Young Living Essential Oils Reviews: Purity, Price & Verdict
By Ellen Cooper, independent essential-oil reviewer (hands-on since 2018, no MLM affiliation)
Young Living makes decent oil. I want to say that first, because most independent reviews of this company read as though the product itself were fraudulent, and it is not. What is genuinely open to question is the price you pay, the claims its distributors make, and the regulatory record the company has accumulated. Those are three separate arguments and they deserve to be kept separate.
Quick answer: The oils are real and the farms are real. The price is high because a distributor network sits between the bottle and you, not because the oil is better. Young Living has an FDA warning letter (2022) and a $5 million class-action settlement (2024) on its record, and its own income disclosure shows the typical distributor earns almost nothing.
Why is Young Living so expensive?
Because you are not only buying oil. You are funding the person who sold it to you, the person above them, and the compensation plan that connects them.
This is not an accusation – it is how multi-level marketing works, and Young Living does not hide it. But it has a consequence people rarely spell out: a meaningful share of what you hand over never touches the product. Buy the same species, distilled to a comparable standard, from a company that sells direct, and it costs a fraction as much. That gap is the network, not the quality.
Young Living’s answer is Seed to Seal – its farms, its distilleries, its control of the supply chain from planting onwards. That vertical integration is genuine and it does cost money. What it does not do is justify the whole multiple, because the non-MLM brands sourcing from the same regions publish per-batch lab reports at a third of the price. You are paying for provenance and for the sales structure, and only one of those ends up in the bottle.
Are Young Living oils actually pure?
Almost certainly yes – with one caveat about how you know.
Seed to Seal is a real quality programme covering sourcing, distillation and testing, and I have seen nothing credible suggesting Young Living sells adulterated oil. The caveat is that Seed to Seal is Young Living’s own standard, defined and administered by Young Living. It is not an external certification that an independent body audits.
Compare that with how Plant Therapy or Edens Garden operate: an outside laboratory tests each batch and the report is published for the lot you bought. You do not have to trust the company’s word, because you can read the chromatogram. With Seed to Seal, you are trusting a company’s account of its own quality – probably accurate, but structurally weaker as evidence.
One term to disregard entirely: “therapeutic grade”. No independent body issues that certification. It is marketing language, and Young Living itself agreed to stop using it – which brings us to the record.
What are the criticisms of Young Living?
Three things, all documented rather than alleged.
The FDA warning letters. On 10 June 2022 the FDA issued Young Living a warning letter (RE 615777) stating that products across its Essential Oil, Vitality, NingXia and Nature’s Ultra CBD lines were being marketed as unapproved new drugs and were misbranded, with “no FDA-approved application … in effect”. An earlier letter had landed in September 2014 on similar ground. Two letters eight years apart suggests a pattern in how claims travel through the distributor layer.
The $5 million settlement. In May 2024 Young Living settled MacNaughton v. Young Living for up to $5,000,000, covering purchases between 1 January 2017 and 25 April 2024. The suit challenged the company’s health-benefit and “therapeutic-grade” claims, and as part of the settlement Young Living agreed to drop “therapeutic-grade” from its labelling and marketing (ClassAction.org). The NAD and NARB had already found the company’s “therapeutic” claims unsupported in November 2020, and the watchdog Truth in Advertising maintains a running file on the brand’s marketing (Top Class Actions covered the case history).
Distributor health claims. A Business Insider investigation documented Young Living requiring distributors to delete more than 1,500 improper health-claim posts, including claims that oils could treat Ebola and cancer. The company acting on those posts is to its credit; that there were 1,500 of them is the problem.
What do Young Living distributors actually earn?
This matters if you are considering the business rather than the oil, and the company publishes the numbers itself.
According to Young Living’s own 2024 US Income Disclosure Statement, 72.1% of all Brand Partners sit at the entry-level Associate rank, where average annual earnings are about $24 and the median is $0 – gross, before the cost of product purchases and business expenses. Across all ranks the average is $747 and the median is still $0.
Some people at higher ranks do earn substantial income; that is real too. But the typical experience of signing up is earning nothing while buying product, and the commission structure that produces those numbers is baked into every retail bottle you buy.
