If you are new to essential oils, or even if you have been using them with your family for years, there are so many essential oils tips and tricks you’ll learn as you transition to a chemical-free life. There is something about a home that smells good and is chemical-free!

Check out some of our favorite EO hacks and handy tips we’ve put together for you…

Genius essential oils tips and tricks - image collage of words "genius essential oils tips & tricks" with image of essential oil drops added to car vent diffuser; image of essential oil dropper applying oil to wooden bead diffuser bracelet

Best Ways to Use Essential Oils at Home

Don’t be intimidated by all the information about essential oils…or all the choices!  The main thing is to choose one, two or three that you like the smell of and make sure they are pure essential oils.  You don’t want essential oils that have fillers or perfumes.  For best results, use the pure stuff.

1. Wear your Oils

Natural wood beads are terrific for holding the scent of essential oils. You can add a couple of drops to your wooden bracelet or necklace for a day filled with diffused oils. If you don’t have wood beads, there are other options that work great, like terra cotta pendants, lava beads, suede string, or leather cuffs.

This works great as a “perfume” scent or choose an EO that is calming, or energizing…or whatever you might need to get through the day!

Genius essential oils tips and tricks - image of essential oil dropper applying oil to wooden bead diffuser bracelet

2. Essential oils tips and tricks for the car!

You can make a simple car diffuser with just a clothespin, hot glue gun, and felted balls. Glue the balls onto your clothespin. Whenever your car smells musty drip a drop or two of essential oils onto the balls and then clip it over your air vent. Easy! This is especially great in the colder months of the year, because your car heat is especially great at reactivating the oils in the felted balls, and if you use essential oil blends that may support respiratory health, you’ve got a hit all winter long!

Genius essential oils tips and tricks - image of essential oil drops added to car vent diffuser

3. You can make rice socks

Making a weighted rice sock sensory lap belts are so versatile. If you scent them with lavender, they can be very calming. When you heat them, they double as heating pads that help relieve shoulder tension and calm down pesky headaches!

Genius essential oils tips and tricks - image collage of essential oils being used to scent Epsom salt, to make a sensory rice belt, as a natural household cleaner with hydrogen peroxide, to make scented playdough, and as a natural room freshener when applied to air filters with a dropper

4. Make Homemade Essential Oil Carpet Cleaner

Just check out this recipe for cleaning carpet stains. The peroxide breaks down stains and the lemon oil helps release sticky particles! I was thoroughly impressed. You’ll need-

  • 1 part hydrogen peroxide
  • 2 part water
  • dark-colored glass bottle with a spray top
  • lemon essential oil

Any time you are using essential oils, you want to use glass, as the oils can be corrosive. Dark glass, like blue or brown, stops light from breaking down the hydrogen peroxide and weakening the essential oil.  Just combine your liquids, add 5 drops of lemon essential oil, and shake lightly. Then you’re ready to go!

Genius essential oils tips and tricks - image of different kinds of metal diffuser necklace pendants hanging from chains next to the words, "esential oil necklaces - diffuse oils all day long!"

5. Wear your favorite essential oil blends in a diffuser necklace

An Essential Oil diffuser necklace is a great way to bring your oils with you and not have to carry around bulky bottles. The oils can last in the necklace for over 24 hours, and they usually come with several felt inserts, so you can switch out your favorite perfume blends! Here are some of our favorites-

  • 2 drops lavender + 1 drop sweet orange + 1 drop cedarwood
  • 1 drop geranium + 1 drop lemon + 1 drop vanilla absolute
  • 1 drop lavender + 1 drop grapefruit
  • 1 drop jasmine absolute + 1 drop vanilla absolute

6 Make this Child-friendly Sensory Play Dough Recipe

Try this lemon oil play dough. The sky is really the limit with this recipe! You can get creative and make a multisensory experience by adding purple food coloring and dried lavender buds to playdough you’ve scented with lavender, which would  be great to calm an overstimulated child. You could also add green food coloring and peppermint oil, which would also be cooling! How much fun is that? They won’t even know they are getting the benefits of the oils while they engage their senses.

Bad Day Play Dough Recipe from Kids Activities Blog with Essential Oils

7. Remove pesky odors effectively with essential oil blends

Need a quick odor “fix” for your whole house, but don’t want to use chemical-filled sprays or overpowering scented candles? This trick is great right before family comes over.

Drip 2 or 3 oils over your home’s air filter! Oils are great at eliminating odor. We suggest rosemary, eucalyptus, or lemon, which are antibacterial and anti-fungal. You’ll have peace of mind that you’re filling the air of your home with good things! And with essential oils, a little goes a long way, so you end up saving money that you would have spent on not-so-great-for-you candles and sprays!

