In this article, you will learn what doTERRA CPTG Certified means and how doTERRA’s essential oils are superior to others because of it. Other brands of essential oils are considered “therapeutic grade,” which is unregulated. doTERRA wanted to develop a new standard due to lack of regulation and, therefore deceptive, quality and contents that can be passed off under such labeling.

 

Is doTERRA Organic?

Because organic certification varies so much from one country to another, it is not possible to acquire all essential oils under organic status. So doTERRA created their own quality control standards that exceed the industry standards for organic/therapeutic and they decided to call it CPTG  (Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade).

doTERRA wanted to show what sets them apart from others. They pay careful attention to all the following so when you see the term doTERRA CPTG, you will know that it means something and is a high standard they hold themselves to. It means they are stating that all the following things matter and that they pay close attention to all these things when producing their essential oils:

• Sourcing
• Country/soil of origin
• What is sprayed on a field or added to the soil
• Distillation processes
• Uses of solvents and chemicals for extraction
• Temperature

Sourcing

dōTERRA’s essential oils are extracted from the right species, the right part of the plant, in the right environment, during the right period and distilled under the right conditions.

As a general rule, the farther down the supply chain you go, the less likely you are to be getting pure product. There are a lot of companies out there selling essential oils and most of them have no ability (or in many cases, no desire) to do the necessary quality control to verify what they are getting from their supplier before they pass it on to their customers.

doTERRA is working directly with growers all over the world to obtain essential oils directly from the source. This has an extremely positive ecological, economic and environmental global impact.

To further understand what CPTG means, it’s helpful to read the example in my post on Co-Impact Sourcing about how Vetiver is sourced from Haiti. It explains why it is so important where the plants are grown. It really does matter where it’s grown because the chemical composition is different in different environments.

Additives

doTERRA wanted to set themselves apart to show that not all oils are created equal. Oils could possibly contain:

• Contaminates
• Pesticides
• Herbicides
• Solvents
• Inferior and/or unlabeled plant sources
• Other unlabeled species
• Synthetic compounds

What Does doTERRA CPTG  (Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade) Mean?

• Compounds carefully extracted
• No fillers or artificial ingredients
• Methods to ensure oils are free of any contaminants
• Gently and skillfully distilled
• Additional rigorous quality testing
• Patiently harvested
• Product is guaranteed

You can read details in the Spring Living Magazine about what goes into quality control with doTERRA.

For more details on CPTG, please read doTERRA’s CPTG brochure or their paper on CPTG Testing Methods.

If you would like to read more about essential oil myths, including ones about sourcing and grades of oils, this article from Dr. Pappa’s may be interesting to you.

You might be interested in some of my posts about individual doTERRA Essential Oils:

doTERRA Essential Oils Uses – How Much Should I Use & How Often?

Are doTERRA Essential Oils Safe?

Why Do doTERRA Essential Oils Smell Better?

Is It Safe to Take doTERRA Essential Oils Internally?

Note – these are my notes from the doTERRA 2014 Convention from a presentation done by Laura Jacobs.