I've been on a huge anti-MLM kick lately, mostly because I listened to the first season of the compelling podcast "The Dream" but also because I have seen family and friends completely ripped off by them. My mom, notably, is a serial MLM flop... she has spent thousands over the years trying to start "home businesses" for things like fancy powdered vitamins. On a personal note, listening to "The Dream" really punched my in the gut because it brought to the forefront how much of this problem was ultimately not really her fault; these are designed to make you really feel like you're going to make a living while ensuring you fail miserably. Once, when I was still in Literal Poverty, I tried an MLM, too, and I have definitely considered others.
This post is, though, only partially about MLMs. It's mostly about essential oils, although the connection will be made in this essay, trust me.
When I was a baby Witch essential oils carried a lot of mystique for me. Being a broom-closeted early teen too young to secure a job or drive a car, I relied heavily on DIY solutions and the Internet to practice, and so I lusted over this concept of "essential oils" that I kept seeing in ritual and spell instructionals. Since I couldn't get my hands on them I just steeped kitchen spices in vegetable oil and used those whenever an essential oil was requested. I could get away with being at the supermarket with my parents and spending my allowance on average herbs, but essential oils? Didn't want to explain them, and furthermore, expensive as fuck.
Having gone so long without acquiring these, when I was a young adult I obtained an enviable stash of essential oils that I used for practically everything. Why would I use messy ground herbs for stuff when I could just use essential oils? It was quick, it was convenient, and it was cheap in the long run. My room smelled like a lavender hellhole (to this day lavender essential oil triggers memories of dorm room magick) but I felt like a more genuine Witch.
It turns out I was using them super irresponsibly. I didn't use them internally--we'll discuss that with the MLMs, though, I promise--but I did use a lot of them, used them topically without understanding whether that was a good idea, I did use some of them in my mouth (even if I didn't swallow), and used them without diluting them enough (if at all). I was lucky and didn't have that many extreme reactions at the time (my first reaction was when I made a deodorant that had a great deal of essential oil in it including some that are not nice for the skin at all, and I convinced myself I was allergic to arrowroot powder instead somehow). I was convinced that these oils were concentrated plant magick and did this stuff for many years.
They are concentrated... too concentrated. The vast majority of home users of essential oils are not really equipped to understand how strong an essential oil is, we have this underlying assumption that natural medicine is inherently safe and gentle. Essential oils are neither, especially when used in wantonly irresponsible ways. You are also losing out on a big part of the plant when you use them... one of the appeals of plant medicine is that rather than concentrating out one particular chemical that affects your body you're using a whole matrix of chemicals grown in that plant together. And even some of the safest ways of using essential oils--through diffusing them--can be unsafe or even deadly for pets!
It's also important to mention that essential oils--especially cheap ones--are a massive environmental hazard, because depending on the herb one little quarter-ounce bottle of that shit could have taken a whole shed or more full of plant matter, and for some plants it's damn near impossible to ethically source them unless you grow them yourself, and buying a bottle of essential oils with them is dozens of times worse.
I'm definitely not saying that essential oils aren't useful. Do I use them? Of course. I use them very sparingly, I'm much pickier about them, and I use fixed oils instead, but I'll talk about that way at the end when I talk about how I think you should reduce, reconsider, and replace essential oils. First...
What does this have to do with MLMs? It turns out, there are some very popular MLMs right now that focus on essential oils. I had them on my mind this morning because I noted a local Pagan shop I go to posted about a bad review they got on Facebook, which said:Lack of knowledge regarding essential oils and why it is necessary to take them internally.And I immediately knew right away: This person is selling either Young Living or doTERRA. I checked out her Facebook and... yup. This is a Christian woman who sells doTERRA.
"Why does it matter that she is Christian?!" I think it's important to mention that both doTERRA and Young Living are deeply based on exploiting the treatment of women in fundamentalist Christianity. Many of these women are not allowed (by their husbands, their churches, or of course their own personal beliefs) to take jobs outside of the home, and so MLMs have created a kind of loophole to, well, take their money, and a lot of them are built on Christian beliefs. If you want to read some prime what-the-fuck, here's somebody justifying marketing Young Living essential oils basically because she's allowed to preach while she sells them. Young Living, by the way, was founded by Donald Gary Young, who made claims his essential oils could cure before dying a good ten years before the average male life expectancy in his state. He also accidentally drowned his newborn daughter while his wife was giving birth. Perhaps they should rename the company to "Young Dying?" doTERRA, by the way, was founded by people who left Young Living.
(Seriously, if you listen to that podcast, so much of the reason MLMs are popular is because of Christian attitudes toward women)
Anyway, this combination of faith healing and repression of women turned out to be a winning combination for making essential oils the in thing again, but one of the many problems of MLMs is that sellers need to keep hemorrhaging money, and so the products wind up being promoted way beyond their original scopes. There's only so much aromatherapy somebody can do, but what if... hear me out... what if we start eating them? Just full on eating a whole fucking bottle of doTERRA. Please buy my doTERRA.
The first time I was in an anti-MLM group and saw somebody post a picture of doTERRA oils being used to brine a turkey, I thought "this couldn't possibly be a normal thing." But no, they literally are trying to get you to eat essential oils.
So what should I do instead? Essential oils are not a very old concept and therefore are not really integral to Witchcraft at all. If you're like me, you already have a lot of essential oils and I'm in no way suggesting you just throw them out or anything, but tone it down.
First and foremost, don't fucking eat them. There are culinary essential oils out there you can get at, say, a candy shop or something, but there are very few essential oils that have any evidence to support taking them internally for health benefits. For those that do, you really can't wing it and will need to talk somebody who has actual training (not an MLM consultant).
When you do use essential oils, use very little, and always put it in a carrier oil when applying topically or anointing, say, a ritual tool with it. If you use it topically, do a patch test first because some people react more than others.
I've stopped using essential oils in most ways that would involve putting them on any sensitive areas (in the mouth, on the lips, etc.) but if you do (like, say, in a lip balm) do not
My own technique? I went back to what I did as a kid... I make steeped, or "fixed" oils. This, again, has huge historical precedent... essential oils are fairly modern, so ancient talk of plant "oils" are often plant matter steeped in a carrier oil anyway.
Take the spice or herb you want, dry it a bit, and steep it in oil (olive, avocado, sunflower, coconut, animal fat, flax, almond, they all add their own scent and have their own repercussions but they'll all work) for a few days. Strain out the plant matter and use it any way your Witchcraft books say you should use essential oils... you can use more of it, if you want, and if you use a foodsafe herb and foodsafe oil in a foodsafe location you can even use them internally if you want to make your gross "healing turkey" or whatever. When you make a fixed oil you don't need a carrier oil because you already have a carrier oil!
Anyway, that's all for essential oils today!
Happy trails,
-- Setkheni-itw
