DoTERRA vs Young Living: From an Expert Who has Used Both

I love Essential Oils and have been using them for years! One of the biggest debates in the Essential Oil Universe is doTERRA vs Young Living.  This debate has raged on for years and years.

I’ve used both doTERRA & Young Living extensively.  And I like them both. I love Thieves and On Guard. I like doTERRA Serenity, I get through my day with YL Stress Away, I use doTERRA Purify to deodorize the air.  And of course, I use staples like Lavender for sleep, Frankincense for skin, and Peppermint for headaches.

Things I like about Both DoTERRA & Young Living:

– Quality Quality Quality.  Both doTERRA & Young Living have high quality standards, a commitment to quality, and 100% Pure Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils.They refer to it by different names – doTERRA calls it Source to You and Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade.  YL calls it Seed to Seal.  Quality comes from 3 things: Sourcing, Distillation (how plants are processed to get Essential Oils), and Testing:

– Sourcing. Both doTERRA & YL get their Essential Oils from around the world where that Essential Oil grows best.  While YL owns some of its own farms, 99% of YL Essential Oils come from 3rd party partner farms, just like doTERRA.

– Distillation.  Both companies use the same process to get Essential Oils from plants, trees, flowers.  This process is steam distillation and for citrus Essential Oils it is cold pressing.  The steam distillation and cold pressing happen locally, as close as possible to where the plant, flower, or tree grows and as quickly after harvesting as possible.  And both practice First Distillation (this means the plants/trees/flowers are distilled once to get the highest potency Essential Oil).

– Testing.  Both perform rigorous testing including GC/MS testing to verify their Essential Oils are 100% Pure Therapeutic Grade.  YL doesn’t post this testing but doTERRA posts it on their website which I really like.

– Both doTERRA.& YL started with Essential Oils and proprietary blends.  And now they both make a whole host of products you can use around the house from cleaner concentrate to laundry detergent to skin care to vitamin supplements.

– Both have a flagship blend.  YL has Thieves and doTERRA has On Guard.  They make lots of products from this flagship blend.  My favorite is the cleaner concentrate and the laundry detergent.

– Both companies offer business opportunities and are direct selling companies, also known as MLMs (multi-level-marketing companies).  This means you can try to make money by selling the products to friends and acquaintances.

Things I dislike about Both:

-Everything is so Expensive.

– I’m not interested in selling, I just want to be a customer.  But as a customer, I’m the one paying for the whole Upline.  Because I was never interested in the business opportunity, I always feel it’s me that is paying for all the fancy trips the Upline takes – because well, I am.

– The strong incentive to subscribe & spend monthly.  doTERRA calls this the Loyalty Rewards Program.  YL calls it Essential Rewards.  Both of these are optional. But the prices are so much better if you subscribe that you feel silly not subscribing. I end up feeling just as silly subscribing because I end up sending hundreds of dollars per year.

– Misinformation from the Upline.  People in my upline tell me things that I’ll research and later find is not true.  I’ve learned the upline will exaggerate and say whatever they need to to sell you!  These myths get passed down and around like folklore.  For example, it’s not true that YL gets it’s Essential Oils from their own farms.

– Exclusivity.  While I like products from both, I feel like you can’t really buy both – you have to pick one so you can maintain your membership and meet the monthly minimums.

So What did I Choose?

Well this may surprise you, it surprised me! After extensive research, I chose to go with REVIVE Essential Oils.

Now this is my opinion based on my research and testing: With Revive Essential Oils, you get all the good of doTERRA & Young Living, but none of the bad.

Here’s the Good:

– Quality Quality Quality. Like doTERRA & YL, REVIVE Essential Oils are 100% Pure Therapeutic Grade. They follow strict Sourcing, Processing, and Testing criteria. REVIVE Essential Oils are sourced from around the world, where the plant grows best (see this map). Like YL & doTERRA, Revive Essential Oils are steam distilled and from first distillation. Like doTERRA, every lot of every Revive Essential Oil is independently tested & certified with GC/MS tests and 20 other tests. Revive posts the Test Results on their website.

– Better Prices, Much Better Prices. It’s simple: Revive doesn’t have Uplines. Instead, they have better prices.

What I like about better prices is that I can now buy oils that were too expensive to buy before like Frankincense and Jasmine and I can be less precious about using Oils in general.

– Free Shipping & Free Returns. Shipping is free! (Update: People asked more about Shipping to 🇨🇦Canada- it’s also free). Revive also has a 100% Satisfaction Money Back Guarantee – basically they let you return if you don’t like them – you can return even after you open the bottle.

-Flagship Blends. Revive has it’s own Flagship blends. I love Revive Tumble & Tidy, please try it! And they have versions of YL and doTERRA blends too. Their Immunity Boost is like Thieves, their Protect is like On Guard and they have others like Stress Away, Purification, Serenity, Deep Blue, etc. See Comparison Chart.

– No Membership Fees, No Monthly Subscriptions, No Uplines.

You can read more about my research into Revive Essential Oils in this article: My Honest Review of REVIVE Essential Oils. Or you can read Reviews on the REVIVE Website:

PROTIP: Buy 30mL REVIVE bottles from their Shop page!  They’re such an incredibly good deal.

PROTIP #2: Revive has a COUPON CODE for New Customers, NEWCUSTOMER10. This gives you 10% OFF on your first purchase. Revive doesn’t have a Coupon Code for Repeat Customers, at least not that I could find. If you find one, please post in the comments.