Essential Oils Use in Air Filters for the Home - Kids Activities Blog

8. Beauty secrets AND essential oils tips and tricks? Yes, please!

Do you ever feel like you blink your eye and your mascara has expired? (See what we did there?) Make it last longer, and encourage your lashes to grow longer and thicker – with the help of a single drop of lavender essential oil inside the tube. It even works with the setting gel of the 3D lash stuff!

Genius essential oils tips and tricks - image of a hand holding a bottle of lavender essential oil and a tube of mascara

 

9. Use oil blends to freshen up the bathroom

Just like in your air filters, essential oils are great in the bathroom because they literally kill the odor-causers in the air! The Cheer Up Buttercup! blend from NOW is wonderful at cutting odors, fast. Have a dropper of this 100% essential oils citrus blend handy – it cuts odors and leaves a fresh scent. Add a couple of drops to the inside of your toilet paper roll as needed. Every time someone turns the roll, they’ll release the scent. What a great trick!

Genius essential oils tips and tricks - image of an essential oil dropper used to apply oil to the inside of a toilet paper roll

10. Make a bug-hating concoction

Many blends of essential oils are hated by bugs. Genius, easy, and chemical-free. Try using diluted lemongrass to stave off mosquitos by adding a few drops to your favorite diffuser jewelry. Rub a few drops of tea tree oil in your hands and run it through your hair to keep lice away. Or make a spray with peppermint oil and use it on your baseboards to discourage ants!

Genius essential oils tips and tricks - image of a child holding a glass bottle that says, "bug juice," while an adult applies essential oils to the child's fabric diffuser bracelet with a dropper

11. Got a snotty nose?

You can diffuse oils in a tissue box. Just open the box, drip the oils on your tissues, close the box back up and you have scented tissues! Just make sure that the oil of your choice is safe to use “neat” (undiluted) on the skin. If not, just mix with a carrier oil of your choice at the recommended dilution. Not only will your tissues smell great, but when you use good-for-you plant oils, you won’t dry out your skin!

Ways to Use Essential Oils Daily

1. Roll it On

Do you struggle with removing/adding dropper lids and roller inserts and to bottles? Many a nail has been a victim of my oil obsession until I discovered this nifty trick. Use the lid to add/remove the roller inserts. Why didn’t we think of that?!

Watch this Quick Video on How to Remove Essential Oil Roller Balls

 

2.  Don’t Waste an Empty Bottle

Inside the “empty bottles” are trace amounts of oil. Make the most of those bits and dump your bottles into a jar filled with epsom salts. Let the salts will absorb the oils overnight – making a deliciously scented bath softener! This makes a great gift as well! Just add some dried lavender buds or crushed rose petals and put in a mason jar with a ribbon around the top- a homemade gift your friends will actually want to use!

3. Find the little dot to control how many drops of oil you get

If you are like me, you want just one drop of copaiba and it is just. not. coming… or with lemon, you want only one drop in your water, and instead you get ten. This trick is handy. Move the little dot to either get more or less oil drops from your bottle. With thicker oils, point the drop side down. With thin oils point it up. Viola.

Genius essential oils tips and tricks - image of a hand holding an essential oil bottle sideways so you can see the inner lid, and the words, "essential oil tip - find the dot. For thicker oils point down to get your drop. If it is a thin oil then turn the dot up so you don't get too many drips."

4. Reuse empty bottles to grow plant babies!

This one is such a “why didn’t I think of that?” moment! Just scrub the jars in hot, soapy water and a bottle brush, and once they are dry, use them to hold plant cuttings! Do you have a cutting you want to propagate and nowhere to put it? Use those old essential oil bottles! Or So cute…

5. Be aware of expired oils, but don’t throw them out!

Even if you are the most avid oil advocate, there’s always that oil that you can’t seem to use up. Educating yourself on essential oil shelf life (most expire in 2-4 years, some sooner, some later) allows you to use your oils safely in your home, especially if you use them on your skin. Some signs that your oils have gone bad…

How to Tell if Your Essential Oil Has Gone Bad

  • your oil has gone cloudy
  • they are viscous or sticky
  • they don’t smell as strong
  • they smell off, musty, or sour

So what do you do if find yourself with expired oil? While most will need to be thrown out, some that are commonly used in homemade cleaning products, like lemon or tea tree oil, can be added to baking soda or vinegar and still used safely- just remember to wear gloves!

Just from us…

Genius essential oils tips and tricks - image of an essential oil diffuser necklace with the words "essential oil diffuser locket - hypoallergenic stainless steel leather pads for longer diffusing 100% satisfaction guarantee"

Check out more useful essential oils tips and tricks!

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