Top 10 Best Essential Oils to Buy in 2020 + Buyer’s Guide

Finding the best essential oil brands on such a huge market can be a daunting task even for the most well-versed alternative medicine experts. It can take hours (even days) of continuous research to compare compounds, health benefits, manufacturing processes, types of carrier oils, prices, and much more.

Luckily for you, we’ve done most of the tiring legwork so you don’t have to!

And to back up our claims, we’ll share the specific criteria we used to rank the top 10 brands on the market today.

Quality Criteria

Safety always comes first. While researching our top essential oil brands, we kept a close eye on quality control. With these products, as with other health products in general, quality assurance and quality testing are vital — hence why we made sure that each product on our list was tested for safety and purity during the production process (from start to finish).

Ingredients

Quality testing won’t amount to much if the raw ingredients in your products aren’t up to par.

As a result, we assessed a lot of different factors like the source of the plant, which part of the plant was used in the production process, where and how the plant was grown, and more.

As a general rule of thumb, top-rated essential oils will use the best raw ingredients for their products focusing on plant parts with the most beneficial compounds. Also, serious brands source plants from their native areas to ensure that they’ve grown in the most optimal of conditions.

Manufacturing Methods

A brand’s manufacturing process will also determine the quality of the final product.

Are they using steam or water distillation? Cold press or CO2 extraction?

Namely, the best essential oil companies use processing methods that ensure that the overall potency and quality of the oil stays intact — hence why we gave less favorable scores to products that were manufactured with the help of solvents. The reason being, solvents can sometimes end up in the consumer-ready product creating some highly unpleasant side effects.

Also, different extraction methods have different efficiency levels. Nowadays, most oils are made via steam distillation, which is known to produce high-quality products that come with a reasonable price tag.

Storage

Sadly, even the best quality essential oils will degrade over time. Nevertheless, with the appropriate steps and safety measures, shelf-life can be greatly extended. This is why brands that properly stored their products ranked higher on our list.

However, investigating a brand’s storage practices is almost nigh impossible. Yet, what you can do is check the label to see whether you’ve received a fresh batch or not. In addition, these products should be placed in a dark container that has been properly sealed (to limit oxygen exposure) and kept in a cool place.

Certifications

When looking at what top essential oils to have, always go for the ones with valid certifications; for instance, a GMP Certification. This ensures that the products are indeed top-notch. Apart from that, we also looked for USDA-certified organic products.

These standards include strict guidelines for sanitation, hygiene, equipment verification, process validation, record keeping, and even complaint handling.

For instance, products with a USDA organic certification are usually made with organically harvested raw materials that weren’t exposed to harmful pesticides. Moreover, USDA certified products also have to adhere to strict manufacturing guidelines to be labeled as “organic” and to be regarded as the best essential oils.

In addition, we’ve taken other certifications into consideration as well (such as AFNOR, ECOCERT, ISO, and more). Naturally, brands that had one or more certifications ranked higher.

Sustainability & Testing

Although GMP and USDA certifications speak volumes about a brand’s eco-consciousness, they fail to address all the ethical and sustainability issues.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of these certifications around — hence why even the best essential oil company won’t have these, most of the time.

However, for those companies that did have them, we gave a higher score.

Lastly, we favored brands that made their third-party lab testing results readily available.

Brand Reputation

It’s only natural that we want to purchase products from a company that’s reputable. And with these products, it’s no different. As such, most buyers look to buy only from the best essential oil brand, and for good reason too.

This is why we conducted meticulous research for each and every brand on our list to ensure that our final verdict remains unbiased and supported by concrete evidence — in this case, customer reviews.

Customer Support, Guarantee, and Refund Options

These features can be a real game-changer when it comes to assessing the best essential oils to have.

Therefore, exceptional customer service and fair return policy should be a golden standard among top brands — hence why they ranked higher.

Price

While the price isn’t the best indicator of a product’s quality, high-quality essential oils will (more often than not) be higher priced. Yet, this does not mean that they’re worth every penny.

Larger companies have the means of mass producing high-quality products, whereas smaller companies do not, which is why their price tags might feel inflated.

Also, for some, the choice of picking top-rated essential oils mainly boils down to the cheapest option.

Due to all of the above-mentioned reasons (and more), we took the price of the products into consideration as well. Hence, we strived our best to present you with the perfect balance of price and quality to suit everyone’s needs. We also avoided including suspiciously cheap options — if it’s too good to be true, then it probably is!

This section will help you pick the right product for your specific needs. Namely, we’ll provide precise guidelines on how to select the very best essential oils, by looking at their associated health benefits, general characteristics, possible side effects, and much more.

What Are Essential Oils?

In a nutshell, think about these products as highly concentrated natural oils extracted from specific species of plants used in natural and alternative medicine since time immemorial.

