As part of the great homemade Christmas gift experiment of 2012, I tried my hand at homemade air fresheners. And what a great load of fun it was! This is a really easy and inexpensive way to create scents and aromas for your house for different occasions. And best of all, it does not contain any chemicals so your allergy prone guests won’t leave your house with puffy eyes and runny noses.
Another great thing about creating your own air fresheners is that you can select blends that help for specific maladies or are geared towards specific tasks like disinfecting the air. Or you can just play at being a perfumer and create your own signature blends. For more information on blending essential oils and any other information with regards to essential oils visit aromaweb. It is a great resource with all the information clearly marked and categorised.
There are a couple of ways you can use essential oils to scent your house. The most common ones being the lamp ring diffuser and the tea light diffuser. However with the advent of LED bulbs the lamp ring diffuser is becoming obsolete and since a lighted candle needs constant supervision, I have opted to go with spray bottles and reed diffusers.
So what are the things you need?
- Some essential oils
- Distilled water
- Vodka (optional)
- Clean spray bottles with a fine mist setting (don’t use bottles that previously contained hair or cleaning products)
- Narrow necked glass bottles or vases
- Bamboo skewers
- Small funnel
The recipe for sprays:
- 45 ml distilled water
- 45 ml vodka
- 30 – 40 drops essential oil
The vodka is optional, but it does serve as a preserver and allows the aromas to linger a little longer. If you prefer to do without it, just use 90 ml distilled water. Don’t fill the bottle all the way to the top so that you can shake it in between uses.
The recipe for reed diffusers:
- 10 drops essential oil
- 100 ml nut or seed oil (I used sweet almond)
- a splash of vodka
The Blends
| Concentration Blend – Diffuser | Romantic Blend – Diffuser |
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| Bathroom Freshener Room Spray | Bug Repellant Spray |
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| Calming Room or Linen Spray | |
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- Trim the sharp ends of the skewers
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- Blend the essential oils
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- I add the vodka to the oil blend before adding it to the bottle
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- Add vodka and distilled water for room spray or oil for reed diffuser
Some notes on essential oils
- Do some research on essential oils before you start using them, some of them are harmful to young children and pregnant women.
- Although the room spray can be used as linen spray be careful when using the ‘heavier’ oils, like sandalwood, or ‘coloured’ oils like sweet orange as it might stain your linen.
- Essential oils are expensive, but as you only use only a couple of drops at a time they last quite long.
- My favourite oils so far are:
- Lavender
- Rosemary
- Sandalwood
- Peppermint
- Neroli
- Eucalyptus
- Lemon
- Ylang ylang
- I love jojoba oil as a carrier oil. It smells great by itself and acts as a natural anti-inflammatory. It works wonders for skin that is prone to oiliness and acne.
Oh yes and I almost forgot! Labels for you to print at home! You can download the Word file below. I left some of them empty so that you can write your own blends in.
I used the Tower lever arch file labels (CIL WW330 template) to print on. However the file is editable and you will be able to copy and paste the images into a template of your own.
Just a last thing, when you are printing on label paper always make sure you cut a tab on your sticker. It is pretty hard to separate the label and the backing once you are done cutting. Here is what I do:
