Essential Oils are Bullshit

If you aren't part of the 'crunchy mom' crew you may not know much about essential oils. Supposedly they're a cure all. Anything from sleep issues to cancer to ebola. At least that's what distributors claim. If you ever see a blog post or facebook post about essential oils scroll down to the comment and see how many people name drop their favorite brand or seem wayyyy too helpful.

"Oops, I totally meant learning" 

Popular essential oil companies like DoTerra and Young Living run a pyramid scheme-- you sell the product for them and they are not responsible for the BS that you claim they can cure. There are very few studies that look at essential oils and almost all of those are for topical application only.

These oils are unregulated. So while companies may claim a certain purity, or even that there's a certain ingredient in the oil, that doesn't mean it's true. The claims made by sellers were not held to any standard until September of 2014 when the FDA warned the president of Young Living, Gary Young, to stop his distributors from diagnosing illnesses and making ridiculous claims(see:ebola). Despite this I still see sellers make dangerous suggestions like ingesting oils or applying undiluted oil topically to babies. Phrases like "Pure therapeutic grade" do not mean ANYTHING.

Yes, cured! 

                                 
Young Living has also got some flack lately for targeting Christians and other church goers. They cite biblical passages and attribute spiritual benefits to the oils. Pretty much they're selling you whatever they think you'll buy because it doesn't matter what's actually in that expensive little bottle.

pls stop

They also target parents. Anti vaccine parents will be glad to see that essential oils provide the same immunities and protections as vaccines. They don't. But they'll be glad to see that someone claimed they did. Funny how a group centered around there not being enough information about vaccines will drink up a product that hasn't been proven to do anything at all.

There are recipes for baby wipe solution, shampoo, diaper rash cream and lotion that all include essential oils. A tip for the frugal DIY parents: If you see a recipe that includes an essential oil, remove it and it will work just as well because with a very few exceptions they don't do shit.

You get a discount from DoTerra(and I'm sure others) for becoming a 'wholesale' member. "There's no selling requirement!" they claim, but you do have to purchase $50 worth of oils a year to keep the membership and 'discount'.

You'll also see people claiming to be making just a ton of money selling essential oils! And if you contact them they can help you do the same! You just have to recruit 2 people and they recruit 2 people and so on. It sounds easy but it's not sustainable.  With pyramid schemes most of the product is just being sold to other distributors and goes down the line.

Rodney Harrison II

Midterms are over with and Len Augustine is back as Vacaville's mayor. He's not my favorite and I'm sure I'll talk about him more later.

Right now I want to talk about something that happened about a month ago. It was terrible on it's own but then I stumbled upon a "topix" debate on it that made it even more terrible.

Rodney Harrison II, an 18 year old black man, was one of Vacaville's mayoral candidates. One of his campaign signs in front of a church was defaced including a swastika drawn on his forehead.

Harrison has been outspoken about racism throughout his campaign which garners opposition from both conservatives concerned with the 'race card' and 'color blind' 'progressives' alike. Basically, they don't have to worry about it so they really wish you wouldn't talk about it and hurt their feelings. 

Here are some quotes from the Topix debate: 

"Oh come on!!! If this guy is so spineless that he has to whine racism every time anything bad happens to him then he is way to wimpy to be mayor."

"Since when is vandlism automatially "racism"? This KID is playing the race card as if he were the love child of Sharpton & Jackson. Tell you what, Junior...go get about 10 to 20 years of life experience under your belt and leave the politics to the grown ups."

"The only real hate crime here was him insinuating that some simple vandalism was racism. "

They're acting like someone drew a silly mustache on the guy. It was a swastika, guys. I know you know what it means because there's probably one tattooed somewhere on your body.