Rocky Mountain vs Young Living Essential Oils: Which Is Better?

Essential oils have come to play such a huge role in modern life. Sourcing ingredients is less complicated in this global market we live in, making it a little more difficult to select the best essential oil company.

Rocky Mountain and Young Living sustainably source ingredients to produce pure essential oils. The main difference between the two companies is how their product is distributed to the customer. 

Rocky Mountain vs Young Living Essential Oils

Along with dōTERRA, both Rocky Mountain Oils and Young Living were founded in Utah, one of the US’s Mountain States. But that’s where similarities in company structure end. 

Rocky Mountain Essential Oils

Rocky Mountain Oils (RMO) is a membership-free health and wellness company founded in 2004 by Michael and Phoenix Vincent. The company is headquartered in Orem, Utah, USA. In 2021, the company expanded by adding a second headquarters in Melbourne, Florida.

In addition to essential oils, Rocky Mountain Oils offers diffusers, CBD oil, and household and personal care products.

Rocky Mountain Oils Everyday Single Oils

Unfortunately, I was unable to find one kit that included a combination of the most popular Rocky Mountain single and blended essential oils. Instead, there’s a kit for singles and one for blends, which is up next.

This single set includes six bottles, 5 mL each (0.17 fl oz). In this kit you’ll find:

• Lavender
• Lemon
• Orange
• Peppermint
• Rosemary
• Tea Tree

Just by placing a few drops in your diffuser, lavender essential oil can help you rest and fall asleep. Lemon, orange, and peppermint are all uplifting fragrances that can help you feel more alert. Rosemary can help you de-stress. And tea tree oil cleanses the air by fighting bacteria, fungus, and free radicals. 

Each of these oils can help you carry out day-to-day tasks ranging from resting to working to purifying the air in your home.

Pros

• Handy, commonly used oils
• Nice starter set or gift idea
• A decent amount of oil in each bottle
• Economically priced

Con

• Only includes essential oil singles

== Check Price on Amazon ==

Rocky Mountain Oils Everyday Oil Blends

Moving on to Rocky Mountain’s most common essential oil blends, there are also six bottles included in this set. 5 mL each (0.17 fl oz). 

You’ll find these blends:

• At Peace – Fruity, sweet, and uplifting all at once, this blend helps you feel calm and restored.
• Breathe Ease – Especially helpful during cold season, this pungent menthol blend clears your airway passage.
• Citrus – In addition to cleansing the air, this blend can lift your mood and leave you feeling refreshed.
• First Aid – Designed to be used topically, when added to a carrier oil, this blend helps lighten blemishes. It also stimulates hair and nail growth.
• Immune Strength – This spicy citrus blend supports immune health by purifying the air and helping you to feel calmer. Immune Strength is comparable to Young Living’s Thieves blend.
• Purify – This blend kills germs and eliminates odors when diffused or diluted as a household cleaner. 

With the exception of At Peace, all of these blends are purely concentrated essential oils. The At Peace blend is combined with fractionated coconut oil.

Voted the best mood essential oil by Vogue in 2021, At Peace combines litsea cubeba, lime, mandarin, grapefruit, ylang ylang, tangerine, sandalwood, and tangerine essential oils.

But more than half of the blend, 66% to be exact, is this fractionated coconut oil. While this is a natural ingredient that is often used as a carrier oil, adding it to the essential oil blend limits its use.

Personally, I wouldn’t add anything but 100% essential oils to a diffuser. A carrier oil might clog up the machine. For this reason, I would suggest using At Peace solely as a topical treatment.

Pros

• High quality oils
• Effective blends with wonderful aromas
• Nice range of scents
• Ready for gifting

Cons

• Carrier oil was added to At Peace 
• At Peace can only be used topically

== Check Price on Amazon ==

Young Living Essential Oils

Young Living was founded by Donald Gary Young and his wife Mary in 1994. Gary passed away in 2018 but Mary remains CEO of the company. It is a multi-level marketing essential oil company headquartered in Lehi, Utah, USA. Young Living also has international offices in thirteen countries across the globe.

In addition to essential oils and diffusers, Young Living offers supplements, and personal care products for the skin, hair, mouth, and body.

