Businessweek

First Sell $1.5 Billion in Wellness Products. Then Find Out How They Work

DoTerra sells essential oils via multilevel marketing. Now it’s trying to get doctors onboard, too.

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By Nikki Ekstein

April 12, 2019 at 8:30 AM UTC

This article is part of the April 15, 2019 issue of businessweek.

“Snake oil.”

My husband, an orthopedic surgeon, scoffed as I rubbed a few drops of lavender extract onto my wrist from a $30 vial. I, too, am a skeptic of alternative medicine, but ahead of a trip to Japan, I was prepared to try anything to combat my typically terrible jet lag. The essential oils from DoTerra International had shown up in my Instagram feed as plant-based solutions for almost any modern discomfort. What did I have to lose?