VoniaStore – Official doTERRA Reseller
The Vonia team, as an official doTERRA reseller, is committed to bringing its customers the purest essential oils and accessories available on the market. All of our products come directly from doTERRA. Once orders have been processed, we aim to dispatch the products to our customers immediately.
However, based on feedback from our customers, we have encountered counterfeit doTERRA products on the Hungarian market. These most commonly appear on online marketplaces and, in our experience, are introduced into the Hungarian market by foreign sellers. Vonia strives to offer its customers the best possible prices, and we have many fair competitors who also offer good prices through promotions. However, if you find prices lower than ours, we recommend checking the credibility of the seller or the expiry date of the discounted product.
How pure are doTERRA essential oils?
Purity is one of the most important characteristics of an essential oil. If an essential oil is mixed with contaminants, its effectiveness in meeting the intended needs may be reduced. Purity is paramount to doTERRA and is a primary priority in the production of essential oils.
How does doTERRA ensure that its essential oils are pure?
From the very beginning, our mission has been to share pure, high-quality essential oils with the world. However, because there was no clear standard for essential-oil purity at the time, doTERRA decided to establish its own standard of purity for the essential-oil industry.
Not every essential-oil company chooses to operate according to rigorous testing standards. In fact, many skip important steps to save money or time. Unfortunately, without proper testing, it is impossible to ensure that an essential oil is truly “pure”.
To help ensure that every bottle of essential oil is pure and free from contaminants or synthetic fillers, doTERRA created its CPTG™ Certified Pure Tested Grade process. CPTG processes subject every batch of oil to rigorous testing to support transparency, together with additional third-party testing.
Why is it important to use pure essential oils?
People sometimes ask: “Does the purity of an essential oil really matter?” or “What happens if I use essential oils that are not pure?”
The answer is yes – the purity of an essential oil matters. If you use an oil that has been mixed with contaminants or altered with synthetic fillers, the plant’s natural beneficial properties may be compromised.
This is why doTERRA cares so deeply about the purity of its essential oils. When using a contaminated oil, it can be much more difficult to experience the intended benefits and to use the oil safely. By contrast, when using pure essential oils free from contaminants, you can remain within the boundaries of safe use and experience the oils at their full potential.
How can we know whether we are using pure essential oils?
How can you tell whether the essential oils you use are pure? Before purchasing essential oils, it is best to do some research into how the company sources, produces and tests its oils.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:
- Plant quality: Does the company use high-quality plants to produce its essential oils? Are the plants grown under appropriate conditions and according to suitable cultivation practices?
- Production practices: Does the company use safety procedures to prevent contamination during production? Are contaminants present in the oils, or are synthetic fillers added?
- Testing methods: Does the company test every batch of essential oil? Is independent third-party testing used? Are the test results available to the public?
- Storage and handling: Are processing, packaging and storage carried out with sufficient care to prevent chemical changes caused by heat or light? (Amber glass is generally the best choice for storing essential oils.)
Ensuring the purity of essential oils: the CPTG process
doTERRA begins its CPTG testing process shortly after distillation, when the chemical composition of each oil is reviewed. A second round of testing is carried out at the doTERRA manufacturing facility to verify that the oils distilled and tested in the first round are the same oils that arrived at the facility. When the oils are bottled, a third review of their chemical composition is performed before they are shipped to customers.
Each test is performed to help ensure that the essential oils contain no contaminants and that no unexpected changes occur during production.
8 ways to verify the purity of doTERRA essential oils
The CPTG quality-testing process consists of eight main steps designed to help ensure that every batch of doTERRA essential oils is pure, free from contaminants and safe for direct use.
doTERRA uses the following tests to help ensure the purity of its essential oils:
- Organoleptic testing
- Microbial testing
- Gas chromatography
- Mass spectrometry
- Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)
- Chirality testing
- Isotopic analysis
- Heavy-metal testing
Using organoleptic testing to determine essential-oil purity
Organoleptic testing relies on the human senses, with particular emphasis on sight, smell, taste and touch. For an experienced distiller, the senses are the first line of quality-testing indicators because they provide immediate signals as to whether a product is acceptable. An unusual aroma, uneven consistency or unusual colour can immediately indicate to a distiller that something is not right. This testing method is often used as a preliminary quality-control step before any further testing is performed.
