Best UK Essential Oils

Best UK Essential Oils

Beautiful, pure essential oils can provide miraculous healing outcomes for people suffering from all kinds of conditions, whether they be physical, psychological or spiritual.

However, not all essential oils are created equal.

As with all natural products, from wine to cheese, there are broad ranging variations in essential oil quality and efficacy.

And, because producing synthetically generated essential oils can be a very lucrative business, there are a good number of potentially dangerous, synthetic essential oils being advertised online, particularly via the well known third-party vendor platforms.

This Buyers Guide has been written to help you find the best quality aromatherapy oils online, so you can avoid investing in inferior and potentially dangerous essential oils.

If it serves to help you avoid UK essential oil brands, who are putting profit before quality, then it will have served it’s purpose well.

Full Disclosure: this report has been produced by Wild As The Wind Natural Skincare & Essential Oils. Wild As The Wind stocks one of the most extensive ranges of pure UK essential oils.

Best Essential Oils UK Buyers Guide

The need for this Best Essential Oils UK Buyers Guide has never been so great… There are more toxic UK essential oils available online than ever before. And, because of lockdown measures etc, more of us are buying UK aromatherapy oils online, also. So the risks have risen greatly.

This Buyers Guide lists some of the best UK essential oil brands who sell aromatherapy oils online. It also explains how you can avoid poor quality UK essential oils, and potentially dangerous essential oils online.

Essential Oils UK

Customer feedback at Wild As The Wind reveals that finding premium grade UK essential oils is growing increasingly difficult on the High Street… as well as online…

This kind of feedback is the chief motivation behind producing the UK essential oils buyers guide. Sadly, Wild As The Wind receive feedback like this all the time.

This is my first order from Wild As The Wind, having finally discovered a company that not only supplies 100% pure essential oils but is ethically responsible in it’s entire approach. I have previously purchased oils that claim to be pure, but which I’ve since discovered, are not! I use essential oils in a diffuser, and previous ‘fake’ oils have not even emitted a scent, never mind anything else! I put just 4 drops of Wild Is The Wind’s citronella oil in 140 ml of water and the smell emanated throughout every room in my home! It has the most clean, fresh and invigorating lemon zesty smell. I will be purchasing more products without a doubt.

Karen, Corby

More reviews of this nature available further into this buyers guide…

Wild As The Wind Essential Oils

In the interest of transparency, Wild As The Wind is a supplier of UK essential oils.

We source some of the best therapeutic grade essential oils in the world, because we are committed advocates of using essential oils for therapeutic purposes.

We also stock one of the largest ranges of therapeutic grade essential oils in the UK, in all three categories:

• Ethically Sourced Essential Oils
• Organic Essential Oils
• Wildcrafted Essential Oils

Thankfully, our customer feedback reflects this…

Etsy: 5 stars … Facebook: 5 stars … Google: 4.9 stars

There are 100’s of 5 star reviews from verified users on the Wild As The Wind Shop Website. Wild As The Wind has only ever received 5 star reviews within the online shop.

More reviews available here: Essential Oils Testimonials Page.

Huge recognition for your products, they are really good value and perhaps more importantly, smell so good. I bought the patchouli light and a raspberry seed oil. OMG! The smell is so good on my skin. Thank you. (By the way……I bought a version of patchouli from amazon a few months ago and yours is by far better quality.) There’s no going back now!

Karen, Dorset

A Quick Word About Online Marketplaces

Sites like Amazon are no different to eBay and other online marketplaces. They do not check the voracity of the statements made about products, nor do they check the quality of the products being sold on their platforms.

Many people think they are protected when buying from sites like Amazon. But, this is sadly not the case. Aside from some financial safeguards, none of these online marketplaces provide quality assurance for third-party products.

This means that they can be targeted by ‘fly by night’ businesses, out to make a fast buck at everyone else’s expense. In fact, these online marketplaces are the only way for disreputable companies to find any form of online traction.

The popularity of sites like Amazon is, ironically, also their achilles heal… Because Amazon is able to propel businesses in front of millions of shoppers on a daily basis, it is the target of unscrupulous businesses who would get nowhere if they tried to gain visibility within Google search results. It takes years of hard graft to get into the top three pages of Google!

