Four Ways that Plant Therapy is Doing Essential Oils Right
Finally! The first company profile in the Marvy Moms series on essential oils. After interviewing over 20 essential oil companies I have learned soooo much about the incredible world of aromatherapy. I want to learn more and so a couple of weeks ago I started training for aromatherapy certification with Aromahead Institute. A couple of weeks before that I started studying to become a Certified Classical Homeopath at American Academy of Homeopathy and an herbalist at Botanical Medicine Institute. I’m excited to be able to share what I learn as I go along this path of discovery.
In my article, “How to Choose an Essential Oil Brand,” I asked you what company you would like me to cover first. One of the responses was Plant Therapy. They have been making quite a buzz lately since pairing up with essential oil safety expert, Robert Tisserand, and seemed a natural choice for the first company profile.
I received products free of charge from Plant Therapy in order to write a comprehensive company profile that includes my personal experience with the oils/products. This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the affiliate links, Marvy Moms will receive a percentage of any sale. This does not affect the amount you will pay for an item or service and in no way changes opinions expressed by Marvy Moms or Marvy Moms writers. For more info, see Marvy Moms Disclosure Policy.
Each company profile will have basic information about the company (owner name, number of employees, location, etc…), answers to the same questions I asked each company, an occasional bonus question or two, and my summary thoughts about the company.
Essential Oil Company Profile: Plant Therapy
Owned by: Chris Jones
Person Interviewed: Retha Nesmith (Marketing Manager & Certified Aromatherapist)
Interview Method: Email
Number of Employees: 20
Location: Twin Falls ID
Website: www.planttherapy.com
Number of Single Oils Sold: 99
Other Products Sold: Blends (including KidSafe blends), Sets, Roll-ons, Diffusers, Books, Carrier Oils, Blank Inhalers, Packaging (empty bottles for blending), miscellaneous supplies.
Oils Received:
- Clary Sage (Salvia sclarea)
- Bergamot (Citrus bergamia)
- Ylang Ylang (Cananga Odorata)
Other Plant Therapy Oils I Own:
- Blue Tansy (Tanacetum annuum)
- Clove Bud Organic (Syzygium aromaticum L.)
- Fir Needle (Abies sibirica)
What’s on the bottle:
- Oil name
- Botanical name
- Volume (number of ml)
- Cap label
- UPC code
- Website address
- Mailing address
- 1-800 phone number
- Facebook page URL
- “Caution: possibly skin sensitivity. Keep out of reach of children. If pregnant or under a doctor’s care consult your physician. For external use.”
- Suggested uses. For instance, Clary Sage says, “Clary Sage Essential Oil is viewed by aromatherapists as an antidepressant, antispasmodic, deodorant, emmenagogue, hypotensive, nervine, sedative, tonic, and uterine. It is well known for providing a euphoric action and for balancing uterine issues.
What’s in the bottle:
In addition to the oils that Plant Therapy sent me for this article, I also bought three additional oils from them. Blue Tansy is said to be a wonderful oil for allergies so I had to try it for myself. After opening and closing the bottle a few times, I started to notice my fingers turning blue, so I’ve put it aside for a little while until I make up an inhaler. (Blue Tansy actually is a blue oil.) I did notice a typo on the blue tansy bottle: the botanical name is listed as Tanacetum annoum rather than Tanacetum annuum, however, it is spelled correctly on their website.
I am no expert (yet), but each of the Plant Therapy oils I received seem to be good quality. Nothing seems off and I have no reason to believe that they aren’t exactly what they say they are. I’d say that Ylang Ylang is my favorite of all the Plant Therapy oils I have so far, and maybe of all essential oils. I think it’s one that people either love or hate, and I love it.
Q: Is Plant Therapy dedicated to supplying essential oils to the aromatherapy practitioner market and educated public?