Young Living Everyday Essential Oils Collection

Young Living conveniently offers one starter kit that includes frequently used essential oil singles and blends. There are 10 bottles total, each having 5 mL (0.17 fl oz) of each oil. Included oils are:

• Frankincense
• Joy
• Lavender
• Lemon (Vitality)
• PanAway  
• Peppermint (Vitality)
• Purification 
• Stress Away 
• Tea Tree
• Thieves (Vitality)

These are the most popular oils that customers order from Young Living. Young Living essential oils without the Vitality label should only be used topically or in a diffuser.

The Young Living Vitality label is used to describe their dietary oils. They’re actually the same oils that are poured into Young Living bottles without the Vitality label. But the Vitality label is Young Living’s way of communicating that these oils are safe to ingest.

We caution against self-medicating any condition that you might have. Before taking any essential oils internally, we suggest that you consult with a medical professional.

In terms of the blends, Joy is a citrus and floral essential oil combination that can help lift your mood. PanAway was designed to relax fatigued muscles. It’s more useful as a diluted massage oil that’s topically applied to your skin.

Purification was created to be diffused. It’s an herbal menthol blend that cleanses your home. Although a single oil, Frankincense can also cleanse the home and your body as it’s diffused.

Stress Away, a woody floral blend, was designed to help balance out your mood. I’ll go into more detail about the Thieves blend further down in the article.

There’s no denying that Young Living essential oils are a high quality product. But as a multi-level-marketing brand, their prices are two to three times higher than non-MLM competitors. 

Pros

• High quality oils
• Useful variety of essential oils
• Interesting oil blends to meet daily needs
• Great gift idea

Cons

• Significantly more expensive than non-MLM brands
• Usefulness of each oil varies by individual

== Check Price on Amazon ==

Takeaway: Young Living has been in the essential oil business for ten years longer than Rocky Mountain Oils, but their oil quality seems to be the same. You can order Rocky Mountain essential oils at a fraction of the price.

Immune System Essential Oil Blends: Face to Face

Thieves is likely Young Living’s most notable essential oil blend. Immune Strength is Rocky Mountain’s interpretation of Thieves.

	Young Living Thieves Blend	RMO’s Immune Strength
Clove	✔️	✔️
Lemon peel	✔️	✔️
Cinnamon bark	✔️	✔️
Eucalyptus	✔️	✔️
Rosemary	✔️	✔️
Ginger root	❌	✔️
Orange	❌	✔️
Oregano	❌	✔️
Mandarin	❌	✔️
Nutmeg	❌	✔️
Thyme	❌	✔️

Both brands have some overlapping ingredients: clove, lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and rosemary.

Rocky Mountain Oils added six additional ingredients: orange, oregano, mandarin, thyme, nutmeg, and ginger root. And although both companies use eucalyptus, you’ll notice that different species are used. 

So let’s start with the eucalyptus. Young living uses Eucalyptus radiata while Rocky Mountain Oils uses Eucalyptus citriodora. There’s a slight difference between the two.

Cineole, an important compound found in Eucalyptus radiata and rosemary is a component of citronella oil. Citronellol, a large component of Eucalyptus citriodora, is linked to citronella, the bug repellant. But its potency is more tolerable on human skin, so it’s often used in cosmetics.

Eucalyptus radiata is more useful for respiratory infections than fungal skin infections. The opposite is true for Eucalyptus citriodora.

While both are at least moderately effective, if you plan to use either of these essential oil blends topically, Immune Strength might be the better choice. In addition to skin infections, Eucalyptus citriodora also alleviates muscle aches and joint pain.

Rocky Mountain’s Additional Ingredients

You may be wondering why Rocky Mountain Oils added six additional ingredients to their immune system blend. Were they being overzealous? 

Fragrance

One factor might have been fragrance. RMO’s blend is herbaceous, slightly citrusy, and spicy. Thieves’ blend has a richer, spicier fragrance with subtle hints of its herbal and citrus ingredients. Immune Strength simply has a more complex fragrance because there are more ingredients that lend to that.

