Simply Earth Essential Oil Recipe Box is a monthly subscription box that sends you therapeutic-grade essential oils paired with ingredients, bottles, and extras to make 5-6 natural recipes.
This is a review of the $39 monthly recipe box.
According to the Simply Earth site:
"Every month, we’ll send 4 full-size 100% pure essential oils + 1-2 extras + bottles to make 5-6 recipes. So you’ll have everything you need. Each month is a new theme. Plus, you’ll get more ideas and recipes on how to use the oils inside your box outside of the recipes included."
This box was sent to us at no cost for review. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
About Simply Earth Essential Oil Recipe Box
The Subscription Box: Simply Earth Essential Oil Recipe Box
The Cost: $39.00 per month + free US shipping
The Products: Four full-size 100% pure essential oils + 1-2 extras to make 5-6 recipes around each month's theme. Simply Earth donates 13% of profits to a charity.
Ships to: The U.S. for free
Simply Earth Essential Oil Recipe Box Review
Hiya, Christen here! I'm new to the Simply Earth Essential Oil Recipe Box, and while I have some experience with essential oils and DIYing my own products using them, I have a lot to learn. I'm excited to further explore the world of natural, homemade products for myself and my home. Ready to see what came in my January box?
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Each box comes with a variety of recipes offering ideas of how you can use the oils that came in your box. On the reverse of the recipe cards is all sorts of stuff! Most importantly, a list of all the items in the box and the extras that were sent. But you'll also find a welcome note from Katie (the curator and aromatherapist behind this box) which also introduces this month's theme of Hygiene, info on where to find more details about the recipes, a sneak peek at the next month's box, and info about the nonprofit this month's box benefitted: Idaho Anti-Trafficking Coalition, to which 13% of my purchase was donated. Compared to other boxes with charitable components, this is a generous donation, and to a cause that should be getting more attention.
Since I'm getting started with this subscription during pregnancy, I am going to be especially cautious with how I use these oils. While some essential oils are safe to use during pregnancy, it is recommended to stick to aromatherapy uses, or in some cases topical use is ok; it is never recommended to ingest essential oils while pregnant. I really appreciate that each oil listed on the info card gives an indication of whether it's pregnancy safe (also cat + dog safe!), but even the ones that give a "yes" for pregnancy safety all suggest consulting your doctor.
This sheet is printed with stickers that you can use to label your homemade projects once complete.
Here are the four oils I was sent this month:
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BO Be Gone Essential Oil Blend, 15 mL – Retail Value $12.99
From Simply Earth:
Sick of putting harsh, dangerous chemicals under your arms each morning? We've created a blend of essential oils that can eliminate your body odor--naturally!
This is a blend of patchouli, ylang ylang, sandalwood, lavender, and sweet orange. The scent is really earthy—probably the patchouli and sandalwood to thank there—and lavender notes are present. I'm not picking up on the florals of the ylang ylang much, nor the citrus of the sweet orange, but I'm glad they're in there because they all add up to create a really nice scent.
While the card that came in this box says this blend is pregnancy safe, the Simply Earth website says it's not recommended for pregnancy nor breastfeeding. While I wasn't planning on using the provided info card as my sole determiner of safety, I'm bummed to see this discrepancy.
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Camphor Essential Oil, 15 mL – Retail Value $11.99
From Simply Earth:
Camphor Essential Oil is perfect for those who need help dealing with aches and pains in their joints. It was introduced in Madagascar in the middle of the nineteenth century and now grows wild in the central region of Asia.
Camphor is an evergreen tree, and while this essential oil doesn't have a classic pine or fir scent to it, it's still a familiar one. For me, it calls to mind Tei Fu, an essential oil blend that my great aunt gave me many years ago, claiming it to be a sort of "cure all," but it's also similar in scent to icy hot or Vick's VapoRub.
This one is not recommended for use during pregnancy so I'll be avoiding it after that initial sniff I gave it. But the recipe card that uses this oil is for a body butter, which I can see being a nice one to rub on one's chest when they have a stuffy nose.
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Ylang Ylang Essential Oil, 15 mL – Retail Value $18.99
From Simply Earth:
Ylang Ylang Essential Oil can help relieve sore muscles while at the same time giving a relaxing and sensual effect.
I'm a little on the fence about ylang ylang's scent. On one hand I love a good floral scent (rose and geranium are favorites), but there's something about this one that's a little too powdery for my tastes. It's commonly used in perfumes and relaxing mists or sprays, which makes sense being that it's floral, but for me I probably wouldn't ever use it on its own.
Ylang ylang is pregnancy safe, as is the case with many oils derived from flowers, making them great to diffuse for stress-relief.
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Lemon Essential Oil, 15 mL – Retail Value $9.99
From Simply Earth:
Lemon oil has been historically recognized as a cleanser and reached the height of fame when the British Navy used lemon to counteract the effects of scurvy. This citrus fruit is energizing, cooling, and promotes mental clarity.
I'm sure you can imagine what this one smells like! I have a few friends who swear by lemon essential oil in their homemade cleaning products and can't wait to give this a try!
