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Why dōTERRA?
The Kind Economy: PEOPLE, PLANET, PROFIT
...my main mantra for the world and it’s future!
dōTERRA is a privately owned company set up by some very passionate people. Their aim was to find the purest, most beneficial essential oils. But they couldn’t find them.
Did you know, the majority of essential oils are, in some way, adulterated. Yup, I’m confident in stating that. There are no regulations in this industry! How is this possible for a product that we inhale or put on our skin? (By the way, don’t worry, dōTERRA have set up their own regulatory system and all the oils are thoroughly tested both in-house and independently).
So, dōTERRA travelled the world, finding the best places and conditions for each plant to grow, and worked with the growers.
They helped them set up their own businesses, look after the land, and they pay them up front. Not only that, but they pay them what they would have paid a broker. And if that isn’t sweet enough, they love the communities and build schools, clinics and more.
So, here’s the thing, before dōTERRA came along, plants for essential oils would be grown around the world, the growers would live in poor conditions with very little money coming their way. Brokers would buy the plants from them, push the price right down and not necessarily pay them up front. They would push for over-harvesting, then process them to gain as much oil in the cheapest way. As profit is the main focus, quite a few oils are diluted, have other things added to them (turpentine in frankincense for example!), and if they are pure, they haven’t necessarily got only the good parts of the plant and the plants themselves are not necessarily the best quality to get an oil with any benefit to us. (Think of essential oils as being the healing and protecting system for the plant – well a lot of these plants had given up hope already, so how good is that oil going to be for us??)
Do you see what I mean here? Following the Kind Economy Principals, take a look at how they operate:
PEOPLE
each bottle of oil is helping support communities in developing countries, putting food on their plates, giving them access to water, healthcare and education, creating jobs in the processing and research, and then helping us as the consumer to support our wellness. Charity is a big thing with dōTERRA and they put vast amounts of money into supporting any situations they see – from building community structure (even if they don’t get oils from that area), supporting refugees, support after disasters such as fires, floods etc., and partnering with charities who do amazing work with anti sex-trafficking, helping women and girls who are (in my opinion) abused because of their natural monthly cycles and do not have access to hygienic necessaries. They are also very generous to people like me and make it possible for many people, world-wide, to work from home and work towards being debt free with future financial security. Is that Disney enough for you, cos it’s not a fairy tale!
PLANET
by caretaking the land and enriching the earth rather than stripping it of any goodness, planting crops instead of dust, and ensuring future crops for us, they are thinking to the future. For example – yes, back to Frank! Frankincense is becoming endangered. Over-harvesting and lack of love has taken its toll and there is a fear that these precious trees are going to die out. So, in come doterra. Their frankincense is the best because they use a mix of four different varieties so that we get the best bits from each. Because of their forward thinking, they have carefully accumulated enough stock to keep going for a while and told the growers to stop harvesting, rest the trees and plant new ones, and they still pay them! They are constantly looking for new areas where they can do good, and working on ways to save their carbon footprint wherever possible. Some people say they only ‘support local’ – well, there aren’t many frankincense trees where I live, so we have to seek further afield, and by doing so, we go back to the first two principals PEOPLE, PLANET.
PROFIT
I will own up here – when I first saw dōTERRA oils I thought they were bloomin’ expensive! But, you get what you pay for. These oils benefit us – I’m not sure many of the other brands do. The growing is fair-trade, the processing is state of the art, they don’t cut corners, and a huge amount of their profits go into their really impressive research and development facilities. They have a mission for every home in the world to have access to natural wellbeing support and they want frankincense (did I mention this oil?) to be in every household. Because, for legal reasons, they cannot make any claims about the amazingness of essential oils, they are also working hard to produce research papers that can be published to let people know what’s what.
As I said before, they pump lots of pennies into helping those who are less fortunate. They don’t brag about this, and it’s not about tax deductibles - they just do it because it’s a human thing to do.
So, this sums up my reasons for loving this company. This is also why they need people like me to tell people why doTERRA oils are so different, and what they can do for us, and why I have this love affair with Frank.