Here are some great oils and a few ideas for blends to get into the seasonal mode and lighten up the dark days. Essential oils are fun and useful to use any time of the year, but especially to spice life up in these (for some of us) colder and darker months. Many folks have holiday gatherings this time of year and oils can make one’s home even more inviting….stay tuned, more ideas on using oils to “buffer” social gatherings are coming up in a future article.
The oils!
Orange/Bergamot – Orange or bergamot oils are wonderfully uplifting scents and their sweetness seems to me fit more with the season than the tangier citruses like lemon and lime. Though no reason not to use the latter two if you like them. Citrus oils are also great for anxiety and tension, which often accompany the holidays.
Clove – In some parts of the world, it’s a tradition to stick clove buds into an orange and hang it up for the scent. Well, that and it’s quite pretty. Clove is a warming, spicy and pleasantly stimulating scent. Because of its high content of a chemical called eugenol, clove is also strongly anti-microbial and while you don’t want to use it on your skin, you can use it in a diffuser to help kill nasty microbes in the air. The flu, for example.
Cinnamon – This is another spicy, warming scent and goes well with clove. Cinnamon is another eugenol-containing oil and is, thus, strongly antimicrobial for diffusing. Like Clove, it’s invigorating, which can be helpful on dark days.
Conifer oils – Fir, spruce and pine are festive scents to use this time of year. All are uplifting and energizing, while also being tension-reducing and anti-microbial. No scent says winter holidays like these oils do. And, they blend well with all of the oils I’ve already mentioned.
Vanilla – This luscious, warm, sweet and heady scent is a way to make folks think you’ve been baking all day, even if you haven’t! It’s not a cheap oil, but it’s strong. A little goes a long way (also true of clove, by the way). Technically, vanilla is an “absolute” rather than an “essential oil”. It has to do with how it has been extracted…the latter comes from distillation or pressing and vanilla doesn’t lend itself to either technique. It’s a calming, comforting scent that, for some, may recall pleasant childhood memories.
Some blends!
I like to use “parts” for blending oils. A part can mean anything…a drop, 2 drops, whatever. So, for example if 1 part Cinnamon is 1 drop for the Bug Buster blend you’re making (recipe below), then 2 parts bergamot will be 2 drops. If 1 part cinnamon is going to be 2 drops, then 2 parts bergamot will be 4 drops. If 1 part cinnamon means a gallon of cinnamon (I hope you’re not working with that much oil!!!), then 2 parts bergamot would be 2 gallons. Got it? The point being that you can use parts to mean whatever measurement you want.
Bug Buster Blend
Cinnamon (1 part)
Clove (1 part)
Bergamot (2 parts)
Fir (2 parts)
Someone’s Been Baking Blend
Vanilla (2 parts)
Cinnamon (2 parts)
Clove (1 part)
Orange (3 parts)
Too Busy to Buy a Tree Blend
Fir (1 part)
Spruce (1 part)
Pine (1 part)
A note on diffusing. It’s best not to have your diffuser going 24/7. Give your liver a break, it has to metabolize essential oils. Also, the emotional effects of a particular oil may wear off over time. Consider using the low setting on your diffuser. Or shut it off after an hour and leave it off for an hour or two before turning it on again. Also, consider changing up the oils you use day to day so that the liver isn’t dealing with the same exact essential oil components day after day.
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