Prior to our commitment to whole plant matter infusions and no essential oils, we used to scent our tallow balms with essential oils!
Essential oils need to receive special care when using them in skincare formulations. Many places will recommend using 1%-5% for adults and 0.50%-2% for infants/children depending on which essential oil will be used. At The Basic Stitch, we did not hold this stance. These are far too high for what is reasonably safe to avoid skin irritation or adverse reactions in our opinion. At The Basic Stitch, we have never had a formulation go over 0.50% TOTAL for all essential oils in the blend. For our infant (6 months+) blends, they never went over 0.22%.
Our new stance is to go away from essential oils altogether as we now believe they are hormone disruptors that are just not worth the risk. However, prior to all of our moving cross country (Feb 2024-Aug 2024), we had told our customers that we would share the information provided to us by the essential oil companies we used. Even though we are no longer using essential oils, we would still like to share the Certificates of Analyses from each company for essential oils that have been used in our formulations. New Directions Aromatics provides many different documents to ensure safe use with their essential oils so if you would like to learn more or read more in depth, please visit their website.
Essential Oils Used By TBS
At TBS, we mostly used Plant Therapy in the beginning and later found New Direction Aromatics and Sulu Organics. New Directions Aromatics took over in our “most used” option due to their transparency, quality and bulk pricing.
Blue Tansy - Plant Therapy
Cedarwood - New Directions Aromatics
Chamomile - New Directions Aromatics/Sulu Organics
Cinnamon Bark - New Directions Aromatics
Clove Bud - New Directions Aromatics
Coffee - Plant Therapy (does not provide COA anymore)
Ginger - Plant Therapy/New Directions Aromatics
Lavender - Plant Therapy/New Directions Aromatics
Nutmeg - Plant Therapy
Peppermint - New Directions Aromatics/Sulu Organics
Pine - New Directions Aromatics
Sandalwood - New Directions Aromatics
Sweet Orange - Plant Therapy/New Directions Aromatics
Tea Tree - Plant Therapy/New Directions Aromatics
Vanilla Oleoresin - Plant Therapy (no longer on their website)/New Directions Aromatics
FULL REPORTS ARE AVAILABLE ON THEIR WEBSITES! Our website does not support downloadable PDF files on blogs so this is a screenshot of each COA
