Essential oils and aromatherapy products are some of the most popular items in the health and wellness space today. With interest in these goods building, it's a great time to jump into the space or launch a new product. Of course, you should not make this decision in a hasty or unprepared fashion. When entering an in-demand space, you will find fierce competition from other businesses large and small. Your products need to stand out to convince first-time buyers to try your brand over one of the many others.

This is where labeling enters the picture. The job your essential oil labels have to do is threefold: Your packaging must contain all necessary marks to comply with Food and Drug Administration rules while also convincing customers to try essential oils and distinguishing your items from other businesses' offerings. If your labeling strategy can accomplish all of those objectives, you are well on your way to a successful and sustainable product launch.

It pays to think about essential oil labels from multiple angles, starting with the practicalities and getting into the more exciting stylistic elements.

Ensuring Legal Compliance

Your first duty when it comes to labeling your essential oils' packaging is complying with all applicable packaging rules. Falling afoul of the Food and Drug Administration could be a massive setback for your brand. This means legal matters must take precedence, and overall packaging design should be built around these considerations.

The most important question to ask yourself regarding FDA approval is whether your product is meant to cure, relieve or prevent specific health ailments. In these cases, it is a drug, and that is something that is regulated by the FDA. The agency noted that even though pure essential oils come from plants, they are held to the same standards as synthesized compounds. This means if you plan to sell your essential oils as health aids, you should go through the FDA's safety and effectiveness approval process.

Some types of essential oils are not regulated directly by the FDA. These are the cosmetics, designed to clean the body or help a user manage their appearance. The FDA's guidelines make it clear that these items are not subject to government approval before they go on the market. The FDA will only step in if these items turn out to be dangerous.

When it comes to making advertising claims, you cannot make unsupported statements about the effects of your product. In these cases, it's not the FDA that will take action, but the Federal Trade Commission. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, some essential oil manufacturers were among companies caught making unacceptable claims about their products' ability to mitigate the coronavirus. The FTC has sent over 250 warning letters to these businesses.

Making a Bold Brand Statement

Just putting a new essential oil product on the shelf in compliant packaging isn't enough to win over shoppers. You will find no shortage of competing brands in the marketplace, so you have to ensure your items look interesting and compelling. A recent Grand View Research report predicted the essential oil market will rise at a compound annual growth rate of 7.5% between 2020 and 2027. This year alone, 247.08 kilotons of these products will be sold, which shows just how bustling and competitive the space is.

The Today Show's 2020 ranking of top essential oils is a good place to start when determining what labeling strategies are working for the leading brands today. For example, while some companies choose to use opaque colorful labels that give a clean, healthy feeling to their products, others go for transparent labels that allow the natural color of the oils to show through. A few companies have gone through the process of having their ingredients certified as organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and free of genetically modified organisms by the Non-GMO Project. These seals, when applied to an uncluttered and transparent label design, can be very eye-catching.

Not every label opts to use imagery of the plants used to produce the essential oil, and those that do so keep the pictures simple. This may be a function of necessity. The small waterproof bottles that hold aromatherapy products don't leave much room for labels. If any element of the composition is too large, it may distract the eye. The label design should hint at the fragrance provided by the unique blend of ingredients contained within, without becoming cluttered.

Working with a Reliable Labeling Partner

No matter what your angle in the essential oil space is, whether you offer therapeutic grade products designed to help users with their health, skin care beauty aids, aromatherapy products to be sprayed around a room or anything in between, you should work with a labeling expert. When choosing dropper bottle or roller bottle labels, it's important to pick a provider that can match the unique and often small size and shape of the packaging. On that limited canvas, you need sharp, legible text that conveys all legal information and product details.

Lightning Labels has spent years working with providers of aromatherapy products and essential oils, delivering quick turnaround times and flexible order sizes to ensure items can get on store shelves as quickly as possible. In a boom time for these products, it's important to have interesting-looking custom labels on your bottles that will make a case for your brand. With Lightning Labels on your side, you can accomplish these essential branding tasks while staying compliant with all relevant regulations. 

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