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Wow. Just wow.
Something doesn't sit right with me about this. The fact that the test results somehow got leaked to Facebook (?!) is very odd. I don't know who Dr. Pappas is, but if they leaked the results, what does that say about their integrity and the reliability of their tests? Even if Dr. Pappas wasn't the source of the leak, maybe a second test from a different lab to confirm the results would have been in order before publicly airing the situation all over the internet.

And this line here, "At first, we thought maybe we were being set up by the competition to try and discredit us."
Why would THAT be someone's first thought, upon finding out their oils are bad? Interesting (and telling) to say the least.
It kind of puts a shady cast on this whole thing. If everything the author states is true, I do feel bad for him. However, I feel he took a big risk putting his trust and his company name in the hands of a wholesaler without doing his homework first.

Just my opinion.
 
Wow. Just wow.
Something doesn't sit right with me about this. The fact that the test results somehow got leaked to Facebook (?!) is very odd. I don't know who Dr. Pappas is, but if they leaked the results, what does that say about their integrity and the reliability of their tests? Even if Dr. Pappas wasn't the source of the leak, maybe a second test from a different lab to confirm the results would have been in order before publicly airing the situation all over the internet.

And this line here, "At first, we thought maybe we were being set up by the competition to try and discredit us."
Why would THAT be someone's first thought, upon finding out their oils are bad? Interesting (and telling) to say the least.
It kind of puts a shady cast on this whole thing. If everything the author states is true, I do feel bad for him. However, I feel he took a big risk putting his trust and his company name in the hands of a wholesaler without doing his homework first.

Just my opinion.

Something sits wrong with me too, which is why I shared it here. And your questions are right along the same lines mine are. If it's legit, then I do indeed feel bad for him, but I'm not sure he is helping his legal case by writing this type of article.
 
I didn't have many misgivings, until "please donate $15" and "5 ml bottle doTerra eo".
There's little if any money left after cost and shipping.
 
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I've not seen this before but I don't go to FB groups or travel in EO circles. I will say that when I first started soaping, I heard bad things about essential depot in regards to their customer service and how they change their web site around to protect themselves if issues arise. I decided right then and there that they are shady and will never purchase from them or purchase their products through a third party.

If you reread the article, you will see it was a customer of the articles author who had the tests done and posted the results. You can learn more about Dr. Pappas and his testing here https://essentialoils.org/

Personally, I'm glad people post articles like this. We always hear about the good but rarely the bad and this is very bad. I'd like to see test results for other vendors. EO purity is a concern for most people who use them, I'm more likely to trust independent lab results then some bogus sounding promise on a vendors website without some kind of documentation.

You would think if ED or any other company went through the trouble of visiting a EO producer, they would have some pictures or documentation of the event. Overseeing/testing EO through 3 stages of production sounds very impressive and very fake. I hope this company get their money and reputation back. If ED really did this then they need to be exposed.
 
It's interesting that they refer to themselves as "mom and pop" but yet do 20k in sales each month? This seems like a lot of money (240k/year) to not have done your own testing prior to building a company. It was very emotional (and just plain "bad") writing so I confess I did a lot of skimming through the article.
 
It's interesting that they refer to themselves as "mom and pop" but yet do 20k in sales each month? This seems like a lot of money (240k/year) to not have done your own testing prior to building a company. It was very emotional (and just plain "bad") writing so I confess I did a lot of skimming through the article.
Yep I did the same, and I find it quite interesting they are giving DoTerra oils with the donation and not their own Earth Love (therapeutic grade) Essential oils. As we all know there is no therapeutic grade recognized by FDA. So they purchase from the same suppliers as us, repackage an essential oil such as Frankincense and re-sell it for $22.50 for a 10ml bottle. Let's talk about rip-off. Essential Depot is not my favorite go to supplier but I have purchased a few eo's from them. At one time they were the only supplier I could find for a small bottle of tumeric. Hopefully FDA will get to them as they did DoTerra.
 
I do think this guy is kind of iffy and I would not buy from him...but after hearing about the Essential Depot lye issue, I give his complaints some credibility.

My dad is a business owner and I can tell you that $20,000 a month may SEEM impressive, but that's not his profit, that's his sales. Assume he upcharges by double on his products (which I think is fairly standard for retail) that's $10,000 profit. Assuming he and his wife are paid $10/hr, 40hr week, 4 weeks a month, that's $1600 each ($3200). That leaves $6800 per month. Out of that comes insurance, rent, salaries for other employees, etc. 20k a month is small potatoes.
 
