Boy, have I missed y'all! I've been over here having another baby, building a house, moving, expanding my business, and errthang else that comes with being a wife, mom, and makeup artist...whew! I finally have time to catch my breath and get back on the blogging bandwagon-I sure have missed filling up a page with my thoughts, findings, praises, and sometimes, rants. So here I am, back again and ready to type-*cracking knuckles*-and have I got a lot to say!
Well, lately, I have been on a healthy, organic, "crunchy" kick, if you will. I have stopped drinking coke (pop or soda for my Yankee readers), I have started making my own bread, I am REALLY trying to cut out artificial flavors and colors for my family and me, although, I can't give up the Haribo Gummi Bears-I just can't-it's against my European upbringing. And lastly, I have gotten REALLY into essential oils. I had seen many "recipes" for things using EOs-like soaps, lotions, and the like, but I had NO IDEA what EOs can really do. Believe me, y'all, they work miracles. Stung by a bee? There's an oil for that. Migraine? There's an oil for that. Not really in the mood for "brown chicken, brown cow"? There is an oil for THAT! Mmmmhmmm...I know, y'all are thinking I have lost my marbles, but they really are amazing.
I noticed that a friend of mine from church had been pinning a ton of EO stuff on Pinterest (what did we do before Pinterest?!) so of course, because I am nosy and become the semi-stalker when something piques my interest, I start looking at her pins. At first, like many, I am super-skeptical. Eczema cream, OK, but using EOs for PMS?! SIGN. ME. UP. So after stalking her page for a while, I facebooked her (doesn't anyone pick up the phone anymore?!) and told her I wanted to ask her more about these mysterious EOs. So sure enough, a couple of weeks later, I found myself sitting in a room with a few other church friends (shout out)and learned a lot.
Now, I am no expert, but I have been doing some of my own research and have found out some REALLY cool stuff! Example: The oil that is in pure, therapeutic grade, unadultereated essential oil (gosh, I sound smart) is the "blood" of the plant. And the blood of the plant is what carries the healing properties. Now, it is very important that the oils you buy are unadulterated-meaning that they don't have any crap added to them. You want the PUREST form of the oil-most of the time this comes from steam distillation, cold-pressed (citrus oils mainly), solvent extraction, and CO2 extraction. Yes, fascinating, isn't it? In my opinion, other than the proper use of oils (which we will get to in another post) this is hands-down THE MOST IMPORTANT thing about EOs.
Here's the thing...there are MANY EO companies out there claiming to be the best. So, I'm putting some of them to the test. I am testing, first and foremost, the quality of the oils. Then, I will look at prices, and lastly, but still very important, customer service of each company. The oil brands that I have already tried are:
Young Living, AuraCacia, Native American Nutritionals, Plant Therapy, and Nature's Kiss. *I am waiting for some from DoTerra, so I will add them later.
These oils come in a wide range of oil choices as well as a wide range of prices, so I will be very fair and list all the good with all the bad and then give you my opinion. And this is all it is-my opinion. I am not being sponsored (not yet, at least! wink, wink)by any of the oil companies listed, nor am I receiving compensation for my findings. I do not and will not sell any of the above mentioned oils, however I am happy to provide links to all of their websires/blogs/facebook pages so that you can make your own choice of oils and find these companies easily. If I have left out any companies that you deem worthy of checking out, please let me know and I'll do my best to get my paws on it and try it out.
I hope you'll continue my oily journey with me!
Thanks y'all, and that's it for the first night back...
Tune in tomorrow for another blogisode of "oily Mama"!!!