Young Living vs the non-MLM brands
| Brand | Testing | MLM? | Verification you can read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Young Living | Seed to Seal, proprietary | Yes | Company’s own account |
| Plant Therapy | Third-party GC/MS, per batch | No | Published lot report |
| Edens Garden | Batch GC/MS via Essential Oil University | No | Published lot report |
| NOW Foods | GC/MS via specialised third-party lab | No | Lot-level Certificate of Analysis |
| doTERRA | CPTG, proprietary | Yes | Company’s own account |
Our essential oil brand reviews hub compares all of these, including Rocky Mountain Oils.
If you are buying Young Living anyway
Plenty of people are here because a friend sells it, they like the oils, and they want an honest read rather than a lecture. Fair enough.
Buy singles rather than kits – lavender, peppermint, lemon and frankincense cover most of what people actually do, and kits bundle things you will not touch. Our guide to the most popular essential oils is a better shopping list. Ignore any distributor advice about internal use unless it comes from a clinician. And treat every health claim you hear at a party as marketing until you can find the study yourself; our guide to using essential oils covers the safe applications.
Where to buy Young Living
Officially it is distributor-only or through the company site, which is part of the model. Third-party listings exist but you lose any provenance guarantee, which is the main thing you are paying for – so if you are buying this brand, buy it through the official channel or not at all. If a diffuser is on the list too, our diffuser vs humidifier guide explains which device you actually need.
Non-MLM Essential Oils to Try Instead
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product details and availability are subject to change – check the live listing on Amazon.
| Image | Product | Best for | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Lagunamoon Essential Oils Aromatherapy Set | Budget starter set | Buy on Amazon |
 | Essential Oils Set by Pure Aroma | Affordable gift set | Buy on Amazon |
 | SVA Cedarwood Essential Oil 4 Fl Oz | Grounding, woodsy scent | Buy on Amazon |
 | Cliganic Organic Lavender Essential Oil | Organic & calming | Buy on Amazon |
 | Cliganic Organic Essential Oils Set | Organic starter set | Buy on Amazon |
Affiliate links · details and availability change · check the live Amazon listing.
The verdict
Young Living sells genuine oil at a price inflated by its distribution model, with a regulatory record that no amount of farm photography cancels out: an FDA warning letter in 2022, an earlier one in 2014, a $5 million settlement in 2024, and an income disclosure showing the median distributor earns nothing.
If you love the products and the price does not bother you, use them – they are not dangerous and they are not fake. If you are buying on the belief that the price reflects superior purity, buy Plant Therapy or NOW Foods instead, read the batch report, and keep the difference.
Purity is checkable, but not by you and not by price. Our essential oil purity guide covers what the laboratory work actually proves, and what a company-defined standard like Seed to Seal can and cannot tell you.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Young Living so expensive?
Because the price funds a multi-level distributor network as well as the oil. A share of every bottle pays the person who sold it and their upline. Young Living’s vertically integrated Seed to Seal farms do add genuine cost, but comparable oils from direct-to-consumer brands with published third-party lab reports sell for a fraction of the price.
What are the criticisms of Young Living?
Three documented ones: an FDA warning letter in June 2022 (and an earlier one in 2014) over products marketed as unapproved new drugs; a $5 million class-action settlement in May 2024 in which the company agreed to drop “therapeutic-grade” from its marketing; and a Business Insider investigation documenting over 1,500 improper distributor health-claim posts.
Are Young Living oils pure?
There is no credible evidence they are adulterated. The caveat is verification: Seed to Seal is Young Living’s own standard, administered by Young Living, rather than an independent certification. Brands like Plant Therapy and Edens Garden publish external per-batch GC/MS reports you can read for your specific lot.
How much do Young Living distributors make?
Per the company’s 2024 US Income Disclosure Statement, 72.1% of Brand Partners are entry-level Associates earning an average of about $24 a year with a median of $0, before expenses. Across all ranks the average is $747 and the median remains $0.
Is “therapeutic grade” a real certification?
No. No independent body issues it, and there is no agreed industry standard behind the phrase. Young Living agreed to remove it from its labelling and marketing as part of the 2024 class-action settlement.
How we review essential oil brands
I buy what I write about, I take no free samples, and affiliate links never influence a rating. Assessments rest on regulatory filings, court records, company income disclosures and published testing documentation – not on marketing. Where a claim is the company’s own, I say so in the sentence.
Medical disclaimer: This article is general information, not medical advice, and does not diagnose or treat any condition. Never apply essential oils neat or ingest them, and check with a qualified professional before using them during pregnancy, while nursing, around children, with a medical condition, or alongside medication.