There’s one other thing to bear in mind when considering shopping via a large marketplace… the premiums and fees these sites charge the third party vendors amount to billions… all of which leave the UK economy.

If we want to see the UK emerge from the economic quagmire, we need to start shopping with UK independent businesses!

It’s astonishing that so many people who voted for Brexit are willing to shop on Amazon!

Top Essential Oil Brands UK

It is very difficult to put a list of the best UK essential oil brands together, because ultimately, lists like these tend to be very subjective.

However, armed with industry insight, and a clear view of what is most important about UK essential oil brands, Wild As The Wind is comfortable in highlighting the following aromatherapy brands:

Oshadi Essential Oils

Oshadi Essential Oils shares many things in common with Wild As The Wind. They are keenly committed to supplying the best quality therapeutic grade essential oils, and offering an expansive range of oils to choose from.

They are even based in the South West of England like Wild As The Wind.

NRH Organic Essential Oils

NRH Organic Essential Oils is one of the few aromatherapy brands which exclusively sells organic oils. They also carry a number of food grade essential oils and are based in the South East of England.

NRH Organic Essential Oils carry good quality organic therapeutic grade essential oils, however, they also stock absolutes.

Absolute essential oils are made via a process of solvent extraction, which has a tendency to leave solvent residues in the oils. Another problem with absolute oils is that they are primarily made for perfumery purposes. This is because absolutes provide the most concentrated form of fragrance of any form of oil.

Absolutes do not only contain essential oil, they also have higher levels of colour and other constituents from the plant, like wax etc.

*Wild As The Wind does not, and will not, sell absolute essential oils.

NRH Essential Oils have a beautiful shop in Brighton.

As of November 2021, NHR Organic Oils have a 4.5 rating out of 5 on Facebook from 28 respondents.

Tisserand Essential Oils

Robert Tisserand gets a regular mention on the Wild As The Wind website, due to the fact he, and Rodney Young, have written the seminal text on Essential Oil Safety.

Tisserand Essential Oils are therapeutic grade essential oils, and they offer a good selection. The only problem is that they sell their oils in 9ml bottles instead of 10ml bottles, which is standard for most UK essential oil brands. It is, therefore, difficult to make price comparisons with other UK essential oil brands’ products, and also makes Tisserand Essential Oils appear less expensive than they actually are.

Kobashi Essential Oils

Kobashi is another essential oil business based in Devon. They supply the UK and Europe with a range of natural products, including aromatherapy oils.

Established in the 80’s, they know what they are doing. Customer feedback reflects this:  5 star rating in Google from 8 reviews.

DoTERRA Essential Oils

DoTERRA Essential Oils are another essential oil brand who sells differently sized bottles. They offer a 15ml bottle size, as opposed to the usual 10ml bottle size of most UK essential oil brands. This may simply be down to the fact they aren’t actually a UK essential oil brand, but are instead an America company who operates in the UK.

DoTERRA unquestionably sell excellent quality essential oils. However, they are the brand who receive the most negative mentions within Wild As The Wind feedback. Nevertheless, it is very rarely the quality of DoTERRA oils that are in question. Instead, it is their business practices and marketing claims which are highlighted.

Want The Best UK Essential Oils?

Are you really looking for the best UK essential oils?

It seems like a silly question doesn’t it? After all, surely no-one would knowingly go out of their way to look for substandard essential oils?

But, if you’re looking for the best UK essential oils, then what you type into Google really matters.

Did you type best UK essential oils…? Because, if you did then you’re on the right track to possibly finding some of the best UK essential oils available.

But, if you typed in something like cheapest UK essential oils, or best price UK essential oils, then, sadly, you’ll be on a fast track to being very disappointed.

Many of the results you will receive for this search term will have very little to do with the best UK essential oils available.

Cheapest UK Essential Oils

Googling cheapest UK essential oils is a sure fire way of finding the cheapest essential oils in the UK. But, the cheapest UK essential oils couldn’t be more different from the best UK essential oils, because cheap essential oils will undoubtedly mean fake essential oils.

These essential oils, which have been tampered with for profit, are known as adulterated essential oils.

Adulterated essential oils can be harmless, but more often than not they are toxic and can even be carcinogenic. However, even harmless adulterated essential oils are bad news, because they have little to no healing benefit.

