Essential Oils UK

This detailed look into essential oils UK is effectively a market report designed to help you make the best essential oil buying choices possible. It provides you with an overview of the essential oils UK market, outlining the pitfalls, and identifying the best actors within the UK essential oils space.

Many of the pitfalls culminate to form one regretable outcome. This is that the essential oils UK space is awash with sub-standard, and often toxic, fake essential oils. The insights presented here will help you avoid falling into the trap of purchasing inferior essential oils, that at best will fail to be affective, and at worst, will make matters worse… sometimes a lot worse, sadly.

Essential Oils UK Overview

The UK essential oils retail industry is flourishing. This is mainly due to UK consumers being more committed to looking for natural alternatives to support their health.

Nevertheless, essential oils UK retailers are still losing out due to foreign competition, which has negative impacts on the UK economy, as a whole.

This, therefore, directly impacts each and every one of us from an economic standpoint.

Plus, the essential oils UK retail market is consequently a more complex sector. This makes it less easy to navigate. Ultimately, this results in UK consumer buying decisions being a lot more complex.

However, this essential oils UK report will hopefully provide the information needed for you to more easily orientate the essential oils UK retail sector, so that those wishing to buy essential oils in the UK can do so with greater confidence.

It has been specifically written to help essential oils UK customers do the following:

• • Distinguish the difference between ‘essential oils UK’ and ‘UK essential oils’.

• • Reveal why there are now so many sub-standard essential oils available in the UK.

• • Provide information as to why the UK essential oils sector has changed in recent years.

• • Explain how the changes in the essential oils UK sector affect us all, both economically and culturally.

• • Define how to purchase essential oils UK from UK essential oil businesses.

• • Avoid the pitfalls of buying essential oils online, in the UK.

• • Buy quality essential oils UK.

Disclosure:

This report has been written by Rachel Wild of Wild As The Wind Essential Oils & Natural Skincare. Whilst providing an overview of the essential oils UK market, and how best to navigate it, you will also find an overview of Wild As The Wind Essential Oils towards the end of this article.

Essential Oils UK Versus UK Essential Oils?

For the purposes of this article it is important to differentiate between the terms ‘essential oils UK’ and ‘UK essential oils’.

The term ‘UK essential oils’ suggests that an essential oil has been manufactured in the UK. However, the growing conditions in the UK are not suitable for the production of many essential oils. This is why the vast majority of essential oils are produced elsewhere.

It is, however, possible to produce a small number of aromatherapy oils in the UK. Certain plants used for the production of aromatherapy oils can thrive in the UK climate, but most cannot.

Most ethically produced essential oils are extracted from plant materials, via a process of distillation. Some are expressed from the skin of fruits, via a process known as cold pressing.

Different plant parts are used for the production of individual essential oils, to achieve the best results. This is because the concentration of essential oils, or volatile compounds, are found in different parts of each variety of plant.

Please see the list of plant parts used to make essential oils later on in this article.

Aside from the growing of plants in the UK, for the production of essential oils, it is also possible to import some of the more resilient plant materials for further processing.

This is particularly true of resins, but it is a less viable proposition where other plant materials are concerned. Plus, the cost of importing plant materials has risen exponentially in recent years, and storage conditions, especially in transit, are not always ideal. This can lead to mould and moisture issues, among other problems.

Nevertheless, the benefit of importing plant materials for producing essential oils in the UK, is clear. Distilling aromatherapy oils on UK soil means that UK ethical standards are applied to the process.

This often results in a superior essential oil than if the plant parts were distilled in the country of origin, where the adulteration of essential oils is common practice.

Certain overseas essential oil producers, motivated by increased profits, routinely adulterate essential oils, rendering them inferior, and often toxic. Please refer to Adulterated Essential Oils, later on in this article.

UK Essential Oils Defined

The term ‘UK essential oils’ can be applied to aromatherapy oils that are distilled in the UK from plant materials grown in the UK. It can also be applied to aromatherapy oils that are distilled in the UK from plant materials that are obtained from overseas.

For obvious reasons, essential oils that are wholly produced outside of the UK cannot be called UK essential oils.

Essential Oils UK Explained

The internet has presented us with a dilemma when it comes to finding UK suppliers of essential oils. This is because the internet will deliver non-relevant results unless we use geo-specific keywords.