A: “Plant Therapy was founded with two goals in mind, to provide the highest quality essential oils at a price that more people could afford and to provide the highest quality customer service. We do this a couple of ways. One of those ways is educating our customers. If you follow Plant Therapy you will quickly see that educating our customers is very important to us. We have a blog where we write many educational posts including “Can Essential Oils Be Ingested“, “15 Things You Should Know About Essential Oils“, “What is a Carrier Oil and Why Do I Need It” and many more! We also have a Safe Essential Oil Recipe group on Facebook where our customers (and non-customers) can share their safe recipes.”
Note: Plant Therapy also has a couple of YouTube videos with basic information about the use of essential oils. I hope that they will add more soon! Here’s one with Retha Nesmith, the aromatherapist I interviewed for this article:
Q: Is Plant Therapy on the small size and not a large corporation?
A: “Plant Therapy is not a large corporation. We are not an MLM company which is one of the reasons we can keep the costs of our essential oils down. We have one warehouse located in Twin Falls, ID where we bottle and label all the oils ourselves.”
Q: Is Plant Therapy owned by an aromatherapy practitioner or essential oil specialist?
A: “Plant Therapy’s owner is not an aromatherapist. However, when he started the company, he consulted directly with a certified aromatherapist and naturopathic doctor. We now work directly with a world renowned essential oil expert who does in house testing, a third party laboratory in France who does all of our GC/MS testing and we have two full-time certified aromatherapists on staff to answer any customer questions.”
Q: Do you have relations with your distillers?
A: “We absolutely do. We have been able to come in contact with some of the best and most well known distillers because of our relationship with our expert. We also have been able to personally visit some of the farms and distillers we work with. Because they are located all around the world we have not been able to visit all of them but continue to expand our visits all the time.”
Q: Can Plant Therapy readily supply a batch-specific GC/MS spec report on each essential oil it sells?
A: “We do supply these reports to our customers. We are also in the process up uploading all reports to our website. We have been working on this for quite some time, our website back end has not made it easy, and have just recently uploaded our first report. You can find that here“
Note: Plant Therapy now has GC/MS reports available for 15+ oils. Since there is no stock number or batch number on the bottle, it is unclear as to whether these are batch specific. It is nice, however, that they are making this information available directly from their website.
Q: Is Plant Therapy readily able to provide material safety data sheets (MSDS) as needed?
A: “This is not something we do on a regular basis but we have had a few customers who have wanted these reports and we have provided them.”
Q: Does Plant Therapy have a strong unquestioned noncontroversial reputation in the field?
A: “We are quickly gaining awareness and respect in the essential oil industry. As you can see from our “Can Essential Oils Be Ingested” post, we have worked with a lot of world renowned essential oil experts to provide the highest quality information and education for our customers. We plan on continuing our relationship with these experts.”
Q: Have you been in the field for a number of years and are you well known to other aromatherapy practitioners and/or educators?
A: “Plant Therapy officially started 2.5 years ago. It was originally another small company that was owned by a certified aromatherapist and it carried mostly all natural and organic body care products. She did sell a small line of essential oils. This company was bought by Chris, owner of Plant Therapy, who quickly decided to delve deeper into essential oils with the help of experts. He saw that there was a need for 100% pure, high quality essential oils that were more affordable.”
Q: I see that Robert Tisserand is now involved on a significant level with Plant Therapy. Please tell me about the nature of his involvement and how it impacts what you do at Plant Therapy.
A: “Robert Tisserand is a consultant for Plant Therapy and is acting as our essential oil expert. He consults us during the purchasing of the oils, the testing of the oils, storing of the oils, etc… He is also our safety expert, because who is better :), and created our new KidSafe line synergies and also helps us with the new descriptions we are writing for our website to make sure the information on every oil is correct and the absolute safest advice on usage.”
Q: What makes Plant Therapy different?
A: “From what our customers tells us, Plant Therapy is different for three main reasons:
- Our prices are more affordable.
- Our quality is absolutely top notch because we only sell oils that are 100% pure, free from any additives, adulterants or fillers. We also are providing all GC/MS reports to our customers through our website. We currently have about 15 reports on our website!
