Choosing the right essential oil company for your own needs is a deeply personal choice and experience. There are a lot of essential oil companies on the aromatherapy market vying for your attention and for good reason. Essential oils have become extremely popular and using nature to help us grow and heal and live harmoniously is a truly humbling journey and one that will only expand as the years move on.

With that in mind, in this post, we offer you, the reader, a more in-depth look at the myriad of differences between Young Living and Edens Garden essential oil company. While for some, the choice between these two companies may only come down to the name of the brand, for others, it may also include the quality of the oils, the transparency of the company, or perhaps even the intimacy of a smaller brand. 

One of the most profound differences between the essential oil brand Edens Garden and Young Living is the business model. With Edens Garden, it's simple, caring deeply for the customers' well-being, Edens Garden prefers to sell its high-quality oils, free of synthetic chemicals directly to consumers without a middleman (or woman). We do not require membership for purchases and we offer our products to you with transparency in product testing and quality control.

With Young Living, purchasing their products can be a bit more complicated which we will dive into in this article but for starters, Young Living is a much larger organization and functions under a Multi-Level Marketing business model (MLM) and to make a purchase with Young Living, you must first become a member. 

Let's dig a bit deeper to get a better understanding of this top-heavy business model.

What is an MLM?

An MLM business model uses its members to sell products in the shape of a pyramid. For Young Living, their sales are made by essential oils and the offshoots of products they make related to essential oils. Those at the top of this pyramid technically make the most money - via commissions from all the “salespeople” aka members under their lead. To understand it better, let's look at the process of becoming a new member. 

Say you want to purchase a bottle of Young Living essential oil or a blend. First, you sign up as a new member under a current member - this level is called “preferred customer” where you pay the retail price for their product. This level has no fees attached. But the catch is, you can only purchase YL products from under the wing of one of their current members who make a commission on any purchases made by you. If you want to level up and try to sell the oils, you become a brand partner. The full structure's pay scale is listed here.

When you become a brand partner, you move up one notch on the pyramid. You are eligible to purchase YL products at wholesale pricing (24% below retail.) At this level, you need to purchase $50 of products per year plus their Business Essentials kit to maintain this membership. To increase your commission base, you need people under you buying and selling YL products. 

The major snag in this MLM business model is the high price tag of their products. Each of their product's prices is padded to help to pay all of the commissions up the levels of the pyramid. So when you purchase, you are paying for the commissions plus the product cost. What we really want to get at here is, when you purchase essential oils from YL, the extra cost of the essential oil is not because their oils are any better, more therapeutic or purer than other companies - it's because they have to cushion the prices to pay the commissions. 

Well then, what's so great about Edens Garden? When Edens Garden was first started in 2009, Grace Martin had the desire to share the natural living she loved so much with others. In her own words, she states: 

“Providing affordable access to wholesome, safe and toxic-free aromatherapy options is my way of sharing my passion for nature with others. With humble gratitude, I am so proud of the values and integrity that Edens Garden holds. We don't compromise quality. We offer the best oils at accessible prices. We are transparent about our sourcing and process. We guide with education. We never take the shortcut.”

1. Transparency & Product Quality

Edens Garden offers pure, additive-free, unadulterated essential oils to give peace of mind in knowing not only where the product is sourced but also the transparency of testing including GC/MS through independent labs. 

Edens Garden also has a benchmark for standards respecting plant and essential oil sourcing. “Each farm and distillery we partner with must follow Edens Garden code of ethics and meet our standards for quality and sustainability. And while our mission in sourcing is to provide our family of customers with the highest quality essential oils available, it’s also to create two-way, synergistic relationships with the farms and distilleries we partner with.”

If you have studied essential oils you know it is imperative to be able to access GC/MS testing to understand the percentage of therapeutic grade constituents that an essential oil contains when blending essential oils into healing products.  This ensures the health benefits of essential oils. Young Living does not offer their GC/MS reports to the end user. Because of this secrecy, can you truly be sure that YL oils are pure and not adulterated? Why keep this information a secret? 

2. Production 

Each and every one of Edens Garden essential oil products are hand-poured by our team as opposed to machine pouring which helps to maintain the purity specification. Machine pouring, used by many essential oil companies always comes with the potential for cross-contamination. 

We are proud to say that hand pouring means zero cross-contamination from one product to the next. Pouring equipment and beakers are continuously cleaned and maintained to assure proper sanitation and our employees always wear personal protective gear when working.  

3. Affordable & Comparable Products

Without the cost of brick-and-mortar stores, our essential oil products are kept especially affordable through wholesale pricing granted to everyone. We also offer sales throughout the year that often give up to a 25% off deal across the board. Plus, if desired, you can join the Aroma Notes program so you can gain rewards on future orders. Edens Garden also carries discounted bulk sizes of our most popular products. 

The ease of purchasing directly through Edens Garden’s website without a membership takes a lot out of the equation.  For example, let's look at the single oil Lavender. Young Living carries a 15 ml bottle for $35. Edens Garden also sells the same pure Lavender oil in a 30 ml bottle (twice the amount of essential oil) for $33.95!

We carry a number of products that compare with some Young Living essential oil blends. If you are interested in understanding more about this, we have a comparison chart you can peruse at your leisure. For example, Young Livings essential oil blend Thieves oil is comparable to Edens Garden’s Fighting Five essential oil blend.

4. Women-Owned & Operated Business

Size matters. Since 2009, Edens Garden has been a close-knit, family-owned and women-operated team with a direct-to-consumer business model. Edens Garden strives to put people over profit and keep investors and large growth operators out of the picture. Keeping the business small benefits quality, sustainability and the desire to be true to our customers. 

On top of all this, EG adheres to its Seeds Of Goodness program which donates a percentage of profits to “organizations dedicated to making the world a healthier, happier place.”

And on the other hand, Young Living is a behemoth in the essential oil industry. As of 2022, Young Living has approximately 3000 employees, not including independent distributors. They avow: “We are setting our sights high for the future!" Young Living was one of only 16 companies on the list to surpass $1 billion in revenue, and one of only 7 to cross the $2 billion milestone. 

Who would you rather support?

SOURCES:

1. https://www.youngliving.com/us/en/company/media/announcements/young-living-named-to-top-10-of-direct-selling-news-global-100-list
2. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/multi-level-marketing.asp
3. https://www.youngliving.com/en_HK/customer-service/how-to-become-a-yl-member
4. https://www.edensgarden.com/pages/ethical-sustainable-sourcing-and-production
5. https://www.edensgarden.com/pages/ethical-sustainable-sourcing-and-production
6. https://www.edensgarden.com/pages/about-us
7. https://www.edensgarden.com/blogs/news/meet-our-fearless-leader-grace-martin
8. https://www.edensgarden.com/blogs/news/edens-gardens-essential-oil-sourcing-standards