E90: Q&A: dōTERRA & Essential Oils
E90: Q&A: dōTERRA & Essential Oils
It's our 9th Q&A episode! Here are your dōTERRA & essential oil questions answered...
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[1:30] #1. Val, there are so many essential oil companies to choose from! Why do you onlyuse dōTERRA?
I get this question all the time and I love it, because dōTERRA is the only essential oil company I trust and the only one I purchase from for five main reasons:
1. Transparency
If there is anything I look for in companies I purchase from, especially larger ones, it’s their transparency. dōTERRA has fully transparent third-party testing on all their essential oils and products. If you check the bottom of your dōTERRA essential oil bottle, you’ll find a code where you can use at SOURCETOYOU.COM and learn about all the chemical constituents of that exact batch.
There is no hiding with dōTERRA, no BS, only the highest quality oils. Here’s also what’s so great about their outstanding transparency: other essential oil companies do not like this, it keeps their CEO’s up at night because they know they can’t offer the same level of honesty to their customers.
dōTERRA is truly the leading company in the essential oil industry and natural health space.
2. Sourcing
dōTERRA has the most incredible global co-impact sourcing model that serves countries, families, women, and small businesses all around the world. One of the countries they work with is Guatemala, which is a place that has my heart as I have visited and travelled there a few times. I was so excited when I found out dōTERRA sources their Cardamom from dōTERRA and even more excited when I learned that Cardamom was one of the oils in my most favourite blend: Easy Air aka Breathe. Knowing that this single bottle of essential oil is not only helping my health, but also people in Guatemala was really game-changing on how I wanted to be involved with the company. It’s one of the reasons why I decided to become a Wellness Advocate and sell essential oils.
dōTERRA Co-Impact Sourcing Trip Guatemala
Healing Hands Foundation Guatemala
The other part of their co-impact sourcing model is that they cut out the middle man to provide better relationships, proper pay, and more opportunities for their sourcing partners. This is really powerful in making a positive global impact, and this is really important to me in creating a better world.
More information on dōTERRA’s Co-Impact Sourcing: https://www.doterra.com/SG/en_SG/difference-co-impact-sourcing
Not only that, but they’re sourcing plants from their natural habitats where they grow and thrive naturally. Sure, Canada has the infrastructure and resources to grow lemon trees, but they don’t naturally grow here. A lemon from Brazil, or Italy however, that lemon is going to be much more potent and pure, and easier to harvest and grow. The sourcing model is sustainable.
3. Leadership
The team leading dōTERRA believes in the integrity of their product and their company. A team of great leaders who want to empower their employees, partners, and customers to up-level their health, wealth and lives.
dōTERRA’s Seven Founding Executives
4. Culture
At my first convention I was really ready to “drink the Kool-Aid” as they call it, but the truth is, I walked into a warm and welcoming community of people with core values of health, and helping others that aligned with me and my values. So many people have been willing to help me succeed and grow and support one another in this community.
There are also so many resources to support customers and advocates in dōTERRA, here are some free ebooks
5. Compensation
I’ve done my fair share of research into a variety of network marketing companies and few compare to dōTERRA’s very generous compensation plan. I have been so grateful for this level of compensation, even more when my “day job” took a dark turn when studio’s shut down and I wasn’t getting that pay cheque. I still had residual/passive income coming in from helping and teaching people how to use and purchase their own oils and natural solutions.
[11:33] #2. How do you use essential oils?
Episode #35: The Simplest Ways to Use Your Essential Oils
There are four main ways to use essential oils:
1. Aromatically
This is the most common way to use essential oils. You can place oils in a diffuser, you can add a drop to your palms and create a hand diffuser by cupping your hands and taking a few deep breaths, you can add oils to a cotton ball and place it in the vent of your car, you can add them to a dryer sheet for a fresh scent for your laundry, you can make a mister spray and spray a room with a blend you’ve created.
2. Topically
Most oils can be used on your skin. Some uses for these types of oils are for glowing skin, soothing sores or muscle tension. You can also use the oils on your hair and nails to support your health that way. I like dōTERRA’s ZenGest (aka DigestZen) on my belly to help with bloating and tummy trouble.
Essential oils can be readily absorbed into the skin and some really popular areas for using the oils are: soles of the feet, pulse points, and the spine.
They make for great PUREfumes, and you can also use them in a moisturizer, bath salt blend, or for a hot/cold compress. (In question #5 I’ll share more info about best practices for topical use.)
3. Internally
You can ingest some of dōTERRA’s essential oils. Some of the benefits of internal use are:promoting healthy cell function, supporting gastrointestinal health, maintain healthy immune function, or internal cleansing benefits. They’re also great for adding potent flavours to food and beverages!
This is dōTERRA's excellent free ebook that talks specifically about internal use.