This is where the term ‘essential oils UK’ comes into its own.

Effectively, when we use the term ‘essential oils UK’ online, it specifically relates to businesses that retail essential oils in the UK. And, importantly, it does not mean that the essential oils have been produced in the UK.

‘Essential oils UK’ is likely the most common search term used to access UK essential oil retailers online.

The drawback of this term, however, is that the results provided by search engines often include non-UK based essential oil retailers. I will delve into why this is an issue in the section entitled:

Restoring Consumer Confidence In Essential Oils UK

Essential Oils UK Brands

There are a good number of essential oil brands who retail aromatherapy oils in the UK. However, many of them are not actually UK essential oils businesses. This is particularly true of the large essential oils brands who retail essential oils in the UK.

It is difficult, at first glance, to tell whether an essential oils brand originates from the UK or otherwise. For this reason the following sections have been added later on in this article:

• • How To Identify A True Essential Oil UK Business

• • List Of Essential Oils UK Brands

In recent years we have seen a number of entries into the essential oils UK market from China and America. Whilst increasing consumer choice, this has impacted the UK economy, and has led to decreasing trust levels within the essential oils UK market.

The reason for many of these negative outcomes are detailed in the following sections of this article.

• • Essential Oils UK & The UK Economy

• • Essential Oils UK Market Overview

• • Essential Oils UK Online Disruption

• • Restoring Consumer Confidence In Essential Oils UK Online

However, suffice to say, the greatest negative impact of recent changes in the essential oils UK market, from a consumer standpoint, is that there are a lot more risks involved in buying essential oils in the UK than before.

But the impact to UK economy stability cannot be underestimated…

Essential Oils UK & The UK Economy

There are a growing number of people who wish to buy essential oils UK in the truest sense of the phrase. They don’t simply wish to buy essential oils in the UK, they want to buy their essential oils from a UK essential oils business.

The main reason for this is because essential oil consumers are more conscious of the need to support the UK economy and essential oils UK retailers.

Thankfully, there seems to be a growing awareness that UK small businesses are the backbone of the UK economy, and that we all benefit from supporting UK businesses.

Prior to 2020, (the pre-pandemic era), UK small businesses, and UK small to medium sized enterprises, (SMEs) accounted for over 60% of the UK economy. But, there was a dramatic decrease in UK businesses in 2020, which was a continuing trend in 2021 and beyond.

The following graph, obtained from the Department for Business and Trade, depicts the dramatic decrease in UK businesses that began in 2020.

Source: Business population estimates for the UK and regions 2023: statistical release.

The key reason for the dramatic decrease in UK businesses in 2020 and 2021 is because access to bricks and mortar UK businesses was restricted, and consumers turned to the internet to buy the products they needed.

UK businesses that didn’t have an online presence were the first to be hit by this trend. But UK essential oil businesses, who were established online, were also affected.

Essential Oils UK Online Disruption

I’ve been buying essential oils from Rachel since 2020. She’s passionate and knowledgeable about health and wellbeing and offers the best quality products because she genuinely cares about other people’s wellbeing. There are so many fake and useless products like these being sold these days, I want to make sure I’m buying from someone authentic. Plus Rachel is local and I’m proud to support someone in the UK who is not only as authentic as they come, but who encourages a natural way of living in harmony with nature.

Tania, Bristol

Seizing the opportunity to enter the UK essential oils market, or to further expand their UK essential oils market share, American and Chinese businesses invested heavily in increasing their online presence at this time. This was mainly achieved through sponsored social media advertising to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to their respective websites.

Search engine algorithms are geared towards ranking websites in preferable positions based on traffic flows.

Also, predatory recruitment policies, again via social media, allowed overseas essential oil companies to gain rapid market penetration.

Foreign essential oil brands specifically targeted people who were unable to work during lock-downs, or who had permanently lost their jobs and businesses throughout this period.

The consequences of these tactics were dramatic for essential oils UK brands, many of which lost a lot of traction online.

Prior to 2020, Wild As The Wind Essential Oils could be found in the first three results pages within major search engines for a number of important search terms. Sadly, the same is not true today.

