Leveraging three decades of experience developing natural health and wellness products, Melaleuca introduced a new line of premium essential oils at its 26th annual convention. Melaleuca’s new brand, PURE™ Essential Oils, consists of 22 single oils, five exclusive blends and two carrier oils—fractionated coconut and sweet almond.
Melaleuca’s PURE™ Essential Oils product array offers these single essential oils:
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“Melaleuca is bringing superior quality essential oils to the market and offering a better value than all of the market leaders,” Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot said. “This translates into each bottle being defined by complete purity, uncompromising quality and unmistakable aromatic excellence. Our customers will equally benefit from pricing that is up to 50 percent below market leaders.”
The Idaho-based health products company expects to expand the PURE™ Essential Oil product offering in the near future.
Essential oil testing & quality
Melaleuca uses only 100 percent pure, natural, essential oils that are harvested and distilled following the highest quality standards in the industry. Melaleuca strictly follows the essential oil specifications established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), an independent, non-government agency in Geneva, Switzerland created in 1947.
Melaleuca sources essential oils in partnership with farmers around the world who have a reputation for ethical, sustainable growing practices. The essential oils are extracted directly from the botanical source and extensively tested using state-of-the-art technology to meet stringent quality specifications.
The oils are evaluated for purity and contaminants like pesticides, herbicides and heavy metals. To do this, Melaleuca uses gas chromatography to evaluate all the separate constituents in the oil and measure their levels and purity. It also relies on mass spectometry, which provides a chemical fingerprint of the oil. Every oil has a specification that shows which components, and how much of each, is allowed.
Additional tests are performed before the oils are certified to contain absolutely no impurities, synthetics or fillers.
Decades of expertise with essential oils
Melaleuca has great expertise to the arena of essential oils, which serve as active ingredients, flavors and fragrances in many of its most popular products. They are included in its Sei Bella® cosmetics, bath bars, MelaPower®, Sol-U-Guard®, Pain-A-Trate®, tooth polish, hand soap, Natural Insect Repellent and more.
Besides Melaleuca oil, which the company used in its original products, Melaleuca’s work with essential oils includes wintergreen, peppermint, lemon, thyme, myrrh, cinnamon, lavender, lime, lemongrass, orange, camphor oil, and many others.
“Knowing how to use essential oils in product formulation has always been one of Melaleuca’s strongest advantages,” Melaleuca Chief Marketing Officer Scott Hollander said. “The company knows who the quality suppliers of essential oils are, and already has long-term relationships with them.”
Competing in the essential oil industry
By developing the PURE™ Essential Oils brand, Melaleuca enters the $1 billion essential oils market that has been growing at 3.5 percent per year. Although the popularity of essential oils is rising, many of the companies selling them have come under fire.
The essential oils segment can be a very challenging space for consumers to navigate in large part due to prevailing practices by the market leaders. The FDA sent warning letters to several companies citing them for making unwarranted and unsubstantiated product claims. In addition, critics question the enormous premiums these companies charge for their oils, and consumers are left wondering how to make sense out of the differing oil quality standards claimed by these companies.
Melaleuca’s management team has been closely watching these trends, according to Hollander. He believes that Melaleuca’s PURE™ Essential Oils will fill the industry gaps, capture a sizeable portion of the market, and reset the quality and value standards in the marketplace.
“Do not be misled by the exorbitantly high prices that other companies charge for their oils,” Hollander said at the convention. “Do not believe that, because they’re charging an outrageous price, their oils are of superior quality. Conversely, do not be misled by our very reasonable prices. Don’t think that because we don’t overcharge for our oils they are of inferior quality. We just operate differently than our competitors. We’re motivated by different values.”
A Responsible Approach
Whereas several essential oil companies have been flagged for making irresponsible medical claims and have been forced to change their language, Melaleuca is going a different direction from the industry.
VanderSloot encourages the company’s Marketing Executives to pay special attention to the scientific evidence versus the stories, refrain from making undocumented claims and avoid “playing doctor.”
He pointed to Melaleuca’s 30-year legacy as a leading developer of science-based health products, reinforcing that it would not endorse unsubstantiated medical claims.
“Melaleuca believes there is so much science pertaining to essential oils that has yet to be discovered,” VanderSloot said. “Nature has so many secrets to unlock, and Melaleuca is eager to discover them.”
Learn more about the Melaleuca PURE™ Essential Oils here.