4. Environmentally
The fourth way to use essential oils is environmentally. This is similar to topical, however I’m speaking specifically to surfaces other than your body. The most common way to use oils environmentally is through green cleaning! Making household cleaners, sprays, and recipes as well as recipes for wood polish are some of the ways to use dōTERRA’s products. Here is the link to the Green Cleaning eBook I created for specific recipes!
Mister Spray Recipes: @vallavignelife
[14:57] #3. What do I need to know about using oils safely?
This is a great question, and if you’re new to essential oils, you’ll want to listen up!
One of the reasons why aromatic use is the most popular way to use essential oils is because it is the safest. You can diffuse and smell oils all day long.
Topical and internal use, there is a little more you’ll want to understand, especially depending on the age of the person using the oils since oils are so potent. I’m going to share an oil safety usage chart in the show notes page for you and this will explain how many drops you can use for adults and children topically and internally.
Some best practices for safe essential oil use are:
Always read the labels. This is the easiest way to know if there are any warnings or recommendations made by the manufacturer
Avoid certain areas. Inside your nose, ears, eyes, broken skin, or other sensitive areas. I totally got peppermint oil a little too close to my eyes and I teared up for a while before it stopped irritating my eyes.
Dilute oils to minimize skin sensitivity. The chart that I’ll share on the show notes page will have information on how to dilute the oils. A common way to dilute oils is with fractionated coconut oil, which is a type of carrier oil. I’ll talk more about this oil a little later in this episode.
Know your strong oils. Some essential oils should always be diluted before putting them on the skin such as: Cassia, Cinnamon Bark, Clove, Oregano, and Thyme.
Be careful of sun sensitivity. Some essential oils are photosensitive and pose a risk for sun sensitivity – mostly citrus oils! These oils include: Bergamot, Green Mandarin, Grapefruit, Lemon, Lime, Tangerine, and Wild Orange. This type of warning should be on the label. Avoid direct sunlight or UV rays for at least 12 hours following the use of these oils.
[18:24] #4. Blending Essential Oils
There are several questions I get when it comes to blending your essential oils. Like…
[18:34] How do you blend them?
Short answer: you put a couple drops of the oils in the diffuser, cup of epsom salts, or in a roller bottle and voila! Your oils are blended.
If you’re not sure which oils blend well together, you can google or pinterest search different oil smells that compliment each other. I also have a few books that mention which oils blend well with the oils in the books. I will be sharing these books and a few other resources in question #6.
The other thing I do is take off the caps of the oils and hold all the tops in my hand and smell them to see if I like the oils blended together before I actually put them in a roller or in the diffuser. If you like some oils more than others you can add more drops of the oils you like, and fewer of the oils you don’t necessarily love and still get the benefits of all the oils together!
[19:38] What are your favourite diffuser blends?
I can never choose just one favourite diffuser blend. There are so many great blends out there and I actually made a freebie called: 108 Diffuser Blends. Use the big yellow button do download your copy!
But since we’re here, one of my favourite diffuser blends is “Liquid Sunshine”
4 drops grapefruit
3 drops cheer blend
1 drop peppermint
[20:13] Walk us through the process of creating an oil blend for ______.
This really depends on what kind of blend you want. For today I’ll use the examples of sleep, mood, and pain.
The first thing I do is get out my Essential Life Book. I look up the ailment, body system or focus I want to support and check out the oils.
[SLEEP] So when I go to the “sleep” section of the book I can see the top solutions, I can get more specific with certain conditions, and they also have some remedies here with specific recipes I can use.
Here I see that Lavender, Vetiver, and Roman Chamomile oils are great for sleeping, and since I have all those oils I’ll open the bottles, smell them and create a diffuser blend. Since I like Lavender the best I’ll add a few extra drops of this in the diffuser along with Vetiver and Roamn Chamomile.
[MOOD] When I search for “mood” I find the Mood and Behaviour section of the book and here I see more oils. Beside the oils it tells me a little more about how it supports the mood. For example it says lavender calms and relaxes, increases the ability to express feelings. WIld orange and tangerine melts away anxiousness and energizes. Cedarwood grounds, promotes a sense of belonging and being connected socially. Bergamot helps increase self-confidence.
With this information I decide that I want to make a roller bottle for purefume and I mix these five oils together in the bottle. If I don’t know how many of each oil to put in, I will sometimes do equal parts or decide that I want a more earthy tone to the blend so I’ll add in more woody oils or I’ll put more cedarwood in the blend.
[PAIN] For our last blending example, let’s talk about pain. There is a section in the book called Pain & Inflammation. You can get more specific on what sort of pain you are in and this will help determine which oils would be best to use to support this type of pain.