- Our customers service goes above and beyond any other companies. We offer free shipping in the United States and we also offer 100% customer satisfaction guaranteed.”
Q: What else would you like to tell me? Is there anything else that you think I should be considering that I haven’t yet?
A: “I think as you look and research more on Plant Therapy, that you will see we truly are a company that cares. We give hundreds of thousands of dollars to charities every year. We get the necessary experts working with us so that we can guarantee the quality of our oils are the absolute highest. We have two full time aromatherapists on staff to answer any and all customer questions. We are in the process of getting two more certified to have a total of 4 full time aromatherapists on staff!! We want our customers to be confident when using essential oils. Not only with why they are using the oil but how to use the oil to not waste any and to be the safest with these precious oils.”
My Impressions of Plant Therapy
Plant Therapy is a newer company that seems to be getting it right. With 20 employees, they are one of the larger companies I interviewed (many have 5 or fewer employees), and they are managing growth well. If you get on their email list, you will receive a weekly sale email with a coupon code to save money. I’ve already done this twice to get some oils I was missing and most recently to get a gallon of fractionated coconut oil.
Here are four ways that Plant Therapy is doing essential oils right:
- I am impressed with their eye toward safety and have found their Safe Essential Oil Recipe group to be extremely helpful. They also have a blog with tons of information, recipes, and tips for using essential oils. They are involved in the social media conversation about essential oils which helps them to see what information people are looking for, and they are responding. The fact that Robert Tisserand, the essential oil safety guru, is consulting for them, demonstrates to me that safety is a top value for this company.
- I love that Plant Therapy has recently released their line of KidSafe oils. Many people initially turn to essential oils because they are looking for natural alternatives to help their children. This is a wonderful thing, but since “Safety First with Essential Oils” is imperative, it can be daunting to find reliable information about which oils are safe or not with kids. Plant Therapy has taken out the guesswork and made it simple to know what to use with their KidSafe blends. Robert Tisserand created each blend for Plant Therapy with kid safety in mind.
- It may seem trivial, but perhaps my favorite thing about Plant Therapy is Free Shipping. This is not the same as 2-day Prime Shipping that you get on Amazon, but it is still FREE shipping. It will get to you faster or slower depending on how close you live to Twin Falls Idaho. Plant Therapy also sells products on Amazon, however, only a few of their products are Prime eligible. They are all still free shipping, but this is not the same as Prime 2-day shipping. Nice if you have an Amazon gift card to use up.
- Plant Therapy seems to be listening to what customers want and just announced that they will soon carry hydrosols. This is exciting news! Hydrosols are the water infused with plant material (including some essential oil) that is a byproduct of the distillation process of making essential oils. They are much gentler than essential oils and safer for use with children. (That will be my next series once I get through essential oils!) This is another indication to me that they are concerned about safety within the practice of aromatherapy.
I highly recommend trying several companies, and if you’re looking for a new supplier of essential oils, Plant Therapy is a great place to start. They don’t have everything (no one does), so you’ll have to try different companies anyway. Sign up to have Marvy Moms updates sent to your inbox to be sure you see all the essential oil company profiles as I post them!
HELP: I’m having trouble deciding what order to post the company profiles (can’t do alphabetical since I already started with Plant Therapy, lol). Please tell me in the comments what company you’d like to see next!
See more Essential Oils Company Profiles!
About Emily Carpenter
Emily is a Web Whiz, Blogger, Speaker, Student, and Mom. She is the owner of WhizBang! Web Solutions LLC, and the founder of Marvy Moms. She loves working from home so that she can be there for every possible moment with her son, JW. Learning as she goes, Emily breastfed, bought cloth diapers (but never used them), made her son’s baby food, had a family bed for nearly two years, and loves spending time with her son. Emily is a certified Level II Reiki practitioner and offers her services both in-person and remotely to people interested in this energetic healing modality. Emily is currently enrolled as a student at the American Academy of Homeopathy to become a Certified Classical Homeopath and has earned a diploma in botanical medicine at Botanical Medicine Institute. She is also a Certified Aromatherapist, and received her training from Aromahead Institute.