I do feel for him, but he needs to realize that he is to blame - he trusted them, and he based his reputation on that trust. While ED have acted shamefully (allegedly) and illegally (allegedly) and he should certainly sue them for lying or at least selling a product as one thing when it is actually something else (doing so knowingly or unknowingly, that is a crime), he is to blame for his reputation situation
 
I do think this guy is kind of iffy and I would not buy from him...but after hearing about the Essential Depot lye issue, I give his complaints some credibility.

My dad is a business owner and I can tell you that $20,000 a month may SEEM impressive, but that's not his profit, that's his sales. Assume he upcharges by double on his products (which I think is fairly standard for retail) that's $10,000 profit. Assuming he and his wife are paid $10/hr, 40hr week, 4 weeks a month, that's $1600 each ($3200). That leaves $6800 per month. Out of that comes insurance, rent, salaries for other employees, etc. 20k a month is small potatoes.

Lye issue? Do tell, as I have a bottle of their lye under my sink. Now you got me all worried! =P
 
I guess I need to be more careful. I'm not selling what I make but I am buying lye and soon enough, essential oils. I had no idea essential depot had such a controversy.
 
Lye issue? Do tell, as I have a bottle of their lye under my sink. Now you got me all worried! =P

Some posters here (among other customers) were having issues of their time-tested recipes failing. Some of them sent in samples of their lye to be tested and it not pure. Something like it was only 50% lye or something?
 
I do feel for him, but he needs to realize that he is to blame - he trusted them, and he based his reputation on that trust. While ED have acted shamefully (allegedly) and illegally (allegedly) and he should certainly sue them for lying or at least selling a product as one thing when it is actually something else (doing so knowingly or unknowingly, that is a crime), he is to blame for his reputation situation

Totally disagree. He wasn't buying EOs out of somebody's trunk in a sketchy neighborhood. He bought EOs from a well-known company that claimed it tested the EOs it sold. ED is absolutely to blame for (morally speaking, I can't speak to legal) about the damage done to this guy's business b/c of their shady practices.
 
I find reading the responses to this article quite interesting. There are questions about this guy's honesty and motivation similar to his initial questioning of the individuals who posted the results of the tests performed on the EOs he supplied (as supplied to him by ED). I think his article is truthful for the simple reason that he running the risk of a huge lawsuit (from a company with an in-house counsel) if any of the information he posted can be misinterpreted in any way. He doesn't have to post a straight out lie about ED. ED just needs to twist his post to appear malicious and they can bury him. The person doing the testing is a leading expert on EOs. Questioning his integrity would be very difficult for anybody. Essentially, ED is selling FOs and labeling them as EOs. I wonder if they even knew that what they received was not the real thing. They seem like a marketing scam.

It is easy to blame him for not doing more due diligence. It is prohibitively expensive for a small business to do the type of testing needed to verify the ingredients they buy from suppliers. It would be the equivalent of asking everybody who sells scented soaps to do testing to verify the accuracy of the IFRA information and the composition of the oils they are using. It's impossible. This is why we all rely on the information provided with the product. I think this is a guy that started a small business after being downsized like so many others. I agree that $20K a month in sales is not much. I'm not surprised that he is asking for help. His lawyer fees will be way more that he can ever hope to get back from ED. If ED loses the lawsuit, they just declare bankruptcy, shut down and restart the same business under a new name. Even if the government fines them for deceptive advertising, the penalty is minimal compared to the profits they already made. These are the unfortunate realities of doing business in the US.

I'm wondering now about the last sale that ED had. It looks like they were trying to dump all of their fake supply. I bought some food grade lye from them and added some EOs that I wanted to test for soap. I have no doubt now that what I have is an overly priced FO without an IFRA that can guide usage rate. Essentially, it is all trash. I also don't think the food grade lye they sell is 95% pure like they state. I've use high grade 95% lye before and the lye I got from ED is nothing like it. I'll be looking for another supplier once the stuff I have is depleted. Live and learn.

Thanks to the original OP for sharing the information. I was starting to wonder about their lye but doubted myself because they provide a COA on their website. Now I know it isn't in my head. Thankfully I haven't touched the "EOs". I don't sell but I give my soaps to people I care about. I would hate to be a seller who used anything from ED in their product.
 
In order to make the world go around in a healthy and happy manner, people should behave.

When we walk out the door with car keys in hand and head down the road, we have to believe that other drivers have not only their welfare, but ours in mind. Otherwise, we'd treat driving with the same fear/respect as skydiving.

Please don't remind me that there are addicts, sociopaths, careless, mean, etc. people in the world. I'm very aware of that. It also doesn't negate the fact that we should expect and require people to behave well. I need all the other drivers on the road to care that they don't crash into me. I also need to drive in a manner that protects them as well as me.