One of the remedies in the book is for a sore muscle soak: mix 4 drops of black pepper, 2 drops of rosemary, 1 drop of ginger into ½ cup epsom salt. Add to a bathtub of hot water and soak for up to thirty minutes. Remember to drink lots of water while soaking and thereafter.
I like all of these oils and I also like lemongrass, and from my own personal experience and research I know that lemongrass is supportive for the joints, tendons, ligaments, and lymphatic congestion so I will add some of that to the muscle soak as well!
More than anything I find that what’s important is if you find a list of 5 oils that are beneficial and you have 3 of them, 3 is better than none. PLUS! A lot of oils have many benefits and can be used in multiple ways, like we saw with lavender in sleep and mood.
[24:56] #5. What are carrier oils and how do we use them?
Carrier oils are base oils and are named because they “carry” an essential oil to the skin. They are used to dilute essential oils before applying them directly to your skin. Typically they are cold-pressed oils that are produced from fatty portions of a specific plant.
Some different carrier oils are:
Fractionated Coconut Oil
This is the carrier oil I use the most as it is light, doesn’t go rancid and leaves no residue. It’s great for all skin types, however I do not often use it on my face, unless it’s a roller blend for headaches which I use on my temples and forehead.
Almond Oil
Almond oil is popular for soothing dry or irritated skin. It’s slightly oily but great for beauty and other health recipes.
Grapeseed Oil
This oil is best for delicate skin types. It’s commonly used in cosmetics and is relatively odorless.
Jojoba Oil
This oil closely resembles natural oils of the skin. It’s waxy and more expensive than other carrier oils, however it has a non-greasy feeling and is odourless.
Olive Oil
Olive oil is a well-recognized carrier oil popular for hair. It is high in vitamin and mineral count but it is very heavy, oily, and has a strong odor.
To use these carrier oils will depend on what you’re using them for, however the simplest way to use them is to add a tsp of the carrier oil and your essential oils (see the dilution chart in the show notes page to know how many drops of the oil to use) and then massage it into your skin or area of concern.
You can also use them when you make roller bottle blends. Add the oils to a roller bottle, top with the carrier oil. Close the bottle up, shake well and easily use topically!
[26:59] #6. What Are Your Favourite Resources for Learning About Essential Oils?
There are a lot of resources on the website all about their specific essential oils.
Books
The Essential Life Book, which is also available as an app
The Essential Oils Hormone Solution
Searching the hashtag #doterra or #doterraessentailoils has gotten me a lot of great information and accounts to follow
There are endless essential oil recipes here, simply search whatever you’re looking for, and you can add “doterra” onto that.
Podcasts
Essential Oil Solutions with dōTERRA
Healthy Essentials Podcast w/Lindsay Mustard
Essentially You Podcast w/Dr. Mariza Snyder
[28:48] #7. Which Essential Oils are a Must-Have? How Do We Choose Our First Oils?
Excellent question! These are all great questions, and to be honest they all answer differently depending on the person. When choosing your first oils, you want to invest in the ones that support your most immediate health goals. Since we all have different health goals, our collection of oils will look a little differently.
What I suggest is writing down all your health goals across the top of a page or spreadsheet. Then, research which oils support each of your goals. Write or type the oil names or oil blends out under each goal. Once you’ve created a list of oils for each of your goals, notice which oils show up in more than one list. Start with those oils.
If you prefer, you can focus on one health goal at a time and choose a few oils that support a single goal.
dōTERRA has a very popular enrolment kit for when you’re just starting out called the Healthy Essentials Collection and it is amazing!
It comes with dōTERRA’s 10 most popular oils and blends like:
Peppermint, Lavender, Lemon, Copaiba
On Guard, Easy Air, Adaptiv, Balance & Deep Blue
It also comes with their latest petal diffuser and is perfect for anyone who is really interested in taking control of their own health and elevating their wellness and their home environment. I use all of these oils almost every day. Not just in the diffuser, but some of them I also use typically or internally.
The link to this kit is: Healthy Essentials Enrolment Collection. If you use the link, it will connect you to my wellness team and anyone who purchases this kit will also receive a 1:1 wellness consultation with me. This is where we discuss how to use these particular oils to support your health goals and really create rituals and routines to elevate your health.
[31:04] #8. How Do You Use Essential Oils in Your Daily Life?
This is a question I get often, and I also post a lot about this on my social media. It’s a question I can answer in a lot of depth so I decided to do so in a podcast episode. A couple of week’s ago I published an episode called Elevate Your Daily Routine with Essential Oils and I answered this question and more.
Episode 88: Elevate Your Daily Routines with Essential Oils
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Podcast Host
Valerie LaVigne
Valerie is the creator and founder of Valerie LaVigne Life and the Women's Empowerment Show. She helps busy and empowered women create healthy habits so that they can become the best version of themselves and transform their lives. Learn more about Valerie here!
