NOW Foods 100% Pure Lavender Essential Oil - Steam Distilled, Vegan, Soothing Aromatherapy for Stress Relief & Sleep - 16 oz with Child Resistant Cap - Perfect for Diffusers, Massage & DIY Skincare

Truthfully I'm not super well versed in essential oils, nor do I use many EOs–mainly tea tree and lavender–but I know that this stuff works well for me and I'm definitely going to purchase this again when I run out.I went to my local vitamin store to peruse and actually smell to compare different brands of lavender EO such as Aura Cacia, Nature's Alchemy, and of course NOW Foods. Frankly the lavender oil of all these brands smelled the same to me, but others might have more discerning olfactory senses than I do, though I truly don't think there was much of a difference among these brands scent-wise. I chose NOW Foods because they seemed to be the best choice for me price-wise and quality-wise but the reviewers that insisted that NOW brand wasn't "quality" and that you needed to spend more money for so-called "quality" EO brands did make me wary. However NOW Foods brand lavender oil has done everything I expected it to and more, so I'm never shelling out money for "higher quality" (read: overly expensive) brands and will be a lifelong customer of NOW Foods lavender EO so long as the current quality doesn't diminish.I bought this oil initially for its supposed ability to reduce anxiety and have an overall calming effect and boy, does it ever. I've found that this oil especially helps me fall asleep faster and stay asleep, and this is where I decided that lavender EO would become a staple in my life. The dropper on the 1oz bottle sometimes takes some encouragement, but not much and I can easily place a drop or two on both of the top corners of my bed so that I can smell the oil but not rub my face in it as I sleep.With my very first use and all subsequent uses since I've noticed I fall asleep much faster and don't wake up as much if at all throughout the night. I put the oil down on my bed and actually notice the calming/relaxing effect it has on me, making me drift effortlessly to sleep. As a college student working part time and studying molecular biology, I have a lot of stressful classes and a busy schedule in general. For the past year I've been experiencing more anxiety and stress that affected my ability to sleep and the quality of sleep I would get when I actually managed to get myself to sleep. I'd have trouble quieting my mind and relaxing enough to actually fall asleep, so I'd be up for hours with my mind racing, and once I was actually able to get to sleep I'd wake up numerous times throughout the night. I was able to deal with it for some time but I eventually reached a breaking point this semester where I started taking sleeping pills nightly just to be able to fall asleep because the lack of sleep was affecting my studies and my ability to retain information and it seemed like it was adding to my anxiety as I noticed I went from having a panic attack maybe once or twice a semester to literally every two weeks. The sleeping pills only worked for maybe a week before my body developed a tolerance and I didn't want to go down that road of upping the amount I took and I certainly didn't want to make myself dependent on them for sleep in the long run, so I looked to more natural sleep remedies and found lavender oil.And boy am I glad my research led me to lavender oil because I can truly say with using this lavender oil that I've had the best sleep I've had this past year and maybe even longer than that. I can't remember the last time I slept not just well, but consistently well. Since putting lavender oil on my bed, I haven't had a bad night of sleep once. I wish I'd found lavender oil sooner and from now on I'm never going to find myself without lavender oil in my life.Although I apply a drop on both top corners of my bed every night, the smell does linger in the sheets and doesn't fade away quickly or anything like that, I just apply it nightly because I prefer the scent to be strong as I'm trying to go to sleep. I've never used it in a diffuser so I can't say how long the scent lasts in that. I also notice that the drops I put nightly don't leave any kind of stain on my sheets. I apply them at night and by the time I wake up in the morning the scent is still there, but visually I see no signs that I've put anything on my sheets.My next venture is to incorporate lavender oil in my shea/mango butters that I use for moisturizing my skin as I've read it can help with dry skin. I'm even thinking of putting it into an oil mix I use which contains avocado oil, argan oil, rosehip seed oil, and glycerin because I feel that that might be easier than having to mix it into solid butters, and I find I use my oil mix more in the winter when my skin is really parched. I'll update my review if I have any significant results from that venture when I finally get around to it but suffice to say I will be a lavender oil consumer for life and will be repurchasing the NOW Foods brand when my current bottle runs out.