A business should be honest and fair. Despite the common adage that "business is business, it isn't personal", it absolutely is personal. Anything that involves people, is personal.

I'm not advocating that anyone trust blindly, because there is lots of dishonesty in the world. The problem is we've come to expect it - we alter our expectations and become skeptical detectives. So when dishonesty happens...we blame the victim?

In order to change that, we need to keep high expectations. Trust, but verify and always hold accountable.

(strange but true; when I needed my first car serviced, I found a respected business and blankly told them I knew nothing about cars and needed them to honest with me because I didn't have extra money to waste. They bent over backwards to prove themselves to me, and gave me a small discount too.)
 
Lye issue? Do tell, as I have a bottle of their lye under my sink. Now you got me all worried! =P

I'm not judging, but this struck me as an odd place to keep your lye. Aren't you afraid the lye will absorb some moisture (due to "sweating pipes" not necessarily leaks) and lose its effectiveness? Even if you have the cap screwed on tight, I would think there is still a possibility of it happening. (I have no proof or data to back that up.) I live in TN and we've got humidity issues and I worry about my lye going "off" because of that. I keep mine on a shelf with my other supplies.

I read this article earlier today and thought it was interesting. Right up to the "doTERRA" and plea for funds (as someone else mentioned). It does make me much more reluctant to use EOs for my soap unless someone specifically requests them. With FOs, at least I know everything in there was created in a lab and is supposed to be fake. (The more research I do, the more my opinions of things change. I used to think EOs were da bomb and FOs were evil. Not so much anymore.)
 
I'm not judging, but this struck me as an odd place to keep your lye. Aren't you afraid the lye will absorb some moisture (due to "sweating pipes" not necessarily leaks) and lose its effectiveness? Even if you have the cap screwed on tight, I would think there is still a possibility of it happening. (I have no proof or data to back that up.) I live in TN and we've got humidity issues and I worry about my lye going "off" because of that. I keep mine on a shelf with my other supplies.

Well I'd have to hear what other soapers have to say. I haven't noticed anything personally. It already housed cleaning supplies and I figured I might as well keep other things that could kill/injure babies in the same ultra baby proofed spot. I don't have many other places to put it in my tiny city apartment.

About the Essential Depot essential oils, a soaper in my city was telling me about how he felt their EOs weren't as good of quality as from other vendors. He didn't elaborate on his reasoning, but I'm definitely sending him this article to check out.
 
I'm not judging, but this struck me as an odd place to keep your lye. Aren't you afraid the lye will absorb some moisture (due to "sweating pipes" not necessarily leaks) and lose its effectiveness? Even if you have the cap screwed on tight, I would think there is still a possibility of it happening. (I have no proof or data to back that up.) I live in TN and we've got humidity issues and I worry about my lye going "off" because of that. I keep mine on a shelf with my other supplies.

In Houston we have humidity issues year round, so I worry about the same thing. My first two bottles of lye were bought at Lowe's. The very first one was small and used up very quickly, so there was no time for it to get clumpy or show signs of moisture impact. But the second bottle, which was used more slowly, definitely began showing signs of moisture impact as the muggy summer heat managed to infiltrate everything, despite the AC being on at all times. As soon as I saw the crusty lye on the rim of the opening, the clumps when I poured, etc, I disposed of it and ordered more.

My solution since then is to store my lye bottles in giant Ziploc bags. Whether I've opened them or not, I put the bottle in the Ziploc, push the air out, and zip closed. This has proven to be effective for me at least. No more crusty lye or clumps.
 
In Houston we have humidity issues year round, so I worry about the same thing. My first two bottles of lye were bought at Lowe's. The very first one was small and used up very quickly, so there was no time for it to get clumpy or show signs of moisture impact. But the second bottle, which was used more slowly, definitely began showing signs of moisture impact as the muggy summer heat managed to infiltrate everything, despite the AC being on at all times. As soon as I saw the crusty lye on the rim of the opening, the clumps when I poured, etc, I disposed of it and ordered more.

My solution since then is to store my lye bottles in giant Ziploc bags. Whether I've opened them or not, I put the bottle in the Ziploc, push the air out, and zip closed. This has proven to be effective for me at least. No more crusty lye or clumps.

That's an excellent idea. I'll probably need to get rid of the lye I have at home now (or just use strictly for drain cleaner!) because of the humidity. If they're OK, I'll put them in the heavy duty black trash bags. My bottles are 10# each. I went through 2# so fast, I thought I'd get the larger size. I'm not using the "bulk" lye as fast as I thought I would.
 

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