling Plant Material: Essential oil producers often increase profits by redistilling plant material in as many as 5 or 6 distillations. They save the first distillation for genuine authentic grade essential oils, then selling the second, third and so on to the unsuspecting public.


    Imagine if you are using a teabag over and over. The first cup of tea tastes good but the second is not nearly as good, let alone 3rd, 4th 5th . . .

  • High Pressure, Heat Distilling: Distillation at lower temperatures and low pressure is the preferred method for producing high quality, premium grade essential oils.


    Imagine pressure cooking a salad: Nutritionists tell us not to boil our vegetables because the hot water removes the vitamins and nutrients. Similarly, “boiling” plants to extract their essence destroys many of a plant’s fragile constituents.


    Keeping the distiller’s temperature low is a must.

  • Essential oils MUST be distilled for the proper length of time to release all their active constituents.

      For example, cypress must be distilled for 24 hours to release all the chemical constituents. Most distilling operations, throughout the world, only distill cypress one hour and 15 minutes.


      Similarly, lavender does not produce all its beneficial constituents unless it is distilled for one hour and 30 minutes; but most lavender is distilled for only 15 minutes! Three-quarters of the volume is extracted during the first quarter of the distillation process. Many producers end the process there because the increased time does not
      significantly increase the volume. Time is “only” a crucial factor to extracting the plant’s beneficial properties.

  • Soil Quality/ Pesticides: Another factor in the purity of the oils is the land on which the plants are grown. Inexpensive essential oils are usually produced by large farm operations that use chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Pesticides are oil-soluble and their residue remains in essential oils extracted from pesticide-treated plants.


    Some of the lavendin grown in Russia and China (used to make much of the so-called lavender oil sold around the world) actually contains radioactive isotopes because of the nuclear fallout from Chernobyl. Imagine using an essential oil extracted from plants containing radioactive isotopes AND to which chemicals have been added to extend the oil — synthetic linolol acetate to improve the fragrance, and propylene glycol to increase the volume!

  • Passing Off Hybrids as Pure: Some unscrupulous brokers market an engineered hybrid “lavendin” as true Lavandula officinalis. Lavendin can be adulterated by flash­ing off (burning off) the camphor and adding synthetic linalyl acetate. These brokers hope to represent lavendin as true lavender to increase profits.
  • In addition, some bottles do not contain the oil stated on the label. Oils marked as “clove” may be distilled from the leaf instead of the bud. Clove leaf oil is less expensive but does not have the same chemistry or properties as clove bud oil. Many times, essential oils marked “cinnamon” are actually “cassia.”


Fact: According to an independent laboratory in California, Flora Research, MOST essential oils sold are either synthetic or adulterated with chemical additives.


Fact: Young Living is the largest grower of essential oil plants in the world.


View some of my pictures from my visit to Young Living Farms:
https://aromanotes.com/young-living-farms

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