What is an essential oil diffuser?
An essential oil diffuser sends essential oils into the air, filling your room with natural components that can support your health and wellbeing. And, of course, it can make your room smell amazing!
Diffusing essential oils is one of the simplest, safest ways to experience their benefits.
When you inhale an essential oil, its molecules enter your respiratory system and pass into your bloodstream.
Sometimes, using a personal inhaler is the best way to deliver the concentrated “dose” of essential oils you need for deep, quick relief. But other times, a gentler, less potent method is more appropriate.
Using essential oils in a diffuser allows you to get a less concentrated dose, over a longer period of time.
Learn more about how the body absorbs essential oils and the benefits of essential oil inhalation here.
Why diffuse essential oils?
You can diffuse pure essential oils for practically any purpose!
A few examples are when you want to:
- Protect your immunity during cold season
- Support your breathing during cold and allergy season
- Shift your mood for a more positive outlook
- Promote relaxation in a mellow environment that smells wonderful
- Perk yourself up in the morning with energizing scents
- Stay mentally focused and productive during projects
- Purify the air and reduce airborne health threats
- Freshen your indoor air and fill your home with irresistible scent
What are essential oil diffuser blends?
Diffusing an individual essential oil allows you to fill your home with one specific scent, such as sweet orange or clove bud.
You can also diffuse essential oil blends.
Diffusing an essential oil blend allows you to get the benefits of multiple precious essential oils at the same time.
When you’re first learning to diffuse essential oil blends, you can drop the essential oils right into your diffuser. There’s no need to blend them beforehand!
However, the more you diffuse essential oils, the more you’ll find specific essential oil combinations that capture your heart. Maybe combining oils works especially well to help you feel happy and productive. Or maybe you just love how a few oils smell together!
Either way, once you find an essential oil blend you love, you can make a whole bottle of it to have on hand for easy use. This is called a “stock blend.” (Or sometimes a “stock bottle.”)
For this, you’ll need an empty, colored-glass bottle with an orifice reducer cap (the cap holds an orifice reducer, which allows you to get one drop of oil out at a time). All you have to do is drop your essential oils into the glass bottle, and then tighten the cap. The orifice reducer will snap into place in your glass bottle . . . and stay there!
Now any time you want to diffuse your favorite essential oil diffuser blend, you can just reach for your stock bottle. That way, you won’t have to try to remember the exact drop count of each oil you used. Your essential oil combinations will already be perfect.
How many drops of essential oil to diffuse
At Aromatics, we generally recommend diffusing between 5 and 15 drops of essential oil at a time.
If you’re diffusing in a large room with adequate ventilation, 15 drops of essential oil is a good amount to fill the space with scent. Try running your essential oil diffuser for about an hour. (Many essential oil diffusers have timers or automatic shut-offs set to hour-long intervals.)
If your room is smaller, unventilated, or there are children or animals present, a lower drop count is safer. Try between 5 and 10 drops of essential oil, and run your essential oil diffuser for about 15 minutes at a time.
Carrier oils in an essential oil diffuser recipe?
Carrier oils should not be used in an essential oil diffuser blend. A carrier oil is used to dilute essential oils for safe topical use, or alone for its own specific benefits. In other essential oil recipes, they can be a huge asset to your favorite oils.
As a general rule, you should only need to use good quality essential oils in your diffuser blend. This will keep your diffuser clean and working properly. All the recipes at the bottom contain only essential oils.
Diffusing essential oils safely
When you make a stock blend for your diffuser, it’s important to understand the safety considerations for each oil included in your blend.
For example, if your blend includes rosalina essential oil, you’ll want to be cautious when diffusing your blend around asthmatics.
Check the individual product page for safety recommendations for every oil you’re diffusing.
If you’re diffusing essential oils for babies or kids under 10 years old, choose kid-friendly essential oils. (You’ll find this information on each oil’s product page.) Run the essential oil diffuser for about 15 minutes at a time.
And if you have pets, be sure they’re free to leave the room where essential oils are being distilled, so they can take themselves to an oil-free area if they want to.
Check out this guide to using essential oils safely for more information.
Tips for making the best essential oil diffuser blends
Before making your essential oil diffuser blend, decide what your intention is. Do you want an essential oil blend that will help purify your air and protect your immune health? Maybe it’s bedtime and you’d like to guide your body and mind into deep relaxation? Or maybe you just want your room to smell beautiful when friends are coming over!
If you want to diffuse essential oils for health, or to purify the air, you may not care how your blend smells. In that case, simply choose 3 to 5 essential oils that can create the benefits you’re looking for. If you DO care how your blend smells . . . Then it’s time to get creative!
You can choose essential oils with different aromatic notes to create a beautiful, balanced aroma, which has light and airy top notes, layered over rich heart notes and deep, earthy base notes.
Learn more about blending essential oils based on aroma.
However, you don’t HAVE to make a blend with top, base, and middle notes. You can blend with all top notes for an energetic, lively blend.
Or choose only base notes to create a blend of rich, earthy, woodsy essential oils. (However, keep in mind that some base note oils, such as sandalwood and myrrh, are thicker. They may take time to drop out of the bottle’s orifice reducer, and can sometimes “gum up” your diffuser, making it operate less efficiently. Just be sure to clean your diffuser after using a thick “gummy” essential oil.)
Making effective essential oil diffuser blends that also enchant your nose is an art form. You’ll become more skilled at it the more you practice.
Recipes for essential oil blends
Get started diffusing essential oils with some of our favorite essential oil diffuser recipes!
Most of these are stock blends, meaning they’re made in a small amber glass bottle, and can be used for multiple diffusing sessions. But the “Kids Calm the Cough Diffuser Blend” is a single-use essential oil diffuser recipe with a low drop count. (But if you love the diffuser blend recipe, you can multiply the drop count to fill a 5 ml glass bottle, which holds approximately 125 drops total.)
