I was recently approached by two different essential oil companies, Alayna Naturals and Pure Body Naturals, to receive their Top 6 Essential Oils at a discount in exchange for my honest review. Since the two kits looked almost identical, I thought this was the perfect chance to compare these two companies and really see if they offered the same quality of oils. Here’s what I found:
Price: Pure Body Naturals is a teeny bit less expensive –
but only by about a dollar. Not much of a difference.
Scent: When essential oils are collected, manufacturers can speed up the collection process by using a combination of high heat and/or high pressure. Unfortunately, this produces a lower grade of essential oil. When it comes to oils, “Slow and steady wins the race”. Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to determine if high heat or pressure was used when comparing Peppermint Oils! When you smell peppermint oil, you want the oil to be more similar to that of a mint plant than of a candy cane. A candy cane smell means that either high heat or high pressure (or both!) was used in the process. Thankfully, both Alayna Naturals and Pure Body Naturals had very herb-y smelling Peppermint Oils. Side note, our Majestic Pure smelled just like bottled candy canes!
Evaporation: Alayna Naturals claims that these are 100% pure essential oils with no additives, fillers, bases, or carriers added. Pure Body Naturals doesn’t make any sort of claim on the pureness of their oils – in fact, most of their product description is used to advertise their other products and not the product on the page. I compared the Peppermint oils for the two
companies, plus threw in a 3rd company, Majestic Pure. I also happened to have a 4 oz bottle of
Peppermint oil from Pure Body Naturals, so I thought, “Why not?!”. They should end up being identical.. right?? Maybe??
For each test, I tried to place one drop onto a white standard
sheet of construction paper. If an essential
oil is truly pure, it will eventually evaporate without leaving an oily ring or
residue behind. You can see in the first
picture, after just 30 minutes, the Alayna Naturals has already almost fully evaporated,
but it has left behind an oily ring with a white residue inside – and wrinkled
the paper underneath it. Essential oils should NOT completely evaporate that quickly! This outcome
alone makes me wonder if I really want to be using the oil on myself, even in a
carrier oil!
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| Evaporation Test of Peppermint Oil. (After 30 minutes, After 24 hours) |
The other two essential oils are slowly working, as expected. After 24 hours, everything
has fully evaporated, but the Pure Body Naturals has left the biggest oil
residue of them all. Interestingly
enough, the 4 oz Pure Body Naturals hasn’t left any residue?! There’s definitely some consistency issues
going on with this company.
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| Evaporation Test of Lavender Oil. (After 30 minutes, After 24 hours) |
The same tests with Lavender oil had almost the same results
– except all 3 brands ended up leaving an oily residue behind. I’m beginning to wonder if you can truly find
a quality essential oil on Amazon L
pH: I’ll be honest, I have no idea if pH even matters
when it comes to essential oils. I tried
doing research on it, but all I’ve been able to locate is how you can use
essential oils to alter your own pH. If
anyone has any insight on acceptable pH ranges, I’d love to hear from you! Since we had pH strips, we decided just to
see if there was a difference – and there was!
In each case, Pure Body Naturals came up a good .5-.75 more acidic than Alayna
Naturals. In every Pure Body Naturals
oil, the pH was less than 5.0.
Packaging: From the outside, these bottles looked identical,
so I was surprised to experience so much of a difference when actually using
them. The dropper for Alayna Naturals is
really hard control. Every time I tried
to get just one drop out, I ended up spilling the oil all over the paper – and myself.
(So, I apologize for the mess in my
photos). The Alayna Naturals oils just seemed so thin and difficult to manipulate, unlike any other essential oils that I've used in the past.
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| Density Issues between Tea Tree Oils |
Our last test happened purely on accident. While combing some off the different Tea Tree
oils together in a glass vial to make some household cleaner, I noticed that
one essential oil was clearly floating on another. If these are all the same essential oils,
their densities should all be pretty comparable, right? So, I went ahead and filled three clear glass
vials halfway with water and gently dropped the essential oil on top. Pure Body Naturals and Majestic pure worked exactly
as expected – the oil stayed on top of the water and did not combine. Alayna Naturals, however, immediately mixed
right in with the water, leaving behind a swirly vortex of chemical-looking
trails.
In the end, I strongly have to warn you – DO NOT buy Alayna
Naturals! I still have mixed feelings about the other two companies, between Majestic Pure failing the scent test and the oily residue left behind with all brands on the lavender oil. I just don't know! What brand of essential oils do you prefer? Let me know in the comments - I'd love to put more to the test!