October 12, 2014 @ 9:22 pm
i just started using plant therapy a couple months ago and slowly adding more, and just added a diffuser. Their customer service is beyond amazing and helpful in my learning journey. I love the kid safe line and the fact that when I ask questions it’s a certified aromatherapist responding!
I’d also like to see mountain rose herb. I haven’t used them but have heard quite a bit about them
October 12, 2014 @ 10:21 pm
Glad to hear you’ve had a good experience with Plant Therapy, Jesslin! Mountain Rose Herbs would be a good one to do next, thanks for the suggestion.
October 12, 2014 @ 9:48 pm
I would like to know more about Spark Naturals in Utah. They are a very small and fairly new company, maybe started early last year. I have purchased some of the oils and they seem to be good quality. Customer service is good, shipping reasonable. They do not mention who owns the company on their website and there is no mention of the staff and their qualifications. The bottle lists the Latin name, part of the plant used, how distilled, CPPG (Certified Pure Pharma Grade which could be the grade they give their products), approximate number of drops in the bottle.
October 12, 2014 @ 10:24 pm
Spark Naturals is actually one that I haven’t reached out to yet, Ms Pat. I will contact them this week to see if I can get an interview with them.
October 12, 2014 @ 11:35 pm
Please consider interviewing AMEO essential oils. Brand new company, amazing scientific research backing their oils. You are able to look up each batch number off each bottle and see specific testing for each batch. I have been very impressed. We used to order all our oils from Europe but are so excited to have these quality oils in the states.
October 13, 2014 @ 2:43 pm
Britney, AMEO is not a company that I plan to interview. It’s great that they have batch-specific information, however, they are promoting unsafe practices on their website. Also, you need a bottle with a code to view the info, so I’m unable to look it up unless I buy their oils. Any company that refers to “Serving Size” when referring to essential oils and has “Supplement Facts” on the bottle is promoting unsafe ingestion of essential oils.
I looked through several of the single oils and every one refers to ingesting oils as well as using undiluted or at unsafe dilution levels. I see no prices on their site, because you have to purchase through a sales rep. This means inflated prices and the same issues of getting misinformation from a sales rep as other MLM companies. Essential Oils should only be used with lots of research outside of the company you are buying from. A certified aromatherapist is a great place to start and looking for forums where non-sales-rep people are seeking true information about the safe use of essential oils.
I don’t need to interview this company to know that I would never buy from them and wouldn’t recommend anyone else to either. Essential oils are amazing, just be safe out there.There are so many great companies to chose from. Keep reading these company profiles as I post them and I’m sure you’ll find a choice that works for you, is not crazy expensive, and has your health and safety in mind over profit.
October 13, 2014 @ 12:24 am
would love to see a review on beyoungth.com (Be Young Total Health), they do include report data links right on website, and also link to research with each oil.
October 13, 2014 @ 12:29 am
ps. the bottle lists the latin name, E.O.B.B.D guarantee of purity, the same certification used for medical industry in France I believe it is. the bottles also have a scan bar you can use with a smart phone to take you right to additional information and I believe the test results for that batch. They do say who owns the company and background, there is a company journey story on the website, lots of information so I’d be really curious what you come up with in an interview. http://www.beyoungth.com 🙂 thanks
October 13, 2014 @ 3:06 pm
Tammy, thanks for the suggestion, however, this is another company that I will not be interviewing. Here’s why:
1. They promote regular ingestion of essential oils. Sometimes ingestion is warranted, for short-term use, under the direct care of a highly trained and experienced clinical aromatherapist. They at least recommend you “Consult your naturopathic/homeopathic doctor for specific dosage for internal application”, however, why not an aromatherapist? A naturopathic or homeopathic doctor is not necessarily going to have any knowledge of the safe internal use of essential oils unless they are also trained as a clinical aromatherapist.