In short, they are the “essence” of the plant, encompassing the very scent and flavor of the plant along with all the therapeutic ingredients, which is especially the case with the highest quality essential oils.

It’s also worth noting that you cannot produce essential oils from each and every plant; some “essences” can be potentially dangerous.

Extraction

The way these oils are obtained determines their overall potency and purity. As such, there are two main extraction methods used with these products.

Steam distillation — one of the oldest extraction methods in which the steam is directed towards the plant in a sealed still. The steam then vaporizes the lighter chemicals, and a connecting pipe collects the vapor via a condenser where it will be cooled into liquid form again. After that, the generated oils are siphoned out of the water.

To this day, some of the best rated essential oils are made using this method as it distills harmful compounds at much lower temperature and not cause harm to the delicate structure of the essential oils.

Cold pressing — yet another method used mostly for extracting essentials from citrus fruits like sweet orange, tangerine, lemon, and so on. It basically comes down to squeezing (or rather pressing) the liquids out of the fruit through a filter. Mainly because the oils in these fruits tend to become damaged upon being exposed to heat, like in the case of distillation.

Associated Benefits and Uses

For centuries, the most effective essential oils were used for two main purposes: improving health and treating specific ailments.

Due to their antibacterial, detoxifying, antidepressant, and even stimulating properties, essential oils are gaining immense popularity among modern consumers. Likewise, they are a natural alternative to opiates and are an excellent tool for disease prevention and improving the overall well-being of individuals.

Here are but a few ways essential oils contribute to your health:

Boost your immune system: There are essential oils that have certain anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties. As such, they can help boost your immune system and help fight infections more efficiently. For instance, if you are looking for the best essential oil for a sore throat look for one with these characteristics.

Help with aches and pains: Some essential oils can aid pain relief due to their anti-inflammatory properties.

If you are looking for the best oils for pain management, you might want to consider lavender, eucalyptus, chamomile, marjoram, ginger, peppermint, thyme, frankincense, and turmeric oil products.

Promote skin health: You’ll also find that some oils help tighten the skin, improve its elasticity, and reduce acne and wrinkles due to their antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. Among the best essential oils for skin health, you’ll find geranium, lavender, tea tree, ylang-ylang, and frankincense.

However, before you try experimenting with alternative treatment options, it’s best to consult with a dermatologist first since everybody’s skin is different.

Aid hair growth: Several oils have distinct properties that address different causes of hair loss and other hair-related problems.

For instance, lemongrass essential oils are said to help with dandruff, whereas lavender oil can serve as an exceptional growth stimulant.

In short, your best essential oils for hair growth would be lemongrass, peppermint, cedarwood, rosemary, and lavender.

Help digestion: Please, note that digestive problems are not an illness per se. Rather they are symptoms of other conditions, which may even be of a chronic nature.

Generally, essential oils can help regulate digestion. For example, ginger is useful due to its antispasmodic properties, as well as its carminative effect that helps release gas.

Relieve stress and anxiety: Essential oils are popular treatment options for stress-relief and anxiety management.

Pure oils can more easily cross the blood-brain barrier and onset a rapid calming effect to relax the body and mind.

Among the best essential oils for anxiety is lavender since it is known to have incredible calming and soothing effects, as well as improve sleep and restlessness. Apart from lavender, honorable mentions include bergamot, chamomile, ylang-ylang, and rose.

Alleviate migraines and headaches: Essential oils can be an awesome alternative for treating headaches as they address the root causes.

In most cases, hormonal imbalances, allergies, sinus pressure, and stress are the main culprits behind headaches, and essential oils can help with each of these. For instance, peppermint oil can help with muscle contractions, whereas lavender can help fight stress-induced headaches.

That being said, the best essential oils for headaches include peppermint, rosemary, ginger, lavender, and eucalyptus.

Improve sleep: Sound sleep is paramount for optimal mental and physical performance. Enter essential oils.

Namely, they can aid you in two distinct ways. They prevent insomnia by reducing stress and prevent the development of unhealthy sleeping habits like snoring.

The best way to get the most out of essential oils is to create an oil blend to reap every possible benefit.

If you are looking for essential oils to sleep better, consider blending together cedarwood, lavender, ylang-ylang, and roman chamomile.

Detox the body: The many benefits of essential oils include detoxing your body via increased urine production and speeding up the body’s process of getting rid of waste materials.

All in all, if you are looking for the best detox essential oils, you may want to give lemon, rosemary, grapefruit, lavender, and peppermint a try.

Improve focus and brain functions: Some believe that the right oils can help you be more productive, boost clarity, and improve cognitive abilities.

It is generally believed that some essential oils have neuroprotective effects; meaning, they can actually slow down brain cell degeneration; the best essential oil combinations can also help improve cognitive functions as well.

