So hey, apparently upwards of 20,000 of you used to visit my blog every month from Pinterest for my essential oil recipes. Recipes that I still use literally every single day, multiple times a day. Where did my essential oil blog posts go? Well, I was forced to remove them all from my blog. Not only my own blog posts, but my entire Pinterest board of other peoples’ blog posts, as well any Twitter or personal Facebook posts where I mentioned how I used essential oils or how they work.
For the record, I’ve never really made discernible income from selling essential oils. I published the recipes for literally thousands of visitors to use and fewer than 20 people ever actually bought oils from links on this blog over 3 years. Even when those people bought oils from my site, I only got gift certificates for the purchase of more oils, at a ridiculous percentage like 5% or 10% of their purchase (I don’t even know because it was insignificant. I think the most I ever got was $10. Which required me to buy product to utilize.). When someone “signed up” under me, I got a one-time payment, but only if I had spent enough on product in the last few months, myself. I have had less than 40 people sign up “under” me in 3 years because I have never pushed oils on anyone. I never contacted anyone who signed up “under” me in order to pressure them to buy or sell oils. I also made sure to always post recipes that could be used with any brand of oil, not just the one that I sold.
I offer all these qualifications, not because I owe them to anyone, but because I want you to understand that I was not making money hand-over-fist from this endeavor. The only entity making money from the posts on this blog were the companies who sold the oils. The same company that came to me and told me that they would disconnect my account if I did not remove all these posts.
Not only was I asked to remove the posts on this blog, but also all the Pins of recipes I had pinned on Pinterest from other people’s blogs. You might say, “hey, no one can tell me what to Pin!”. That’s what I thought too, but apparently I was wrong. Because I tried to preserve some of the recipes on the Pinterest board and the company DID disconnect my essential oils account until I had deleted the entire board. All of the saved recipes, gone. So if you followed that board on Pinterest, that’s why you can’t find them anymore.
Why? Because of the FDA. In January 2015, the FDA sent warning letters to the two primary essential oil companies, who are both network marketing organizations {definition}, to alert them that their company representatives were making health claims about oils that are restricted only to drugs in the U.S. You can read the letters here. If you don’t live in the U.S. or aren’t familiar with the way the FDA works, it is an governmental organization that takes craptons of money from large corporations to put it’s stamp of approval on their products saying those products are safe. This organization is responsible for approving such chemicals as trans fats, in which evidence of serious harm built up for nearly 20 years before the organization finally admitted that the substance was clearly toxic. It had to wait that long to say something because it’s primary source of income is from drug companies, most of which sell drugs that combat the effects of trans fats.
Was it ridiculous that some people selling oils were claiming they could cure cancer and ebola? Probably so. There are also plenty of uninformed people out there advocating the misuse of oils without proper dilution, even now. And yes, that kind of abuse should be regulated by someone. But how far is it ok to take this? For example, a “headache” is a symptom of a number of diseases including glaucoma, brain cancers, and migraines. In the U.S., diseases are only allowed to be treated by FDA approved drugs. Only companies that have paid the FDA for review and approval can claim to cure disease. Therefore, according to the FDA, I cannot tell you that essential oils can help your headache, because that is the same as claiming the oils cure cancer or glaucoma (even though that’s not what I said). Because the essential oil companies didn’t pay the FDA for the right to say that.
As a Pinterest user, you’ll find that Pins about essential oils are being deleted from your boards or that the Pins now link to pages that no longer exist. All the recipes are gone, slowly being removed by the bloggers if they want to keep their personal access to the source of the oil.
For now, if you want to use essential oils daily for wellness as I do, my recommendation is to buy an essential oils pocket desk reference (affiliate link), which contains an extensive index of health issues and the appropriate oils and safe usage to treat them, as well as scientific research to back it all up.
I have deleted all references to the brand I use on this blog and also deleted the personal web site portal that I paid the company to allow me to offer the oils for sale directly online. Honestly, I have considered ending my relationship with the company. Right now, that’s still not off the table completely. But as I mentioned, I do use oils literally every day and believe in their effectiveness. I just can’t tell you about that anymore.
Fortunately, I’ve never been an essential oils blogger. This blog is a chronicle of my ongoing journey for health and wellness. It is indeed unfortunate that I am not longer allowed to share this facet of my journey with you. I hope to be following this blog post with another post about what direction I’d like to take with the blog in the future, as the drastic decrease in traffic leaves me with a bit of a challenge. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
I think it really, really stinks that you had to take down all of your EO references. You are pretty much my go to when it comes to questions about them. I ask you because you are very informed and never suggest doing something that could be harmful.