Immune Boosters

Beyond fragrance it seems that Rocky Mountain included ingredients that offer your body even more support for its immune system in a number of ways:

• Ginger root: helps eliminate toxins; has anti-inflammatory properties
• Nutmeg: anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-parasitic, antioxidant; supports cognitive functioning
• Orange: supports the body’s detoxifying process
• Oregano: provides antioxidants, heals wounds, fights bacteria, treats fungal infections, addresses bacterial overgrowth, and more.
• Mandarin: stimulates white blood cells to support your body in fighting off infections
• Thyme: reduces infections and inflammation; also anti-bacterial

Signature

Lastly, I’m sure they didn’t want to simply copy Young Living’s Thieves recipe. It’s likely that Rocky Mountain Oils wanted to make a comparable blend without it being an exact replica of the Thieves blend. That wouldn’t have gone over well for them legally, either.

Takeaway: Thieves has long been the go-to essential oil blend to support a healthy immune system. While it is still effective, Immune Strength offers a bit more of a boost, especially when used topically along with a carrier oil.

Rocky Mountain Oils: Stand Out Features

Young Living has a Seed to Seal commitment that sets essential oil quality standards at every stage of development – from farming to the bottle. There is no doubt that they go to great lengths to maintain uncompromising quality and processing standards.

At the same time, Rocky Mountain Oils has implemented their S.A.A.F.E. Promise to their consumers. Satisfaction guaranteed, Authentic oils, internal and external Analysis, Free of adulterants, and Effective. 

There are six features that stood out to me:

Quality: RMO promises that all of their oils are pure, natural, and therapeutic. They use GC/MS testing to verify the purity of RMO essential oils. Prior to finalizing a purchase from their suppliers, all oils must be free of contaminants, diluents, and synthetic or adulterant ingredients.

Third party GC/MS tests are run again post-purchasing, and you can access the results through the batch number on the bottom of your RMO essential oil bottles. There are additional spot tests and quality assurance measures in place to ensure you’re getting the best oils.

Value: What makes Rocky Mountain oils more valuable than Young Living essential oils is that RMO goes to great lengths to deliver high quality oils but at direct to consumer pricing. You aren’t paying extra for brand partners to earn prizes or bonuses in relation to product sales. 

You can confidently purchase these oils at a lower price while knowing that they’re safe for you and your family to use.

Safety: Educational icons are printed on every bottle of essential oil and on the Rocky Mountain Oils website. There’s an icon for oils that can be diffused, used topically, used as a household cleaner, and so forth.

Not only is this helpful for those new to essential oils, but it’s also a helpful reminder for EO vets who might not use certain oils as often. Knowing how to safely use an essential oil is one of the most important factors to consider when incorporating them into your life.

No Monthly Minimums: Most MLM companies have a discounted rate for members, and then a retail price for non-members, which is always significantly higher. In order to avoid those higher prices, you can pay a monthly membership fee and make a certain amount of purchases in order to maintain that status.

Through MLM companies, you can end up spending more money than you intended by purchasing essential oils simply to maintain a discounted rate. 

Labeling: This may seem like a simple gesture, but if you’ve accumulated a lot of essential oils, I’m sure you understand why I’m highlighting this. RMO places round labels on the top of each bottle of essential oil.

This helps you find exactly what you need when looking down into a sea of essential oil bottles. Detailed side labeling lets you know exactly which species of plant matter has been used in your oils.

No hassle return policy: Rocky Mountain Oils also offers a 90-day return policy. If their oils don’t meet your standards, then you can even return opened bottles within 90 days, no questions asked. I haven’t come across another essential oil brand willing to stand by their product to this extent.

Conclusion

It’s not as difficult to find high grade essential oils as it used to be. Now the greatest dilemma is choosing a company that aligns with your needs and values. Pricing is an extension of such values and so is company structure.

With that in mind, here are some points to consider when choosing Rocky Mountain vs Young Living essential oils.

Choose Rocky Mountain Essential Oils if:

• You want a avoid membership fees
• You prefer oils that have undergone multiple quality checks
• You want high quality essential oils at a reasonable price point

Choose Young Living Essential Oils if:

• You are less price sensitive
• You plan on ingesting some of your essential oils
• You don’t mind supporting MLM businesses

Young Living’s singles and blends set is a convenient option, but comes with a hefty price.

With Rocky Mountain, you can get two additional bottles of the same sized oils across two kits at a fraction of the price. Here’s their everyday oil blends, and their everyday single oils.

As always, the choice is yours. Hopefully this information has made it easier to decide which company best fits your needs.