Guest Post by Contributing Writer: Chelsea Nelson

Essential oils can play a predominate role in our natural medicine cabinets and make wonderful substitutes for common over-the-counter drugs found there. Today we're going to talk about one of my favorite oils: peppermint.

For years the herb peppermint has been used in fresh, dried, and oil form to address digestive difficulties, especially in easing nausea and cramps, and to provide refreshment for more than just your mouth, but your overall energy, too.

In Part One of our two-part series, we briefly discussed the basic, "essential" elements of an essential oil.  A pure, additive-and-pesticide-free oil is a true essential oil.  But when all six of the oils companies in our orange oil comparison claim they offer the purest, highest-quality oils available, how do we avoid just blindly picking one?

At this point, let us take a look at the hard data.  What can the cost of each oil and each company's ability to prove organic certification and gas chromatography testing tell us about their oils?

A couple weeks ago we discussed where to obtain the best dried herbs.  But what about essential oils?  It's a lot easier to make a judgment about herbs, but choosing where to purchase oils can be a daunting process.  There are so many companies out there, each making the claim that their oil is of the purest, highest quality available.  Who has the time to dig beneath the surface for the truth, or even know the right questions to ask?

For those of you who just need a place to start, below is a short comparison of six different oils companies.  Several of these may be familiar to you.  There are many more out there, and I wish it was feasible to cover them all.  In fact, I wish I had more time to completely unpack the few included here!  I have barely scratched the surface, but hopefully the information offered in this brief comparison will aid you in choosing the right essential oils for your family or, at the very least, spur you on to do further investigation for yourself.