Best Price UK Essential Oils

Do you think best priced UK essential oils sounds more upmarket than cheapest UK essential oils? It’s certainly got a more positive ring to it hasn’t it? But, search engines aren’t so nuanced…. Online results will deliver the same dreadful, adulterated essential oils if you type in best priced UK essential oils or cheapest UK essential oils.

As they say in Thailand… “Same, same, but different!

Cheapest Essential Oils UK

So, how did you find this page? Did you just type Buy Cheapest Essential Oils UK into your browser? I really hope so!

And, I also hope you are truly beginning to realise that the Best Priced Essential Oils In The UK are very likely to be the essential oils you most need to avoid.

However, once I publish this article, maybe punching Buy Cheapest Essential Oils UK into Google may just mean you land lucky… by bringing you here to learn the pro’s and con’s of buying essential oils online.

But, by and large, websites in the list for Buy Cheapest Essential Oils UK generally won’t be selling oils you can trust.

Buy Essential Oils UK

Have you been struggling to find quality UK essential oils online? Have there been some costly mistakes so far? And, have the mistakes been made whilst avoiding searches for the cheapest UK essential oils, or equivalent search terms which are likely to lead you into deep water right from the get-go?

Sadly, even if you’ve been typing in things like ‘buy essential oils UK‘ or ‘buy UK essential oils‘ or any other permutation of the same generic request, you may still be fed results that have little to do with you being able to buy UK essential oils that are going to make a positive difference to your health!

Sadly, just putting ‘buy essential oils UK‘ etc in your browser will deliver all kinds of results… the good the bad and the ugly.

So what else do you need to do other than search for ‘buy essential oils UK‘…?

Crafting The Best Search Term

Our advice is simply this…

Leave out the word ‘cheap’ or the words ‘best price’ from your Google searches. Most of the websites that Google will deliver for the search term Buy Cheapest Essential Oils UK will not be a good place to shop!

Include all the words which help to really specifically define exactly what you want, like Buy Best Essential Oils UK. Adding the word ‘best’ means you will stand a much better chance of arriving where you want to end up…

Just adding the word ‘best’ to ‘essential oils UK‘ may seem insignificant… but it will make all the difference to search engines like Google.

Buy Best Essential Oils UK

Google understands your intention when you type your keywords into their search box. So, typing Buy Best Essential Oils UK will indicate you are looking for premium quality essential oils in the UK.

Buy Best Essential Oils UK will also make it absolutely clear you want to buy the best quality essential oils in the UK, rather than buying them from abroad.

Now do you see why ‘buy essential oils UK’ as a search term is likely to be ineffectual? Stating you want to buy essential oils in the UK is great… but the quality really matters. So, when you type in ‘buy essential oils uk,’ Google thinks you aren’t concerned about the quality of the essential oils.

Using very clear search terms, like Buy Best Essential Oils UK will go a good way towards helping you avoid the nasty, cheap, potentially harmful essential oils out there.

Organic Essential Oils

Stating that you want to ‘buy organic essential oils UK’ is probably as likely to deliver you good results as typing  ‘Buy Best Essential Oils UK’.

The essential oils listed will more often than not, be of medicinal grade. However, not all medicinal grade essential oils are organic. Non-organic essential oils can be therapeutic, (contain therapeutic benefits), but there’s a possibility that they will not be as clean as organic essential oils.

So, if it’s your intention to buy organic essential oils in the UK you will need to minimally put ‘buy organic essential oils UK’ into your browser.

In fact, it’s better to put ‘buy best organic essential oils UK’ for all the same reasons listed above.

People who are willing to sell you toxic products to maximise their profits will also not have any scruples about claiming an essential oil is organic when it is anything but! It’s called 2greenwashing”.

There is an awful lot of “greenwashing” going on in the UK Personal Care industry. So much so, in fact, the Soil Association runs a comprehensive database of some of the worst offenders. (You would likely be horrified by how many of the big ‘trusted’ brands are on the list. You can learn more about the Soil Association greenwashing database and access the Come Clean About Beauty League Table from the Wild As The Wind Ethos page.

Aromatherapy Oils

Some people call essential oils, aromatherapy oils… so, there’s no difference in the product… only in the name.