Hence, if you wish to give your brain a boost, consider using lavender, lemon, peppermint, and rosemary.

Energy boost: Essential oils can also help manage fatigue and stress either by topical application or inhalation. They also help increase focus, alertness, and productivity levels.

The most notable in this regard are citrus-based oils that enhance energy levels. Peppermint and spearmint essential oils promote deep breathing and provide your brain with more oxygen which improves alertness.

As such, the best essential oils for health and improving energy levels would be orange, peppermint, lemon, cinnamon, and spearmint.

Help with hormonal imbalances: Lastly, there are a few essential oils on the market that aid the hypothalamus with hormone regulation.

Peppermint is known to affect serotonin and neuropeptides that improve mood and clarity, whereas clary sage, thyme, and geranium can help balance progesterone and estrogen levels. Also, they can be ideal essential oils for women who seek to improve fertility.

Carrier Oils

There are often discussions about the “neat” use of essential oils; meaning, without a carrier. However, make sure to always use a carrier oil as even in the case of the most popular essential oils you run the risk of sensitizing your body to the oil.

By using diluted oils, you reap the same benefits and effects for longer. Also, it’s the safest way to use them, and they also improve the absorption rate of the essential oils; not to mention that they might even help with their shelf-life.

Using essential oils without carriers can cause redness, infection, and other unwanted skin reactions.

Main Ways to Use Essential Oils

Generally, there are 4 main ways to use essential oils to take advantage of all the benefits they provide.

Inhalation: This is the fastest way of getting the oils into the bloodstream. For beginners, direct inhalation is recommended so they can see how they react to it. Just bring it close to your nose and sniff it; just don’t sniff it too strongly.

Recommended essential oils can also be inhaled indirectly. This is basically inhaling the aroma of the oil by applying it to small items like cloth or cotton balls.

Diffusion: This method allows the oils to get into the air via evaporation through a diffusion device.

It’s a great way to get rid of unwanted smells in a room and it can help reduce stress levels and improve sleep quality.

To diffuse the oils, you can use an oil burner, a tissue, sprays, evaporation devices, or a nebulizer.

Topical application: In short, this means directly applying the oil onto the skin. Before you do it, however, do make sure that you dilute even the top-notch quality essential oils, if they don’t come diluted by the manufacturer that is.

The safest way to do this by yourself in the case of topical application is to add a teaspoon of carrier oil to 3 drops of essential oil.

Bath: Before you consider this method, please note that you shouldn’t add essential oils directly into the bath as oils don’t mix with water. If you just drop the oils into the bathtub, they won’t dissolve but will remain highly concentrated.

The best way to combat this issue is to use a carrier oil and then mix it into the bath. Optimally, you’d want 3–12 drops of essential oil with one tablespoon of carrier oil.

Essential aromatherapy oils used this way can help you alleviate stress, improve mood, relieve headaches, increase focus, and more.

About Diffusers

In this section, we will share more info on diffusers so you can choose your ideal method for enjoying your essential oils.

Heat diffuser: These use heat to evaporate the oil. You can use an electric diffuser or you can go with candle heat as well. Just keep in mind that candles are a potential fire hazard. Electric heaters, on the other hand, are economical and safe.

Whatever you pick, you will want to use the best essential oils for candles for the best effects. Also, you should know that the heat will somewhat change the properties of the oils so chances are, you won’t be able to fully reap all the benefits.

Evaporative diffusers: These also distribute the oils via evaporation, albeit with the help of a fan instead of heat while the oil is in an absorbent material (like a wick or a pad).

These types let you control the emission of the oils, letting you dial in a steady amount of continuous supply.

Ultrasonic diffusers: This may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie. Namely, these diffusers use kinetic energy, or vibrations, to break the oil down into microparticles and disperse them into the air.

This is a quiet and comfortable process, making it ideal for relaxation and sleep.

This method also keeps the oils untouched, making them one of the top-rated essential oil diffusers. They also act as humidifiers because they use water during the dispersion process and the dispersed steam dilutes the aroma.

The only possible downside to this method is that prolonged use and moisture exposure may cause the inner wall of the device to grow fungi. Hence, they should be cleaned regularly.

Nebulizing diffusers: According to experts, these are the best diffusers on the current market as they break the oils down without heat or water. Instead, it breaks them down with force.

Also, the aroma released from these devices can cover up to 400 square feet, with minimal electrical consumption.

As a downside, be prepared to use more aromatherapy essential oils than you’d normally use with other diffusers. To control the amount you are using, you can place a timer to know when you should stop your device if it doesn’t come with a built-in timer already.

Wrapping It Up

We hope this list managed to provide you with a helping hand on your quest for the best essential oils. Our comprehensive review aimed to provide you with everything there is to know about these oils down to the last detail. If you still have some questions or doubts, be sure to check the FAQ section below.