Last Christmas, I posted a DIY tutorial on how to make your own holiday diffuser. While you can get creative with all the different combinations of essential oils there are on the market, it’s also perfectly okay with just keeping it simple; even though I like to add 10 different essential oils into my diffuser, a simple mixture of 2 or 3 different scents will do the trick. A simple diffuser with some twig reeds will tie together a really nice rustic look for your bathroom or living room. Spruce up your bathroom with any of these recipes & you’ll always have a nicely scented & decorated bathroom. Channeling a bit of fall scents, these recipes add an air of spice to crisp & fresh scents. Want more autumn in your diffusers? Add cinnamon or clove essential oils!
Let’s Get Started
You’ll need vodka (cheap vodka you’d never drink, but with an alcohol content of at least 80 proof), distilled water, a diffuser bottle that has a small opening at the top, & 6-8 dried twigs, bark roughly peeled with a potato peeler. Boil a pot of water big enough to dunk your diffuser bottle in & boil for about 5-10 minutes to sterilize. Remove from heat & allow the bottle to cool down. Fill with 1:1 vodka to water, allowing for about 2 inches of room for the reeds & the essential oils (EO). Stir EO into alcohol + water solution with reeds.
It is essential that you use distilled water rather than tap water or filtered water as it may carry bacteria, causing your diffuser to mold (gross), so please be sure to use distilled water. The alcohol in the diffuser, however, should do a pretty good job of killing any bacteria that may grow.
Fresh Grapefruit
- 20 drops grapefruit essential oil
- 10 drops lemon or bergamot essential oil
- 10 drops eucalyptus essential oil
- 1 part vodka
- 1 part distilled water
Citrus Spa
- 20 drops grapefruit EO
- 10 drops bergamot EO
- 10 drops tea tree EO
- 10 drops rosemary EO
- 1 part vodka
- 1 part distilled water
Lavender + Mint
- 30 drops lavender EO
- 10 drops peppermint or wintergreen EO
- 1 part vodka
- 1 part distilled water
Refreshing Jasmine
- 25 drops jasmine EO
- 15 drops grapefruit EO
- 10 drops eucalyptus EO
- 1 part vodka
- 1 part distilled water
These are so easy to make & the concoctions you can come up with are endless. Instead of distilled water, try using orange blossom for an added boost of aroma! The twigs really do make excellent diffusers, even better than the diffuser reeds I’ve purchased in the past. You can get diffuser bottles at an antique market, Bulk Apothecary, Bramble Berry, & a bunch of different ones from Amazon. You can even just upcycle a cooking oil bottle that has a narrow opening.
You don’t want to use a bottle that has a large opening because it’ll evaporate too quickly (too much surface area is exposed to air), so make sure your bottle has a similar design to mine: small neck, bigger body. Concerned about making the leap of buying essential oils when you could just buy that $15 diffuser you’ve been eying at Target anyway? Well, I’ll have you know, EO have a lot of different uses. If you invest in eucalyptus for example, whenever you get a stuffy, runny, or feel congested in any way, shape or form, you can boil water, pour it in a large bowl, add 2 drops of eucalyptus EO into the water, & hover your head over the bowl with a towel draping your head to keep in the steam. It really helps open up your sinuses. Lots of different uses, just do your research. Essential oils are not the cure for cancer, but a lot of them are a lot more useful than you might think. Sore muscles? 5 drops Peppermint EO + 1 Tbsp lotion = tingly soothe-ness!
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Drea
If I had a bathroom or room worth putting this in, I’d absolutely try to do it. I might propose it to my friend since it seems something right up her alley. I’m not sure what defines a diffuser bottle, though. To me it looks a bit like an old milk bottle? Is there a specific place you get the bottles you use?
Tiff
In my post, I answered your questions. A diffuser bottle is a bottle that is wider at the bottom than it is at the top so that it minimizes the evaporation of the liquid. You could’ve also just Googled this though & I also listed a few websites in which you could buy diffuser bottles or (copy & pasting this from the blog now) “you can even just upcycle a cooking oil bottle that has a narrow opening.”
Essential oils can be purchased on amazon or through Bulk Apothecary, Bramble Berry, Mountain Rose Herbs, or other online vendors.
Drea
Agh, I think my vision must have been off that day because I can see the links now that I’m looking for them but didn’t that day, that or I brain-farted because I know I read about the wider bottom and narrower top but I didn’t know if the bottle had to be special in some other way. Apologies!
That being said, I’ll still have to give this a try after all the hectic stuff going on cools down a little bit, I think it’ll be neat as long as the cats don’t knock it over. ^^
Tiff
Totally okay! Don’t worry about it. 🙂 We all have these off days.
I’m sure you could use fragrances rather than the essential oils if you’ve got some acrobatic cats, but the drawback is that they won’t have any medicinal benefits for you. I think lavender, lemongrass, & eucalyptus are great EO that work well together. They’re also natural bug repellants & they shouldn’t be toxic to cats!
marfusha1976
Great! Thank you for the recipes!)
jaellexo
I’m definitely gonna try this! I need to spruce up my bathroom. Make it like I spent a lot of money decorating but I didnt! x
pedazodemi
Really nice diy, gonna try it soon ?
Alison Gibb
I have a couple pretty bottles that would be perfect to make diffusers for both my bathrooms. I have the vodka, too!! I just need the essential oils. I think I will check on Amazon. The peppermint sounds wonderful but I recently read that peppermint oils are toxic to cats. I have three kitties. With my luck, one of them will knock it over. Thank you for a great DIY!!
Tiff
Yes! I should’ve written a warning that some of the oils are toxic to animals including: cinnamon, citrus, pennyroyal, peppermint, pine, sweet birch, tea tree (melaleuca), wintergreen, and ylang ylang. I just copied that from the internets, so an alternative of that would be using fragrances instead. They’re more affordable & they’re more aromatic, however, you can’t really use them for any medicinal or therapeutic properties. You could try to make your own perfume with it though. You just have to be careful to place it somewhere your cats won’t knock it over.
Meaghan
Bookmarking this! I love this idea, I’ll probably make a few. One for myself, one for my parents, and one for my boyfriend’s parents. This is an awesome DIY, thank you for sharing!
Amanda
I love the idea of a DIY diffuser (okay, just diffusers in general :P)! This is works so well and is super cute decor too. Although…. I can’t be trusted with diffusers because last time I had one I knocked it over and bam, all gone 🙁