Funnily enough, however, putting ‘buy organic aromatherapy oils UK’ in your browser will deliver a completely different set of search results than when you use ‘buy organic essential oils UK’ as your search term. Plus, switching your browser will make the results different again.

The best advice I can ever give you is be as explicit as you can and also cross reference your results.

Reading reviews used to be more helpful than it is today because there are just so many fake reviews around. But, as long as you have a reasonable idea what a fake review looks like, then this could be a useful exercise.

Best Aromatherapy Oils UK

It doesn’t matter if you search for the best quality essential oils UK, or the best quality aromatherapy essential oils UK, just as long as you stick with best quality and ditch the cheapest essential oils UK and discounted essential oils UK etc…

But, please don’t forget that Wild As The Wind is completely committed to supplying the best quality aromatherapy essential oils UK, at the most affordable prices. So please make sure we make it into your condensed list of suppliers for the best quality aromatherapy essential oils UK.

Pure, Unadulterated Essential Oils

Wild As The Wind are completely committed to sourcing the most pure, unadulterated essential oils. We work with organic farmers who are also committed to producing pure, unadulterated essential oils.

We prefer to work with producers who distill their own essential oils. This is because the fewer hands the products go through, then the purer the essential oils are likely to be.

We also prefer to work with small farms around the world, but it isn’t always possible. It is the larger farms that can afford the best distilling facilities.

But, we still avoid farms that rip out hedges and plant vast mono-crops, practices which have a devastating impact on the quality of the soil and the environment in general. We need our wildlife, and our wildlife needs hedges! And we all need good soil quality! Without it our food and essential oils will be of poor quality.

The oils Wild As The Wind obtain through adhering to rigorous selection methods definitely fall into the pure, unadulterated essential oils category!

Essential Oils & Environmental Concerns

We will never purchase oils from producers who employ dangerous farming methods, which includes mono-cropping, but also includes chemicals.

So many people say that chemical fertilisers are the future of farming. But they are not. Organic farming is the future of farming!

Chemical fertilisers are usually derived from petrochemicals… and, as we all know, fossil fuels days are numbered!

Wild As The Wind very consciously select producers for their location. A lot of the oils we buy are from producers in the UK from plants grown in the UK.

Not only do we want to support UK businesses, but buying from UK producer means we have a much smaller carbon footprint than a lot of the bigger names in UK Essential Oils.

Essential Oil Quality

Essential oil quality is also of utmost importance. As mentioned already, approximately 75% of all of the essential oils sold globally are adulterated, often with toxic ingredients that bulk out the product, allowing the vendors to increase their profits. It is, therefore, critical to Wild As The Wind that only the best quality oils are selected.

What Makes A Good Quality Essential Oil?

Is it…

Premium Grade Essential Oils?

Nope!

Organic Essential Oils?

Nah!

Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils?

Er no…

What makes a good quality essential oil is the actual quality of the oil itself. All the fancy names, sadly, mean nothing!

So, a good quality essential oil is one that is made using excellent plant matter, has been extracted in a non-toxic way, and hasn’t been adulterated by anyone by the time it gets to you.

That’s what makes a good quality essential oil, and nothing else.

Wild As The Wind Essential Oils

In order to offer a full range of essential oils Wild As The Wind also sources some of it’s oils from other highly reputable UK based producer-suppliers.

[I] purchased frankincense oil from you at Wells Market and I have to say it is the best I have ever come across…so thanks…

Jane, UK

Our objective is always to track down the best quality essential oils available today.

We advocate you use an Essential Oil First Aid Kit to maintain your family’s health. We would not be able to sleep at night if we were selling cheap essential oils that did more harm than good.

Wild As The Wind Essential Oil Quality

When considering buying essential oils from a new producer or supplier we always put oil quality first.

As with so many things these days, the safety and quality of essential oils is being compromised for profit. At Wild As The Wind we blend oils to obtain optimal healing effects. The idea of cutting corners and selling cheaper essential oils, that could be potentially harming our customers, instead of curing them, is an anathema to us.

Even if you are only going to diffuse your essential oils, rather than apply them therapeutically to your body, you still need to be using a good grade of essential oil.