Internet users rarely venture beyond page three of search engine results pages, with many failing to get passed page one, before their purchases are made.

At the same time, the UK saw an increased reliance on major online shopping platforms, like the American owned Amazon. In addition, Chinese online shopping platforms, like Temu, came to the fore.

The Chinese social media platform TikTok is of equal concern to sites like Temu. TikTok acts like a closed community, incentivising “influnecers” to advertise essential oils which are sold within the TikTok Shop. The platform reaches out to successful users of the TikTok platform, providing incentives for them to create content to promote TikTok essential oils.

It is possible to buy presentation boxes of essential oils containing 12 essential oils for little over £10.00 in the TikTok Shop. 

Not only do these platforms further compound the issue of lost online visibility for essential oil UK brands, but it is also argued that some of them delivered a plethora of highly suspect essential oils to the UK buying public. This includes counterfeit essential oils, labelled as though from a well known brand, and unnatural oils being passed off as pure essential oils, with less recognisable branding.

Major online shopping platforms do not assign quality controls to the merchants that operate within their platforms. Nor do they vet merchants for credibility, or curate who can or cannot participate.

UK essential oil brands also have access to some of the major shopping platforms available, some of which have taken advantage of the opportunity.

*Wild As The Wind has not, and will not, support these third-party shopping platforms. They are also avoided by the essential oil UK brands that Wild As The Wind hold in high esteem.

… we do not have access to quality essential oils here [Finland], aside from one company called Young Living that sells oils of allegedly ok quality (not tried them, as you have to be a member and order a certain amount etc). I’ve ordered organic essential oils via Amazon, twice, but they have ALL been rubbish. When adding them to the water in a diffuser, weird chemical smells fill the air. The only oils that don’t do that, are yours – SURPRISE SURPRISE!!! It is sad what has happened to this market, that quality oils are hard to come by. 

The reason I haven’t ordered from yourself for some time is simply thanks to the Brexit issue. We have to suffer the lengthy and expensive process of ‘releasing’ every single parcel individually, from customs, that arrive from outside the EU. Tax has to be paid, forms have to be filled in and additional postage charges have to be paid. It is a royal pain in the *** Big companies like Amazon can bypass this issue (don’t know how?) and parcels arrive painlessly straight into the letterbox. I know these giants are evil but occasionally I add to the darkness :/

Search Results Issues

Search engines deliver different search results for each individual user, based on algorithmic data. Individual user preferences are stored and used to tailor results for each user. When Wild As The Wind performed a search on Ecosia, (“the greenest way to search, from “the search engine that plants trees”) for the search term “essential oils UK”, Temu was delivered as the first result on page one.

In addition, other businesses, based in the US, like iHerb, were also featured highly. 

Essential Oils UK Market Overview

Tragically, the UK essential oils market is now awash with fake oils, that have either been synthesised in labs from unnatural chemicals, or are adulterated to maximise profits. 

This has tarnished the industry as a whole. Nevertheless, with many UK essential oil consumers not being able to tell the difference between a fragrance oil, and a natural aromatherapy oil, the UK essential oils market continues to grow.

According to Statista, the UK essential oils market was valued at, in excess of, £124 million in 2023.

Further growth is expected, with forecasted figures for 2027 exceeding £130 million, representing a 9.7% increase between 2022 and 2027.

Whilst it’s not possible to accurately assess what proportion of the UK market is held by essential oil UK brands, it is safe to say that overseas interests are benefiting exponentially.

UK Essential Oils Market Practices

Essential oils UK brands have been further impacted through a process of acquisition. Neal’s Yard, a leading UK essential oils brand, changed dramatically after it was acquired, some years ago. It now focuses its attention on larger, more profitable markets, such as the US, and has adopted American-style business practices.

It seems that DoTERRA and Young Living brought multi level marketing to our shores, and Neal’s Yard are exporting it right back to where it came from.

All of the essential oil brands mentioned also operate their MLM schemes in the UK. And, UK essential oil consumers initially seemed happy to purchase their oils from them. However, the tide is definitely turning.

MLM schemes are an excellent way for increasing market share, permitting MLM essential oils brands to quickly establish and expand their customer base. But, not everyone appreciates the business model, with customer satisfaction levels on review websites reflecting this.

