Let me tell you, I’ve stared at essential oil price tags so many times I’ve almost gotten cross-eyed. You’ll see a 10ml bottle of lavender for $8 right next to a tiny vial of frankincense that’s $60, and you’re just like… what gives? Is that little bottle made of actual gold? Did someone sprinkle fairy dust in it? I used to think the expensive ones were just overhyped, but turns out there’s way more to the story than greedy brands marking up products for fun. Let’s break it down, no fancy jargon, just the real stuff.
First Off: Let’s Talk About the Frankincense Drama, Because Wow
Frankincense is the perfect example of how quickly things can go off the rails, right? Historically, it was never this pricey. It’s been used for thousands of years in rituals, skincare, and herbal remedies, and for most of that time, it was totally accessible for regular people. But then a few years back, all those multi-level marketing brands got ahold of it, and suddenly everyone and their mom was convinced frankincense could cure literally anything. Got a headache? Slather on frankincense. Got a wrinkle? Frankincense. Got a bad mood? Frankincense, obviously.
I’m not knocking the benefits of frankincense, don’t get me wrong. It’s great for a lot of things! But when you have thousands of reps telling millions of people it’s a miracle cure, demand explodes way faster than supply can keep up. And that’s not even the worst part.
Seriously, the wild Boswellia trees that frankincense comes from are now endangered because of that artificial demand spike. Harvesters are under so much pressure to get as much resin as possible that they’re over-tapping the trees, which kills them off faster than they can regrow. An entire ancient practice of harvesting frankincense that’s been around for millennia is at risk of disappearing entirely, all because some marketing teams decided to hype it up as a cure-all. It’s wild, and honestly kind of sad when you think about it.
The Biggest Factor: It All Comes Down to Supply and Demand, Duh
Okay, so MLM hype is a big part of the frankincense price, but for all essential oils, supply and demand is the baseline rule, same as any other product. Let’s take lavender as an easy example, because everyone knows lavender.
Regular lavender is super easy to grow. It’s cultivated in fields all over the world — France, Bulgaria, the US, even parts of China. There’s tons of it, so a standard 10ml bottle of lavender oil is usually super affordable, right? But then you see “high-altitude wild French lavender” for triple the price, and you might think that’s just a marketing gimmick. But no, that stuff actually is way rarer. It only grows in specific mountain regions in Provence, it’s not farmed commercially on a huge scale, and there’s only so much of it harvested every year. Way more people want that high-quality, super aromatic wild lavender than there is oil available, so the price goes up. Simple as that.
I’ve talked to small-batch distillers who say they get emails every single week asking for that wild French lavender, and they only have a few hundred bottles to sell a year. Of course they’re gonna charge more for it, because if they didn’t, it would sell out in 10 minutes and no one would ever get a chance to buy it fairly.
Climate and Politics Mess With Prices More Than You Think
You know how everyone’s talking about climate change these days? Well, the essential oil industry is basically the canary in the coal mine for how bad it’s getting. Seriously, I’ve noticed prices going up and stock running out for so many oils over the past 5 years, and 9 times out of 10, it’s because of weird weather ruining crops.
Let me give you an example: A couple years ago, there was a brutal heatwave in Spain that wiped out 60% of their citrus crop. All of a sudden, orange and lemon essential oil prices doubled practically overnight. There was just way less product available, and everyone who makes cleaning products, skincare, and candles still needed those oils, so people had to pay more. And it’s not just heatwaves — unseasonal frosts, droughts, even too much rain can ruin an entire harvest before it even gets to the distillery.
And then there’s politics, which no one likes to talk about but it’s a huge factor. A lot of the most sought-after essential oils come from parts of the world that have unstable governments, trade disputes, or even active conflicts. If there’s a border closure, a new tariff, or a shipment gets held up in customs for months, that means less oil on the market, and higher prices for everyone. It’s not ideal, but it’s the reality of buying products that are sourced from all over the globe.
The Extraction Process Is Way More Work Than You Realize
Okay, let’s get back to frankincense specifically, because its extraction process is the perfect example of why some oils cost an arm and a leg. You can’t just squeeze a Boswellia tree and get oil out of it, right? The whole process is so labor-intensive, it’s crazy.
- First, someone has to go out and carefully make small cuts in the bark of the Boswellia tree. You can’t just hack at it, either — if you cut too deep, you can damage or kill the tree. That takes skill and time, especially since most of these trees are growing in remote, rocky areas with no easy access.
- Then you have to wait. For weeks, the tree oozes out resin that hardens into those little golden “pearls” everyone has seen pictures of. You can’t rush that part — it’s just nature doing its thing.
- Then you have to go back to every single tree, scrape off all the hardened resin by hand, and collect it. Again, all manual labor, no fancy machines to do it for you.
- Once you have all that resin, you have to distill it to get the essential oil. And here’s the kicker: frankincense resin only has a 5-10% oil yield. That means for every 10 pounds of resin you harvest, you only get half a pound to one pound of essential oil. That’s wild, right?
Compare that to, say, peppermint oil. Peppermint has a super high yield — you can get several pounds of oil from just one harvest of an acre of peppermint plants, and the harvesting and distillation process is way more automated. No wonder peppermint is so cheap compared to frankincense!
And it’s not just frankincense. Lots of rare oils have low yields and super labor-intensive harvests. Sandalwood, for example, requires trees to be at least 30 years old before you can harvest them for oil. Rose oil takes thousands and thousands of rose petals to make just one 5ml bottle. All that time, labor, and raw material adds up, no way around it.
At the End of the Day, Rarity Always Drives Up Price
All the factors we talked about — overhyped demand, climate issues, political problems, hard extraction — add up to one thing: the trees and plants that make these expensive oils are getting rarer every year. I’ve talked to harvesters in Somalia who say the Boswellia tree populations are less than half of what they were 20 years ago. There’s just less frankincense available every single year, and more people who want it. That’s basic economics, right? When supply goes down and demand goes up, price goes up.
I know it’s tempting to think that expensive essential oils are just a scam, but most of the time, the price tag actually reflects all the work, time, and resources that went into making that tiny bottle. And honestly? The higher prices are actually a good reminder that these aren’t just random products we can burn through endlessly. They come from real, living plants that we need to take care of, otherwise they’ll disappear entirely.
Next time you see a $60 bottle of frankincense, don’t just roll your eyes and walk away. Think about the person who climbed up a rocky hillside to tap the tree, the weeks they waited for the resin to harden, the trip back to collect it, the distillation process, and the fact that that one bottle uses pounds and pounds of resin. Suddenly that price makes a lot more sense, right?