Not only are you ingesting the essential oils when you breath them in, but you are actually helping to deliver them straight to the brain. When using pure, unadulterated essential oils this is a really helpful and curative thing to do. But, if you are using adulterated, toxic essential oils, then obviously this would be really bad news.

Essential Oils By Wild As The Wind

Wild As The Wind Essential Oils are sourced from many different countries around the world. This is because the plants used to make the oils all require different growing conditions, so they cannot be produced in one place.

Extreme lengths are taken to ensure Wild As The Wind Essential Oils are the most pure and potent essential oils available.

As we carry essential oils with a view to selling them for their therapeutic use, we are meticulous about where we source our essential oils.

Essential Oil Producers

It is very important to meet with producers, but because producers are based all around the world this can be expensive and time consuming.

However, when it comes to our top selling product FACIAL OIL No. 2, it was vital to track down the best Organic Rose Essential Oil that money could buy.

A trip to Sofia yielded an incredible Organic Rose Essential Oil, but it also delivered up an incredible wild crafted Rosehip Oil, made using the rosehips from Dog Rose plants growing wild within the organic estate where the Organic Rose Essential Oil is made.

The trip also provided us with a phenomenal Organic Pine Essential Oil, as well as the following beautiful oils.

• Organic Wildcrafted Chamomile Blue Essential Oil
• Organic Lavender Essential Oil

Provenance is, of course, everything… So, we always request to see the GC-MS reports, (the chemical certificates that list the chemical make-up of the oils), for each new batch of essential oil we intend to buy.

It is important to understand why essential oil adulteration is extremely bad for our health, but may also limit our ability to heal ourselves in the future.

Essential Oil GC-MS Reports

Reputable suppliers provide GC-MS reports that are performed by independent labs. These are genuine proof of the chemical make-up of the essential oils being tested. They detail all of the chemical compounds present in the oils.

Although many lengths, most of which are very clever, are employed to disguise the adulteration of essential oils, the methods for testing them are very sophisticated and can identify impure essential oils in most cases.

Essential Oil Production

It is, therefore, very important to select essential oils from producers and wholesalers with a long and impeccable track record. Many makers of certain essential oils will end up wholesaling other essential oils from their preferred grower. Some will buy in plant material from their preferred supplier and will then distill the oil themselves. However, it would be very impractical to import plant materials from all around the world to create a full compliment of essential oils, so this approach cannot be applied across the board.

Essential Oil Production Methods

Essential oils are produced using different methods. Sayer Ji, of the wonderful GreenMedInfo, is an advocate of CO2 extraction. He considers it the most superior form of extracting essential oils. We are inclined to agree, but the technology is relatively new, and it is not always possible to find CO2 extracted oils. In addition, CO2 can be very expensive, and so, it’s not always commercially possible to choose this option and still make products that will be affordable for the people we are making them for.

Distilled Essential Oils

The majority of essential oils are extracted using steam distillation, however, which simply uses steaming hot water to remove the volatile oils. This method is entirely safe as it does not leave toxic residues within the essential oils.

More recently a percolation method has been adopted, which is very similar to distillation, the difference being that water is heated and passed down through the plant matter to extract the oil instead of heated water being passed upwards through the plant matter within the distillation process.

Poor Quality Essential Oils

Poor quality essential oils are generally extracted using solvents. Solvent extraction utilises alcohols and other chemicals to extract the volatile oils from plant matter. Invariably, residual toxins from the solvent are left within the oils.

An essential oil that has been extracted using solvents is not an adulterated essential oil. The fact that toxic residues are left in the essential oils manufactured in this way simply means that the oil is poor quality and inherently toxic without any toxic materials being added to the essential oil.

*We advise extreme caution when considering buying solvent extracted essential oils. The opinion of Wild As The Wind is that our health is far too important to risk buying solvent extracted essential oils.

Synthetic Essential Oils

Also, be even more aware of the risks involved in buying synthetic essential oils. Synthetic essential oils do not possess any healing properties, even if they smell similar to the genuine article.

Synthetic isolates mimic the natural constituents within the oils and allow the adulteration to be very widespread. These toxic ingredients are very cheap to produce but they transform a beautiful health-giving substance into something that could make us very ill indeed.

Essential Oil Absolutes

Essential Oil Absolutes smell amazing, (such as Rose Absolute), as these have been made for the perfume industry and have, thus, been modified to meet industry standards.