Sometimes Wild As The Wind receive feedback that also illustrates this:

I have recommended your products to many of my friends – including/especially those who, like me, are a wee bit disenchanted with a certain large supplier of essential oils – their business model specifically. Finally and most importantly, thank you for all you do, I love your products, and I am so glad I found your website. Keep up the good work.

Caroline, Marlow, Buckinghamshire

How To Identify A True Essential Oils UK Business

There is clearly an appetite to embrace natural health in the UK. Increasing interest in essential oils UK provides clear evidence of this.

And whilst there’s not much to celebrate about the downsides of the essential oils UK sector, there is much to be grateful for, too.

In a recent study of online essential oils brands, the UK out-performed other countries where essential oil quality and trust is concerned:

According to the criteria established for this study, essential oils can be considered of a good quality only for 8% of the products on Polish websites compared with 32% for German websites and 38% for English websites

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8292048/

Whilst a 38% trust score is not ideal, the positive take-away from this is that there are a good number of essential oils UK brands who are providing high-quality essential oils, with accurate product information.

The more we support the essential oils UK brands who are getting it right, and avoid the ones who are not, the more we elevate our preferred essential oils UK brands to market prominence. On this basis, essential oils UK trust scores will increase.

This will go along way to silence the controversy that exists within the essential oils UK market, and will hopefully influence the global reputation of essential oils, also.

Better still, it will likely mean that the essential oils that are purchased will be of superior quality, and the UK economy will be buoyed by increased UK business activity.

Finding Trustworthy Essential Oils UK Brands

One of the most positive aspects of this article, is that UK essential oil consumers are figuring out ways of discovering reliable, trustworthy essential oils UK brands.

Some are avidly scouring the depths of online search engine results pages, but most are seeking recommendations from reliable, trustworthy sources – friends and family members.

Personal recommendation has certainly been the driving force behind Wild As The Wind. So, despite online visibility declines, online essential oil orders have increased.

But, for those who’s love of aromatherapy isn’t shared by their nearest and dearest, the path isn’t so straightforward. This is because it will inevitably involve an online search.

Unfortunately, there is no quick and easy way to establish which essential oil UK brands originate from the UK, and which ones don’t. Simply checking whether essential oil prices are stated in pounds sterling, and looking in website footnotes for a UK address, will often fail to distinguish an essential oil UK brand from an overseas brand.

But, thankfully, whilst a little more sleuthing is necessary, it doesn’t have to be arduous.

A quick look at the ‘About’ page of a website can be very revealing. And, if there’s no ‘About’ page, this should also tell you something!

Also, checking out how orders are processed is key. Wild As The Wind Essential Oils & Natural Skincare use the Royal Mail for our deliveries, which is a clear indication of where we are based.

The ‘Contact Us’ page may also be helpful. Again, if contact information is missing from a website, this can speak volumes.

Nevertheless, even if a UK contact address is stated, this is not a clear indication of where the business originates from. Shell addresses in the UK are more frequently being used, especially by Chinese companies.

For this reason, it is advisable to do a quick internet search for the address. And, if the stated address leads to a UK fulfilment centre, then there’s a strong likelihood that the business in question is an overseas concern.

But, in the interest of making life a little easier, there is a list containing a small number of essential oil UK brands, below.

List Of Essential Oil UK Brands

This is a short list of essential oil UK brands. It is, by no means, exhaustive.

The creation of this essential oil UK brands list is also not an assurance of product quality. However, certain essential oil UK brands have been omitted from this list on the basis that their essential oils are known to be of questionable quality.

At the time of writing, and to the best of the author’s knowledge, all of the following essential oils UK brands were offering essential oils of excellent quality.

1. 1. Wild As The Wind

1. 1. Oshadi

1. 1. NHR Organics

1. 1. Kobashi

1. 1. Tisserand – Originated in the UK, and still have offices here, but Robert Tisserand [owner] has moved to the US

1. 1. Neal’s Yard

1. 1. G Baldwin & Co.

1. 1. Penny Price

Restoring Consumer Confidence In Essential Oils UK

There are two ways of doing this: It is possible to buy essential oils UK from proprietary retail outlets, such as the NHR shop in Brighton, or you can buy directly from essential oils UK brands online.

