Young Living Review: Is It A Scam?

(Last Updated on November 5, 2022)

If you follow essential oils then you might have heard about Young Living.

They are a company that have cashed out on the growing popularity of essential oils and developed a modern business plan.

They offer their members the chance to join a MLM, or a multi-level business marketing plan.

This means that anyone can join up with Young Living and sell products, earn bonuses, and get discounts.

Unfortunately, most people are terrified when they hear about MLM businesses.

This is because a lot of them are csams.

Today we’ll tell you about this brand so you can figure out if you want to join them.

What is Young Living?

Young Living is a company that flaunts the belief that essential oils, which are popular folk remedies, can be useful for curing everything from the common cold to ebola.

While there’s certainly a lot of science that backs up certain medicinal uses of essential oils, they certainly haven’t been proven to ‘cure’ most diseases.

Regardless, Young Living makes some pretty intense claims about their oils.

It is known that some of the distributors simply make things up when selling the oils.

That doesn’t mean the whole company is bad, though.

And, whether it’s because of crazy distributors making up stories or because of the company’s authenticity, they’re certainly an effective business.

They are more than a billion-dollar industry.

Young Living: What Do They Sell?

Young Living sells a huge variety of essential oils and other products that are useful for improving health.

They cash out on the growing trend of alternative health & medicine.

Their products are made professionally and processed, packaged and delivered effectively.

Many of the oils are made by steam-distilling the leaves and flowers of plants before collecting the volatile oils.

For example, they use a whole pound of peppermint to make a 15ml bottle of peppermint oil.

That’s a lot of peppermint.

They offer oils for seemingly endless purposes.

Some can be used for aromatherapy, some can be used in the bath, some can be used in essential oil diffusers as incense.

There are a seemingly endless number of uses for Young Living’s oils.

They also sell a huge variety of other household, health, and beauty products like deodorants, skin care products and hair creams and conditioners.

They are most well-known for their oils though.

Young Living Most Popular Products

A few of their products are more popular than others.

From their own website, they have pointed out their most popular products:

Peppermint Essential Oil

Peppermint always makes it to the top of essential oil lists. It can be useful for managing pain or for improving respiration. Use it topically or put it into boiling water and breathe the vapors.

Lavender Essential Oil

This is another one that seems to always make the top 3. It can also be used topically to ease pain and it makes a great addition to bath water. It is known to be a relaxing aroma.

Lemon Essential Oil

Lemon essential oil provides a bright, sharp citrus smell and can be useful as an aid in household cleaners. You can diffuse it or vaporize it to help improve the atmosphere of an area.

Tea Essential Oil

Tea tree essential oil is probably the number one most common oil in the planet. The tea tree grows native in Australia where the oil is a household thing. It can be used for all sorts of things, from fighting acne and improving the health of your skin to helping to clean your household.

Does Young Living Work?

Young Living makes some pretty crazy claims about their products.

One thing that’s a bit off-putting is the way that their oils are promoted as alternative medicine.

While it’s true that they are used in folk medicine, it’s a bit of a gamble trying to openly promote something as medicine.

There is growing scientific evidence that essential oils work as medicine, but not enough for a distributor or promoter to officially label them as medicine.

The company itself seems to be fairly legit but they don’t put strict enough guidelines on their distributors.

For that reason, there are some absolutely outlandish claims being made about their oils.

One of the distributors even made a claim that essential oils can kill Ebola.

If this is true (which we don’t know) then there isn’t enough evidence to support it.

The FDA actually had to investigate Young Living because of this, and told them that their medicines should be classed as drugs if they are going to continue promoting them in this way.

Young Living MLM Business Opportunity

Young Living provides members with the chance to join a MLM, or a multi-level marketing business opportunity.

This means that by joining up as a distributor, you can get discounts and earn real money by recruiting other members and selling their products.

Will you make a lot of money?

That depends on how hard you work and how many people you recruit.

A lot of people don’t make any money, but those who truly dedicate time and effort to it will make lots of money.

If you recruit enough people, eventually you can make money off your downline (the people that you recruited and their sales).

Remember though, this takes incredible time and dedication.

Young Living: The Compensation Plan

The plan for Young Living’s distributors is pretty simple.

Most MLM companies have fairly similar compensation plans, with the main differences being the types of bonuses and the number of ranks that you can increase in.

The three basic principles of Young Living are:

• Creating a foundation
• Building your business
• Becoming a leader

These are the basics for anyone who wants to earn money with Young Living.

Once you join, you’ll get some free members-only stuff to help you sell stuff and to give you incentive to stay in the company.

You’ll get business training tools like instructional DVDs and flyers.

You’ll get a kit to help you begin selling. And you’ll get discounts on their stuff.

Your total volume – calculated by the amount of stuff that you sell and the amount of people you recruit – will determine your ranking.

The more you earn, the higher you will rank, and the more commission you will earn on your sales.