The standardisation of adulteration within the perfume industry is an entirely accepted practice… but, as perfume is one if the most toxic products you can put on your skin, this is hardly surprising.

The vast majority of essential oils have been produced for the perfume industry, which demands that the aroma of an oil is consistent from batch to batch. This is why adulteration is such an accepted practice. Results would be entirely inconsistent from batch to batch if the oils were not adulterated.

So, it is important to only buy oils that have been produced for aromatherapy purposes as these are less likely to be modified. But, not necessarily! It really is a case of Caveat Emptor… let the buyer beware!

Essential Oil Quality Checklist

• Has the essential oil been grown organically?
• Have the oils been third-party tested by a lab that issues GCSM Reports / chemical certificates?
• Do they smell right? Weak and synthetic oils are to be avoided at all costs!

Essential Oil Adulteration

Essential oil producers often dilute essential oils with non-volatile oils with a similar chemical make-up as these are less expensive, and therefore, increase profit margins.

These oils will, at least, not necessarily be toxic.

One high-profile Chemist recently tested a batch of Frankincense essential oil, only to find that the GC-SM Report looked almost identical to the Turpentine being sold at a budget store in the USA, (Home Depot). This is because the turpins are almost chemically identical in the two very different products.

Then there is a second species addition, such as the that of Cassia being added to Cinnamon essential oil, with Cassia being the cheaper ingredient.

Not only does this allow producers to maximise profits but it also means that the product is potentially toxic. There is a component in Cassia essential oil that is believed to be carcinogenic.

Thirdly, some essential oils are adulterated using natural constituents from much cheaper sources. For example, Frankincense, which has a constituent called alpha-pinene, is often adulterated using the natural isolate of alpha-pinene from turpentine.

It is not uncommon for essential oils to be so heavily diluted with adulterants that they are a mere shadow of the original, sometimes with as little as 20% of the original oil remaining. This means that some Frankincense samples obtained from commercial sources can be as much as 80% alpha-pinene isolate, as opposed to true Frankincense oils that are usually 40% – 50% alpha-pinene.

This means that the oil is only 20% Frankincense, and because many people take Frankincense internally, as a cancer cure, this is really bad news!

GC-MS Reports

GC-MS reports determine the quality of essential oils. GCMS stands for Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry, but we usually use the terms Chemical certificates when referring to these reports.

But again, beware, not all GC-MS reports are created equal either! There are only a few companies that can perform analyses that is sufficiently sophisticated to expose the heavily disguised adulterants in essential oils.

Essential Oil Starter Kit

The Wild As The Wind Essential Oil Starter Kit is designed to make your life really easy… It includes the best quality oils at affordable prices, and a beautiful storage tin that will preserve your oils longer than if they were exposed to sunlight…

Disclaimer

The information provided is not intended to replace the medical directives of your healthcare provider. This information is not meant for the diagnosis of health issues. If you are pregnant, have serious or multiple health concerns, consult with your healthcare provider before using essential oils or associated products. If you experience any complications or adverse reactions contact your healthcare provider. Deepen your knowledge by using the Wild As The Wind Recommended Resources Another resource you may find useful can be found by following the link below. *Please note, I use sources from the Recommended Resources list as well as sources from the Healthcare and Skincare Information Sources list when researching articles for the Wild As The Wind Blog. Wild As The Wind use a number of resources when deciding which essential oil formulas to put together for optimal healing and efficacy, as well as to support any health claims we may make. We use the industry ‘bible’ on essential oil safety: Essential Oil Safety: A Guide for Health Care Professionals [2nd Edition] by Robert Tisserand and Rodney Young, to establish the safety of the Wild As The Wind formulations. We owe a particular debt to GreenMedInfo, and, of course, the teachings of Valerie Ann Worwood, Julia Lawless, Shirley Price and Patricia Davis. Many of the scientific studies used to inform the claims made on this website are via GreenMedInfo, as well as via Dr. Josh Axe as well as, on the odd occasion, Dr. Eric Zielinski Other resources include:

• PubMed
• WebMD
• Robert Tisserand & Rodney Young
• Dr. Robert Pappas
• Dr. Maria Lis-Balchin
• Robbi Zeck
• Dr. Mercola