Why no essential oils?
Here at Mabel's Tallow, we don't use any essential oils in our products. Instead we use whole plant extracts, processed through diffusions.
Why no essential oils though? Wouldn't that be easier and better? Easier, sure, someone could argue that adding a few drops of liquid is easier than making infusions, but better? This is where I disagree for a few reasons:
- Essential oils are not all made equal. Sourcing truly pure and sustainable oils isn't very easy when there is such tricky marketing out there these days. Certain brands trademark terms that make the consumer believe that their products have certain levels of testing, when that is not always the case.
- Essential oils are truly volatile oils. When used in such high concentrations on the skin, especially if there are any breakages or disturbances in the skin biome, these volatile oils can aggravate the issues, or cause pain.
- To make essential oils, a very large amount of product must be consumed in order to produce the tiny bottle of oil. One of the goals we work towards with Mabel's is to return to living in ways that we once did. Never in our human history would we have encountered the amount of product used to make even a few drops of an essential oil at one time. Often times, the plant product used to create the essential oil can have many different medicinal or health benefits, but when only used for its production of the oil, these other benefits (and how the plants should truly be used) are discarded and wasted.
- At Mabel's, we want to fully stand behind and be 100% confident in the sustainability and health benefits of each and every product we create. Using whole plant extracts and infusions give us the freedom to source in sustainable ways, give thanks to the plants we work with, and stand behind the products we make. For our scented products, we source from Mother Nature herself, organic gardens and/or from local farmers.