Most essential oils UK brands operate online. However, not all of them are retailing pure essential oils. Due diligence is required prior to making an essential oil purchase from an online essential oils UK retailer.

A third option would be to purchase essential oils through a third party. However, buying essential oils from retail chains, health food shops, and supermarkets, can be problematical.

The buying departments for these types of retailers have no specialist product knowledge, and are just as susceptible to buying adulterated essential oils as the general public.

Plus, retail chains and supermarkets are often owned by overseas interests.

By contrast, independent health food shops are often UK owned, so as long as they are carrying an essential oil brand you know you can trust, then they are an excellent alternative to buying direct from your preferred essential oils UK brand.

List Of Plant Parts Used To Make Essential Oils

Sometimes a combination of plant parts are used to make an essential oil. Other times, a single plant part is used, such as the rhizomes for distilling Ginger Essential Oil, or the roots for Angelica Essential Oil.

It’s not feasible to grow a superior quality of Ginger in the UK, but Angelica is one of the plants that excel in the UK climate.

Sometimes the plant materials are dried before distillation, but the distillation of fresh plant parts is also carried out.

List Of Plant Parts Used To Make Essential Oils

• • Petals

• • Buds

• • Needles

• • Seeds

• • Berries

• • Leaves

• • Twigs

• • Bark

• • Rhizomes

• • Roots

• • Heartwood

*The heartwood of Sandalwood trees is used to make Sandalwood Essential Oil.

Adulterated Essential Oils

The temptation to adulterate essential oils is considerable. Producing genuine essential oils is a very labour-intensive and costly operation. It requires access to large tracts of fertile land, horticultural skills, and often the costly acquisition of distillation facilities, which can cost millions.

It also takes a lot of time to seed and grow a crop, and there are many risks involved, especially during times of disrupted weather patterns, like we are experiencing these days.

The adulteration of essential oils can help to bypass some of the hard labour, and can be a means of avoiding large losses when poor harvests are encountered.

However, some producers of fake essential oils seek to eliminate all of the risks, costs and time involved in producing essential oils altogether, by artificially synthesising volatile compounds in a lab. The end product may be an approximation of an essential oil in terms of appearance, with aromatic similarities, but it is most certainly not an essential oil.

This is the most unscrupulous way in which essential oil consumers are disabused. For those unfortunate enough to purchase synthetic products, the outcome of using them can often be damaging to their health.

There are many ways in which pure, natural essential oils are adulterated, also.

Cutting an expensive essential oil with a less expensive essential oil, with similar characteristics, to boost profit margins, is one of the most common methods.

Diluting essential oils with carrier oils is another method, but is a lot easier to spot. Using carrier oils to adulterate an essential oil will change the viscosity of the oil, as well as reducing the intensity of the aromatic qualities of the oil.

Sadly, the practice of using synthetic chemicals to adulterate natural essential oils, is also increasingly widespread.

The sad reality is, adulterated essential oils are often not only stripped of their beneficial qualities, or their efficacy reduced, but, they are also often rendered toxic and harmful to the user.

This is why it’s so important to only buy essential oils from a UK essential oils retailer that you can trust.

Wild As The Wind Essential Oils

Wild As The Wind is a UK essential oils and natural skincare business, based in the South West. 

Wild As The Wind carry one of the most comprehensive ranges of essential oils in the UK.

Despite being of exceptional quality, Wild As The Wind Essential Oils are some of the most affordable therapeutic grade aromatherapy oils available in the UK.

I’ve been buying essential oils from Rachel since 2020. She’s passionate and knowledgeable about health and wellbeing and offers the best quality products because she genuinely cares about other people’s wellbeing. There are so many fake and useless products like these being sold these days, I want to make sure I’m buying from someone authentic. Plus Rachel is local and I’m proud to support someone in the UK who is not only as authentic as they come, but who encourages a natural way of living in harmony with nature.

Original feedback submitted here.

Essential Oil Quality

There a good number of references to UK essential oil quality throughout the Wild As The Wind website. This is because, sadly, there is a growing need to raise awareness.

You will find many more important articles relating to essential oils and carrier oils on the Health News Overview page, alongside articles covering more general natural heath topics.