Essential Oil Recipes: How to Make Your Own Essential Oils and Some Blends to Try
Sometimes using a single type of essential oil does not give the best benefit, which is why many people try to concoct their own essential oils recipes for optimum results.
The reason why blends work better is because elements that are present in the individual oil interact with each other to maximize their potency. Each blend that you make can be designed for various essential oil uses, like for a more restful sleep, to cure congestion, to improve your concentration, to lift up your mood, and many more.
Before trying out some blends, you might be interested to know first how essential oils are made. You will be surprised that you can actually make one from your very home.
Making Essential Oils
Essential oils are extracts derived from plant material. They are classified as oil because they do not mix with water and they easily dissolve with organic solvents.
Unlike most oils that you know however, like olive oil or vegetable oil, essential oils are volatile at room temperature. Just opening a bottle of it will cause it to slowly evaporate to the environment, which is why it is an ideal room freshener.
There are three main ways to make essential oils. These are steam distillation, extraction, and expression. In steam distillation, the plant material is heated with steam to push the essential oils to separate from the plant and evaporate. The vapor is then cooled down to make it condense back to its liquid state. This liquid contains both water and oil and they can be separated easily.
With extraction, two solvents are usually used. The first one will extract the oil from the plant to form a concrete mixture and the second solvent will further separate the oil from the concrete. Since the resulting mixture will still contain both the second solvent and the oil, it has to go through a distillation process to separate them.
The expression method makes use of a mechanical machine that will press the plant material and draw out the oils. Among the three, steam distillation is the easiest to do if you want to make your own homemade essential oils because you will only be using tools that are readily available in your home, like a crockpot or any cooking pot. Yes, manually cold pressing a plant (for example orange peel) will not require any tool at all but it will require a lot of hard work.
If you want to try making your own essential oil, here is an example on how to do it. First, simply place your plant material in a crock pot and add some distilled water to it. Make sure that the plant is thoroughly cleaned and it would be better if you choose organic plants so that they do not contain any harmful chemicals from pesticides and herbicides.
Let it cook for a day to ensure optimum extraction of the oils. After that, let it cool down and just let the mixture sit for a week in a cool and dark place. By then, you can skim off the oil from the top of the mixture and pour it in an amber bottle. Cover the bottle with a cloth and leave it like that for another week to further evaporate any water component.
You may cover it tightly with a bottle cap after that. As an alternative, you can first place the plant material in a linen bag or mesh bag before placing it in the crock pot. This will make it easier for you to skim off the oils from the mixture, but ensure to press the bag first to release any oil that is trap inside it.
Essential Oil Blends to Try
To energize you, try mixing peppermint with wild orange, or lemon with lavender, or frankincense and geranium. These blends can invigorate your spirits to fight off depression, thus leaving you with a happier disposition.
If you are having trouble sleeping, mixing together chamomile, marjoram, orange, and lavender then placing it in your oil diffuser can help create a relaxed environment that is conducive to sleeping. Mixing lavender, geranium, and palmarosa also works.
For those who are suffering from eczema, create an oil blend consisting of lavender, chamomile, and rose. This has a calming effect on the skin to help lessen the redness and inflammation.
To repel the insects away, massage a blend of citronella, lemongrass, and peppermint on your skin. This will give you more freedom to enjoy the outdoors without worrying about those insect bites. This blend also has a cooling effect, making it perfect for those summer nights.
If you want to boost your immunity when flu season comes, treat yourself to an aromatherapy using a blend of lime, peppermint, rosemary, eucalyptus, and lemon. This will help clear your airways and strengthen your respiratory system.
There are still so many more essential oil recipes to try. Sometimes you can do it by trial and error too. Read more about the properties of each oil and mix together those that you think will help you produce your ideal oil for your intended use.
