If you’ve got your hands on essential oils, chances are that the main reason you have them is to use them in a diffuser. But there are so many different ways to use essential oils at home, aside from diffusing them into the air.
I’ve researched a bunch of practical uses for essential oils that will help you save money and improve your health and home naturally.
What Exactly are Essential Oils?
Just a quick fact: essential oils are oils that are extracted from plants. Whatever plant the essence was extracted from, the oil takes on the scent and the medicinal properties of that plant.
That makes essential oils a great natural alternative to a lot of products and even certain over-the-counter medications.
And for anyone trying to live a more sustainable lifestyle, essential oils are a great addition to your household inventory.
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Here are 13 different ways you can use essential oils at home, many of which don’t involve a diffuser!
1. Get Rid of Strong Odors with Essential Oils
Essential oils smell great, but they’re also really great at eliminating strong odors.
Check out these essential oil blends for certain odors:
Add essential oils directly to the smelly object in question or add to a diffuser.
2. Use Essential Oils for Aromatherapy
Essential oils have a lot of benefits and are primarily used for aromatherapy.
Different scents provide different benefits which can include reducing stress, increased productivity and confidence, appetite suppressants, and more.
Check out these guidelines by Dr Seeds for using essential oils.
3. Relieve Headaches with Essential Oils
Essential oils are great for headaches or migraines as a natural pain-suppressant instead of taking over-the-counter pain relievers.
You can use peppermint, lavender, rosemary, chamomile, and eucalyptus essential oils to help relieve headaches.
4. Make your Own Cleaning Products
When you make your own cleaning products, having essential oils on hand is really practical because you can make different types of homemade cleaners.
For example, citrus essential oils like lemon, sweet orange, and grapefruit are perfect for homemade all-purpose cleaners because they’re antibacterial, making them a natural way to eliminate germs.
READ MORE: 18 homemade products you can make with essential oils.
5. Add Essential Oils to Baths
You can essential oils directly to your bathwater. For an even better experience, add drops to Epsom salts and add the salts to your bathwater.
Essential oils that are great for baths are lavender, sweet orange, jasmine and rosemary since they all help relieve stress and anxiety.
6. Make your Own Bath Bombs
If you prefer bath bombs over putting Epsom salt in your bath, you can definitely make your own and add the essential oil of your choosing.
7. Repel Insects and Pests with Essential Oils
You can use essential oils to repel all sorts of bugs and pests in your home or yard. Lemongrass, tea tree and peppermint are perfect for this, among others.
Tea tree oil and lemongrass are great for repelling ants, spiders, flies, and mosquitoes. Peppermint can also be used as an insect repellent, and it also repels mice.
Learn more about using essential oils to repel bugs and pests.
8. Use Essential Oils to Fight Allergies
Essential oils can help fight allergies. You can create a balm infused with essential oils or create a roller blend to apply whenever you feel allergy symptoms coming on.
You can also put a blend of essential oils into your diffuser to combat allergies. Use 3 drops each of lemon, peppermint, and lavender to help relieve allergy symptoms.
9. Use as a Natural Perfume
You can get diffuser necklaces or bracelets that are made to have essential oils applied to them. They diffuse the natural smells into the air with you, replacing the need for perfume.
You can also dilute essential oils in a carrier oil such as jojoba oil and apply a couple of drops directly to your skin for a natural perfume.
10. Use Essential Oils for Massages
Use you enhance a massge using essential oils. Again, add a couple of drops of essential oils to a carrier oil and massage into the skin to receive the essential oil benefits.
Use lavender to reduce stress or eucalyptus to cool muscles, and reduce pain and inflammation.
Here’s a great guide for using essential oils for massage therapy.
11. Make a Himalayan Salt Diffuser
You can create your own unique essential oil diffuser by adding some drops into a bowl of Himalayan salt rocks and adding a candle in the middle of it. The warmth of the candle will help diffuse the oils into the air.
Himalayan salt couples well with essential oils since it’s a natural mineral that also has its own healing properties!
12. Make an Essential Oil Reed Diffuser
If you want to diffuse essential oils into the air without using an electric diffuser that needs to be plugged into the wall, make a DIY reed diffuser!
You can also reuse an existing reed diffuser if you’ve got one.
13. Make your Own Beauty Products
There are so many types of beauty products out there, which means that there are many that you can make at home. You can add essential oils to them to reap in the benefits.
Examples include:
Final Thoughts on these Essential Oil Uses
Essential oils can provide many benefits in many aspects of your life, providing all-natural alternatives to common household products.
Check out my post 18 homemade products you can make with essential oils to learn about even more ways to use essential oils at home.
Wow, I didn’t realize you could use essential oils for so many things. We’ve been using them in a diffuser for some time now but not much else. Thanks for sharing this 🙂
I know right! Essential oils are so versatile. Glad you liked it.☺️