The more that your recruits sell, the more they will contribute to your volume.

The ranks, in order, are:

• Distributor
• Star
• Senior star
• Gold
• Platinum
• Diamond
• Crown diamond
• Royal crown diamond

Keep in mind that 94% of people give up before they reach the second rank.

The average income of these people is about $1 a week.

That’s likely because they joined the company expecting to make millions right away, and that’s simply not how how MLMs work.

Is Young Living A Pyramid Scheme?

Young Living, just like any other MLM, technically operates as a pyramid scheme.

If you work as a distributor, you start out at the bottom of the pyramid.

As you recruit new members, and then they recruit new members, the pyramid grows and you end up closer towards the top.

That said, it takes a lot of time and effort to climb the pyramid.

You’re not really climbing, you’re waiting for it to grow beneath you.

In some cases people are afraid of pyramid schemes because they have a bad rep.

Some might even believe that Young Living’s rep is enough to avoid their MLM opportunity.

Just last year in 2017, the company plead guilty to a lawsuit that charged them with trafficking essential oils illegally.

They lost $760,000 in this lawsuit.

What does that say about their business practice?

Young Living Reviews & Complaints

There are a lot of reviews for Young Living, both positive and negative.

There are 178 on Glassdoor, a site that collects reviews from employees about businesses .

Surprisingly, despite some of the negative hype, the company has a solid 4.5 stars on this site.

87% of people recommended it and 89% approved of the ownership.

The most recent reviewer said that Young Living is on a “great mission” with “great people and culture.”

Unfortunately, it’s generally acknowledged that you have to work “long hours” and it’s “hard work with kids” because it’s difficult to balance working at home with raising kids.

Not everyone thought it was awesome, though.

Social butterflies may find the indirect sales approach hard and one reviewer felt it was “isolating, depending on location.”

It can also be “difficult to raise support” for your business.

As for the products, it’s generally believed that they are of good quality, if not “pretty expensive.”

One reviewer said that they are “effective for so many things,” and that they have “been using Young Living for several years.”

Other members have had bad experiences with their return policy, saying that it “took so long to get a refund that I almost ended up throwing it out.”

Young Living Prices & Where To Buy

Like most MLM companies, Young Living wants you to buy oils from their site directly or from distributors who work for them.

If you work as a distributor, you can get their wholesale prices which are a little bit cheaper than their retail prices.

Then you can flip these products and earn commission on them.

However, some of their distributors have managed to start selling things on other online websites like Amazon.

If you want to find a distributor site all you have to do is make a quick Google search.

There are tons of distributors.

You can pick and choose and probably find different prices – remember,, many distributors are going to try and undercut each other to offer you the best deal!

Their main products are their essential oils, so we’ll give you a few of the prices of their most popular oils.

These are the retail prices and generally what you’ll find on their website if you’re not a member or on any other retailers page.

All of these oils are priced for 15ml.

• Thieves oil, a mix of several different types (smells really good) $44.41
  
• Peppermint essential oil, one of the most popular – $28.29
• Lavender essential oil, another of the top 3 – $30.92
• Peace & Calming essential oil, one of their blends – $44.41

As you can see from these prices it’s pretty expensive to buy oils from this company.

I can’t attest to their quality but they’d better be extremely high quality for that price.

Usually you can get them for less than half.

Young Living Money Back Guarantee & Refund Policy

Young Living has an interesting return policy.

Your return will vary depending on whether or not you opened the product and how long you’ve had it for.

If you return anything unopened within 30 days you’ll get a full refund.

Anything opened has to be returned within 30 days and you’ll get a full refund, as well.

However, any opened products that aren’t returned after 30 days will only get a small credit.

Young Living Pros & Cons

It’s a good idea to understand both the pros and cons of any company you’re planning to be involved with, and we wouldn’t be writing a good review if we didn’t tell you the ups and the downs.

Here are the pros & cons for Young Living.

Pros

• You get to buy stuff at wholesale price if you’re a distributor which is basically a discount that you can turn into profit.
  
• If you join without a sponsor you will be assigned one.
• Average monthly income is pretty ls low but they’re still better than what most people make at MLMs.

Cons

• Like any MLM it’s hard to make money. It seems to be particularly hard with Young Living.
  
• You’ll have to make quite a few sales to even break even.
• Some people are skeptical of the pyramid-like structure of the business.
• The prices are pretty expensive compared to similar brands.
• Startup costs are not cheap and can discourage people.

Young Living Review: Final Verdict

Young Living has certainly gone through some legal loopholes but it seems that the company is doing quite well for itself now.

Its employees have left favorable reviews and many people seem to enjoy the products despite their price.

If you think this sounds like a good opportunity, then by all means, seize it.

Hopefully we’ve helped you make a decision today.

So, what do you think about our Young Living review? Would you buy this product or not? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!