2. They promote using essential oils neat (undiluted) without any suggestions for dilution. For example, lemongrass, a known skin irritant, is suggested to “Apply 2-5 drops directly on desired location.” No more than a .7% dilution should be used with lemongrass topically (see that decimal point? That’s less than 1%).
3. They are furthering the “French, German, and English schools” of aromatherapy myth in order to make you feel safe ingesting and using essential oils neat so that they can sell you more oils.
4. The “Education” section of their website is empty. They have some pretty graphics that make you think that you will be learning something, but there is NO information there. After reading the rest of their website, I would not want to receive any “education” from them even if it were available.
That’s enough for me to know that I would run away from this company. Stick around as I add more company profiles, I’m sure that you will find one, or MANY that will get you the results you’re looking for. Keep asking questions, keep learning, and remember safety first with essential oils.
January 19, 2015 @ 8:14 pm
I would love to hear about Eden Garden and Heritage. I love Doterra but researching other options.
February 25, 2015 @ 12:59 pm
Hi, I’ve recently found your blog, and I first want to say that I really enjoy it! I’d like to see you review a few of the MLM companies such as Simply Aroma, Doterra, and Young living. Also, if you could, I would like to know more about the school you are attending. I am interested in becoming a certified classical homeopth as well. Any information you could provide me would be greatly appreciated. Have a blessed day! 😀
February 25, 2015 @ 10:42 pm
I’m glad you are enjoying Marvy Moms, Jamie! My goal in this essential oils series is to give people alterntaives to the big MLM companies and so I do not plan to interview any of them at this point. If you haven’t already seen it, take a look at my article, “Safety First With Essential Oils” to get a better idea of my reasoning.
The homeopathy school I’m attending is local to me, American Academy of Homeopathy, and I’m studying under Dr. Les Moore. It’s a three-year program and I’m about half way through my first year. If you don’t have anything local, there are some online schools. The Council for Homeopathic Certification is a great place to look to learn about the steps you will need to take to become certified.
March 1, 2015 @ 4:49 am
I would love to hear about Heritage
March 12, 2015 @ 4:41 am
I would love your evaluation on EDEN’s GARDEN & JADE BLOOM.
April 13, 2015 @ 1:30 am
I would also love your evaluation of Jade Bloom!!! Thank you so much for doing this blog 🙂
May 13, 2015 @ 1:44 pm
Hello! I just discovered this website and I LOVE it–wow, the profile on the companies is wonderful–something we desperately need. For company profiles, I do agree with some of the commenters above regarding Heritage. They have a lot of information on their website and another site indicated they have good oils. Secondly, I also would like to see reviews on the following. They’ve been recommended to me and I’ve liked them, but there was an oil that I received from one of these companies that smelled NOTHING like one I received from Wyndmere. It actually smelled like rotten paint varnish:
1) Original Swiss Aromatics
2) Floracopeia
3) Oshadhi
4) Amrita
5) Aromatics international
6) Botanicessence
7) Essential Vitality
Also, I am interested in knowing more detail about extraction, primarily CO2 method vs phytonic method. I understand that CO2 is gaining popularity but isn’t this altering the oil in some way? In terms of testing, the 3rd party certifications, in my understanding, are only a feel good method of making someone feel good about the oil they’re purchasing. While the GCMS method can identify what constituents are in the oils, they really can’t detect other forms of adulteration. For example, an oil that’s been redistilled (so peppermint can smell like candy will show a good GCMS but no one would know that this is highly processed). I’ve also read that it can’t detect when an oil has been cut with a cheaper oil–I don’t understand this because a cheaper oil’s constituents should be detected by GCMS. Also the GCMS to my understanding can’t detect diluents that are synthetic. So you see, there’s just so much confusion about testing, purity, quality…I just wish the companies were much more transparent on their sites. Thank you for any information you can provide. I find it surprising how difficult it is to find all of this explained simply.
August 19, 2015 @ 5:46 pm
Of Course a GC test will tell you what dilutants are included. Of course the adulterating cheaper oil's constituents will show up on the GC test. Confusion only comes from lower levels of knowledge and experiences. What is wrong with redistillation to remove undesirable molecules, and clean up the scent?