Lemon essential oil is pregnancy safe, and is actually recommended as an aromatherapeutic way to stave off nausea. Such is the case with most citrus scents.
Zinc Oxide, 0.75 oz – Retail Value $4.99
From Simply Earth:
This non-nano zinc oxide is a nontoxic deodorizing agent, used for antibacterial and skin protectant purposes.
While this pouch of zinc oxide was sent to use in a couple of the recipes provided, it isn't a bad thing to have around as a mum. While I stuck to natural store-bought baby products with my first kid, I can see myself making homemade diaper cream this second time around. I could also try DIYing a small batch of sunscreen.
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Deodorant Container, 75 mL – Retail Value $2.49
I love the simplicity of this cardboard deodorant tube. You certainly don't have to use it for deodorant if natural deodorant isn't your style—it could actually be a nice place to store the homemade sunscreen I was musing over above, or a gigantic lip balm tube.
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Body Wash Base, 2 oz – Retail Value $6.49
This body wash base contains water, potassium oleate, potassium cocoate, glycerin, potassium citrate, and citric acid. It's a thin, not-very-sudsy soap that reminds me of castille soap.
My DIYs This Month:
Body Wash
This is the simplest DIY that was provided this month, just asking subscribers to add 2 drops of their new lemon essential oil + 1 of ylang ylang, then shake for 2 minutes. I did that right away! I didn't snap any photos because the entire project was complete within about 3 minutes.
Since I'm early in my essential oil DIYing journey I decided to follow the recommendation of using lemon and ylang ylang despite my not loving the scent of ylang ylang, and I'm happy with how it turned out—the scent combo is refreshing and unique, and the ylang ylang is really mild.
I did use the Sunshine Body Wash label provided, placing it in the white space atop the label that was already on the bottle, and as expected it got soggy in my shower pretty quickly. If I were to make this body wash as a gift, I would probably find a different bottle to pour the mixture into for presentation's sake, but it didn't seem necessary since I'm just using it myself.
Natural Deodorant
The only other DIY for which I had the right ingredients on hand was the natural deodorant. I actually didn't notice the pregnancy safety discrepancy until after I made it, but it was still a fun project and I can easily save it for later use—I may have done that anyway since I already have a tube of natural deodorant I like.
1 of 6 | First, I gathered all my ingredients. I didn't have cornstarch so I subbed arrowroot powder.
It is very true to my being to delve into a DIY (or cooking a recipe) without having all the right ingredients on hand. I do a lot of substitution Googling, making some adjustments ahead of time, and some on the fly. I get mixed results, haha. In this case I planned to sub arrowroot powder for cornstarch, knowing that arrowroot is commonly used in natural deodorants, but in my eyeballing how much baking soda I had I didn't realize I would need to supplement it. I just went big on the arrowroot, and it worked out fine. I was bummed that I didn't have a game plan for what to do with any leftover deodorant. I was against the clock, wanting to be cleaned up by the time my daughter woke up from her nap, so I ended up throwing it away. I really don't like wasting ingredients, so I'll have to prepare for that potential outcome a little better next time.
1 of 2 | The deodorant after cooling.
The deodorant took a couple of hours to fully cool, but the end result was really smooth and nice. I think that's partially due to the very fine consistency of the arrowroot powder, which I'm so glad I happened to have in my cupboard. In the end, the earthy scent of the essential oil blend paired with the coconut oil nicely to offer a very mild aroma. I had to employ the push-up system of this cardboard tube to take a swipe of deodorant without the edges getting in the way, and it was really tricky! I put it upside-down on my counter (with the lid on) and used the blunt handle of a wooden spoon to nudge it. It's still incredibly stiff, so I might have to do this every time at first.
But, that's a system I'll leave to later to figure out, since I don't plan on using this deodorant during pregnancy. My last note on this DIY is that even though it's in a travel-size container (it's 75 mL, so about 2.5 oz), I don't recommend traveling with it! If the coconut oil melts, you're in big trouble. Actually, I'm concerned about it even at home since our jar of coconut oil melts in the cupboard come summertime, so I'm probably going to store this in my basement refrigerator for now lest I forget about it and encounter a mess.
Verdict: My intro to Simply Earth was a nice experience. I don't have an extensive stock of essential oils in my home, so everything I was sent was new to me. (By the way, I'm open to essential oil storage ideas if anyone has a setup they recommend!) I loved being able to do two of the provided DIY recipes right off the bat, and I plan to store the recipe cards for when I'm in the mood to buy supplies and dig into a project in the future. I like that the projects can be kept and enjoyed or given as gifts—some of my favorite gifts this past holiday season were homemade, and it felt like a hurdle to gather enough supplies and recipes to make my own, but this box offers a great jumping off point.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? No—if you subscribe today, you'll receive the February box as your first, as well as the big bonus box!
Value Breakdown: This box costs $39.00 (with free shipping), so each of the 7 items in the monthly box has an average cost of $5.57.
Check out all of our Simply Earth reviews!
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