Using microbial testing to determine essential-oil purity
Microbial testing involves analysing each batch of essential oil to identify the presence of unexpected microorganisms such as fungi, bacteria, viruses or mould. During the process, a sample of the product is placed in a sterile growth medium in a sealed container or plate. The sample is then incubated and monitored for microbial growth. Testing is performed both on products arriving at the manufacturing facility and on finished products ready for distribution in order to verify that no contamination occurred during bottling.
Using gas chromatography to determine essential-oil purity
During gas chromatography testing, essential oils are vaporised and passed through a long column to separate them into their individual components. Each component moves through the column at a different rate depending on its molecular weight and chemical properties, which are measured as the component leaves the column. This testing method allows quality-control analysts to determine which compounds are present in the sample being tested.
Using mass spectrometry to determine essential-oil purity
Mass spectrometry is commonly used together with gas chromatography to further examine the composition of essential oils. During mass spectrometry testing, components previously isolated using gas chromatography are ionised and passed through a series of magnetic fields. The amount of each component can be identified based on molecular weight and charge, providing further information about the potency of an essential oil.
Using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to determine essential-oil purity
Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is performed to help ensure the potency and consistent quality of every batch of essential oil. This testing method identifies the structural components of the compounds found in essential oils. In an FTIR scanner, essential-oil samples are exposed to infrared light at different frequencies, and the amount of light absorbed by the samples is measured. The quality of the sample is determined by comparing the FTIR scan results with the light-absorption patterns of previously recorded high-quality samples in the database.
Using chirality testing to determine essential-oil purity
The term chirality comes from the Greek word for “hand” and is used to describe the three-dimensional orientation of molecules. Just as we have two hands, chiral molecules can exist in two forms that can be distinguished as right- or left-handed. This basic principle can easily be visualised by looking at your hands: when placed side by side, they appear as mirror images of each other.
For molecules, each “hand” has different chemical properties, which can affect physiological interactions in the body. In nature, one handed form is always dominant over the other. Under laboratory conditions, however, the distribution of right- and left-handed molecules is always 50/50 because of their structural similarities. The distribution of right- and left-handed components can be determined using a special type of chromatography.
Although this testing method is not used frequently enough to be applied to every batch, it can help us ensure that no synthetic components are present in the essential oils.
Using isotopic analysis to determine essential-oil purity
Matter is made up of tiny chemical building blocks called elements. Although there are dozens of elements, each is different because of the number of protons it contains. An element can sometimes exist in more than one stable form if it has more or fewer neutrons. In this case, the forms are called isotopes. Carbon exists in two stable isotope forms: carbon-12 (with 6 protons and 6 neutrons) and carbon-13 (with 6 protons and 7 neutrons).
Because essential oils are organic compounds, they are composed primarily of carbon atoms and contain carbon-12 and carbon-13 isotopes in certain proportions. This ratio varies depending on different locations around the world.
Using a specialised type of mass spectrometry, we can determine which isotopes are present in a component of an essential oil and in what quantities. If sourced from the same location, all components of an essential oil should have the same isotope ratio. If a particular component has a different isotope profile from the other components, the quality-control analyst can determine that the essential oil is contaminated.
Using heavy-metal testing to determine essential-oil purity
Heavy-metal testing shows how much heavy metal is present in any essential oil. When distillation is performed correctly, essential oils should not contain heavy metals. The ICP-MS testing method uses a high-energy medium known as inductively coupled plasma (ICP) to ionise the sample. The sample is then examined using a mass spectrometer, which separates it into its elemental components and analyses which elements are present and in what quantities.