August 19, 2015 @ 7:00 pm
Paul, it depends on what your purpose for using the oil is. If it’s for perfume, then redistillation may make sense to get the right scent. However, if the goal is aromatherapy, the redistillation will alter, and in most cases lessen, the therapeutic properties.
May 15, 2015 @ 3:44 am
Thanks so much for all your research. I’m interested in knowing more about Aura Cacia since it’s easily accessible from our health food stores.
May 16, 2015 @ 9:04 am
Monique, from everything I’ve read, Aura Cacia is a solid company. They have been around for decades and test all of their oils. I personally would buy directly from Frontier when getting their oils so that they are not sitting on a shelf exposed to heat and light, however, in a pinch it’s great to have them so easily available at the local grocery store and health food store. I have tried to get in touch with them for an interview, but with such a large company, they are difficult to contact.
May 20, 2015 @ 12:13 pm
Great! Thanks also for the tip on ordering directly from Frontier 🙂
May 26, 2015 @ 11:24 pm
Hi! Have you done any research on Veriditas Botanicals? It is sold at our local health food store.
May 27, 2015 @ 9:17 am
Ila, I have not yet researched Veridtas Botanicals. One red flag I see is on the “Product Displays” page on their website where they proudly show a picture of, “Tao Foods in Minneapolis offering Organic Lemon Essential Oil to flavor water.” This is not something I’d want to advertise. It doesn’t mean their oils are bad (I know nothing about them), it just means I’d use caution until I know more.
I may get to them eventually, but have lots more to profile first.
August 25, 2015 @ 12:12 pm
Hi there!
Thanks for sharing all your research! Have you looked into Nature’s Inventory at all? They’re located in Washington state. Curious to see what you think.
September 15, 2015 @ 1:15 am
I would like to see a profile on Edens Garden.
Thank you for the information. Enjoyable and informative.
September 16, 2015 @ 1:58 pm
Hi! Loving this review, I’m thinking I want to give them a try next.
I have ordered from Butterfly Express for a few years now, but I would like to know if you have any info on them, or have ever reached out to interview them.
Thanks!
January 4, 2016 @ 7:51 pm
I have also heard good things about Butterfly Express. I would love to hear more about them!
October 10, 2015 @ 11:04 pm
Great info! So far, all my research has made me want to try NAN and Plant Therapy EO’s. Have you heard of a company Simply Aroma?
October 11, 2015 @ 4:33 pm
Leslie, I have heard of Simply Aroma and decided not to interview them based on the fact that they have gone down the path of many other MLM companies and promote unsafe use of essential oils (such as casual ingestion and neat use of oils).
October 23, 2015 @ 10:05 pm
Will you give information on: NOW, Health Fusion and Butterfly Express? Thanks and God bless.
December 26, 2015 @ 5:14 pm
I would suggest a best before date on the bottom of plant therapy EO’S.
December 26, 2015 @ 5:21 pm
In addition to a best before date (and more importantly), I’d love to see all essential oil companies include a distillation date on single essential oils. Then the consumer can have a better idea of when they should be concerned that an oil is past its prime, or even dangerous from oxidation.
December 21, 2016 @ 3:28 pm
Would love to see a profile on NOW foods and Mountain Rose essential oils. Also, you may have posted somewhere else, but now that you are a certified aromatherapist, what oils do you use?
December 21, 2016 @ 6:26 pm
Heidi, I have done a profile on Mountain Rose Herbs: http://marvymoms.com/mountain-rose-herbs/
As far as what oils I use, do you mean a specific brand? If so, this is the most common question I get asked and also the one I will never answer. My goal is to empower people to educate themselves enough to make this important decision based on their own values and requirements. Keep looking around Marvy Moms and hopefully you’ll find a company that works for you.
May 22, 2017 @ 4:31 am
Hi, will you do an interview with Enfleurage? I came across this brand while researching for YL alternatives and will love to hear your take on them.