Reflections from Silver Retreat

I want to start by saying thank you to all of my loyal customers for supporting our family business.  With a multi-level marketing company like Young Living, each purchase you make literally helps our family and others put food on the table and gas in the car, so thank you!

I was so grateful for the opportunity to attend Silver Retreat.  I love that Young Living doesn’t just buy its leaders a car or fancy jewelry, but that it sends us to the farms, the very foundation of the company.  This was my second time visiting the Mona, Utah farm.  Each visit has been peaceful, powerful, and has made me fall more and more in love with the Seed to Seal process and its promise of integrity.  The Mona lavender fields and farm span nearly 1,600 acres.  The oils grown on this farm include Lavender, Hyssop, Clary Sage, Peppermint, Goldenrod, Balsam Fir, Melissa, Roman Chamomile, Juniper, and Blue Yarrow.  I wanted to share just one little tidbit from each part of the Seed to Seal process that stood out to me this trip.

SEED: To make the best, we start with the best seeds and botanicals that have been evaluated for their essential oil-producing potential.

The Lavender harvest was completed by the time we arrived, but they were just beginning the labor-intensive process of saving the seeds.  After the flower heads are dried, they must be rubbed on a mesh screen to separate the tiny black seeds from the rest of the plant.  The seeds fall to through the mesh screen into a bucket, and the spent flowers remain on top to be discarded.  It takes about two weeks to get all the seeds separated and the entire process is done by hand!

CULTIVATE:  By maintaining the Seed to Seal Standards, Young Living ensures the highest quality essential oils, controlling and documenting the health of the soil through proper composting, natural fertilizers, crop rotation, and the amount of water through rain and/or irrigation, as well as considering daily sun and temperatures.  Young Living tracks the country of origin and the species for every essential oil as part of the Seed to Seal process.  Young Living is dedicated to perfecting responsible and sustainable growing and harvesting methods.  Young Living recently raised the bar by implementing standards far beyond the standards with their 3 new pillars – Sourcing, Science, and Standards.  You can learn more about these 3 Pillars at www.seedtoseal.com.

   

Young Living does not use harmful pesticides on their plants.  I was more nervous about laying our son in the Lavender plant to capture this picture than I have ever been about using an essential oil on him!  Why?  Because there are bees at the farms!  I never hesitate using Young Living oils on him because I have complete confidence in the purity of the product. 

I also wanted to show you this tiny piece of equipment that could easily be overlooked on a visit to the farm, but it is oh so very important.  This is a press, and is used to do a micro-distillation in the field.  As the plants near harvest time, workers do a micro-distillation as frequently as every half-hour until the plant reaches its optimal level of therapeutic constituents.  Then it is all hands on deck for harvest.

DISTILL:  Our gentle, proprietary techniques extract essential oils while preserving their precious constituents.  The farm in Mona, Utah is home to one of the largest privately owned essential oil distilleries in the world.  While we were there they were distilling both Goldenrod and Juniper.  We even received a 2017 Silver Retreat exclusive bottle of Juniper!

TEST:  To guarantee consistent, verifiable quality, our oils are tested in Young Living’s own internal labs, as well as third-party facilities.  Gas Chromatography is performed at the Mona farm and used to determine the molecular composition of the oil to verify quality and to track natural variation due to a given year’s growing and harvesting conditions.  All of the data is entered into a database which now has more than 25 years worth of data!  If the essential oil passes Gas Chromatography, it is then sent to Spanish Fork where Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Organoleptics, Optical Rotation, Refractive Index, Specific Gravity, Microbiological Testing, and Inductively Coupled Plasma / Mass Spectrometry are performed in triplicate.  If the essential oil fails any of the tests it is sent to an R&D team for further evaluation and then discarded.

SEAL: Using state of the art equipment, our essential oils are carefully bottled, labeled, and then shipped to members worldwide.  We received several essential oils for free throughout the retreat!  Young Living absolutely loves to pamper its leaders to show their appreciation.

There were 1,600 people from 50 different states and 23 different countries between the ages of 18 and 75.  You can do this if you want to!  Wellness brings infinite possibilities.  Visit my website to discover more and download your free report or Become a Member and order here.