I also think it really, really stinks that there are EO distributors out there who promote very unsafe uses and make absurd claims about “there’s an oil for that” and some go so far to tell people not to listen to their medical doctors and just use oils instead. And honestly, I’m glad that the FDA has stepped in for that reason alone.
I think the FDA is mostly money hungry and it’s pathetic that SO MANY things have been put on the market only to be recalled months or years later because it turns out they’re dangerous/can cause more health problems/etc.
I think there can be a very happy medium when it comes to EOs and modern medicine, but the medical industry and the FDA aren’t ready for it yet.
Are you considering using another EO brand? Would it be another network marketing? I’ve been really loving Plant Therapy and Spark lately.
I agree, there were definitely some people out of control. I saw people advocating ingesting oils all day long. That would completely kill all the good gut bacteria and mess up the intestinal tract!!
Definitely considering those brands as well as Mountain Rose Herbs. Someone recommended a third brand as well that I would like to try. It will be a little bit of a slow process since I have to use my own money to buy new oils as I run out of the old.
Ingesting oils is fine and does not kill the good bacteria IF you use a pure oil. I am a certified aromatherapist and use only the highest quality oils. If you have specific questions, you are welcome to contact me for insight.
I do have medical research to back up my information that you are more than welcome to peruse at your convenience.
I would be interested to see a link to the study that proves that essential oils do NOT kill bacteria. Due to their concentration and natural elements, most of them do kill bacteria. Because they are not water soluble, they make it down to the stomach and through the intestines completely intact in those bacteria killing properties. And they do not discriminate between good and bad bacterias.
That said, I am totally not allowed to say that they kill bacteria online or I lose my distributor account again. So let’s all pretend I didn’t say that.
EO Remedies,
I am ready to pull the ripcord and jump into Aromatherapy Certification training soon and would like to ask you a question. How does all this FDA regulatory baloney affect you as an aromatherapist and possibly any website or products that you may have?
Jenny, I love the mix of posts that you provide here and I will really miss your EO posts. I referred to them so often and thankfully I have some memorized 🙂 As for how you can replace the hits that were lost I say just be you. You are awesome and I love following what you do daily on Instagram so if you can somehow translate that into words long enough for a post I think you will be able to pick up those hits again in no time. Yoga, stuff for/with the kids, healthy living, food/gardening/chickens, reducing toxins are all things I love reading about in your life.
Thanks, Jen! I will definitely be heading in that direction. I am also considering doing more YouTube and experimenting with Periscope.
I found your EO posts very helpful and informative. I hope you saved your old posts so that you can republish them when this blows over or when you decide to end affiliation with that company.
Yep, they are all saved! I have them in a Word document as well. I might publish them without any qualifications at some point when I find a suitable brand replacement.
Thoughts? Where Did My Essential Oil Blog Posts Go? i.e. How I Lost 67% Of My Blog Traffic – Living Consciously http://t.co/CxriH1JzUF
Wow. This is the first I’m hearing of this, and it’s disgusting.
I am not a fan, myself 😀 It hasn’t been talked about because no one wants to lose their membership to the EO company. I, however, do not really care. Now that I have redeemed my saved points, they can disconnect me if they want.
I love EO’s and use them often and I’m extremely saddened to lose all the pins I have for recipes from pinterest. I am a new with one of those 2 mlm companies and truly believe in the product and it’s integrity. The fda is totally pressuring compliance I’m assuming the drug companies are threatened by the use of oils becoming so popular. In my opinion they should be far more worried about all of the crap that’s in our food then essential oils, but that’s my opinion.
would you consider selling me any of you recipes for EO? I loved the upper respiratory one and cough for kids and didn’t write it down.
Last year, I made a roller bottle with your cough recipe. I believe it helped my son. I went to look up your pin and it was gone. I would really love the recipe to refill my roller. Please let me know the recipe.
Is there anyway you could please email me the cough recipe for kids? I used it a couple of months ago and am kicking myself now for not saving it. I completely understand why it was out of your hands and had to take down your posts 🙁
Same!!! We love the cough blend and I stupidly didn’t write it down! I’d be so so appreciative if you could send it to me!
Jenny, sorry about your bad experience. We really did appreciate all that you shared with us.
Have a better second half of the year.