Can I Use Essential Oils in Humidifier? – Read This Before Using

Your home should be a place where you can recover from a stressful day or treat an illness. Essential oils can play a significant part in making you feel better or in maintaining your good health. And they are so varied in their effects in addition to being easy to use. You most likely have a top-class room humidifier in your home already, so you can add essential oils in humidifier immediately to benefit from their effects.

What Is an Essential Oil?

An essential oil is a plant product. Once the process of distillation is completed using water or steam, you are left with the essence of the original plant. Typically you will notice the fragrance from the original plant, such as lavender or eucalyptus, but the oil essence will include some other properties of the original plant as well. Other known essential oils used in living spaces include peppermint rosemary, tea tree, and Frankenstein. They are often put in humidifiers.

Humidifier vs Diffuser – Which One Is Better for Diffusing Essential Oil?

What Is a Humidifier?

Humidifier Benefits & Output

A humidifier is a device that increases the humidity in a location. At home, you often see the device in a single room. Sometimes though the humidifier can be located as an attachment to the furnace and then the humidity in the entire house is increased. There are 2 types of humidifiers for home usage. There is a cool mist and warm mist. With the cool mist humidifier, a fan moves air past a wick full of water. The water evaporates into the air. With a warm mist humidifier the device heats the water to boiling and then the water vapor dissipates into the air. In winter many homes have the warm mist humidifier as they add to the heating of the home in cool weather. Often a room humidifier is put in the room in which a baby is sleeping.

What Is an Oil Diffuser?

An essential oil diffuser transmits the essential oil such as eucalyptus to the air in your home. A common use is for aromatherapy There are several types.

• A nebulizing diffuser sprits the essential oils into the room directly without the use of a humidifier. It uses both a cold air pump and a spritzer to atomize the oil into very small particles of vapor. The micro vapor consists of tiny droplets of the essential oil only. No heat is used in this process.
• If you use a humidifier, you can put some drops of the essential oils in the water tank of your humidifier and the oil essence will be spread along with the water vapor. This can be done with a cool mist humidifier or a warm mist humidifier.
• Another way of putting essential oils in the air is through an ultrasonic diffuser. A well-known manufacturer is Crane. In this process, electrical impulses cause a disk to vibrate and spread the essential oils throughout the air. No heat is used in this process.
• Candles can also be used to diffuse essential oils in your home. The candle uses the heat to disperse the molecules of the oil. Candles are not a preferred method though, as they can overpower the aroma of the original plant such as eucalyptus with their own waxy odor while the heat does destroy some of the essential oil beneficial properties. They may be dangerous to put in the room for your baby.

Which One Is Better for Diffusing Oil and Why?

In order to preserve the maximum essence of the original plant, a cool mist is best. An ultrasonic humidifier, such as the one manufactured by Crane works well.  Any method that uses heat tends to destroy some of the properties of the essential oils. And the best way to move the essential oil through the air is to nebulize it into its own small particles or fine spray.

So, Can Essential Oils Be Put in a Humidifier?

Essential oils, as well as baby oil, can be placed in all humidifiers but there are some issues with using humidifiers.

Humidifiers are used to add water vapor to the air for a variety of reasons for health benefits, such as avoiding dry skin, ease of breathing, reducing the static electricity in the home, and increasing humidity for the benefit of the some of the furniture. But they are not designed to release essential oils. Humidifiers are not the same as ionic nebulizers and in some instances, the essentials oils in humidifiers can break down the plastic in the device, damaging the oil humidifier. Not only that, but heat ruins the effect of the essential oils. And since most humidifiers run continuously, you will not be able to control when the oils are released into the air. You may want to limit the time you smell the eucalyptus scent. So if you are interested, you have to know all the odds and ends of essential oils.

Still Want to Use Essential Oils in Humidifier? Consider These Things –

Make sure that you are using a cool mist humidifier so you are not damaging some of the properties of the essential oils. Or use an ultrasonic device similar to a Crane humidifier.

Need to perform some maintenance

You need to perform some maintenance by cleaning the humidifier occasionally to reduce the likelihood that the plastic will be damaged.

Know the right amount of oil to be used

In addition, you need to know the right amount of oil to be used. The amount of oil used will depend on the water tank size or will be determined by the holding area for the oil usually located near the top of the humidifier.
Check out Our Top 10 Whole House Humidifiers!

What Are the Best Essential Oils for Humidifier Use?

They are:

• Eucalyptus Oil: This is a natural decongestant since it has anti-inflammatory as well as an antiviral property. It can also promote mental alertness.
• Lavender Oil: Since this oil promotes calmness, it is excellent to use if you are feeling stressed, exhausted or have a headache.
• Peppermint Oil: This oil is great for the digestive tract, will stimulate your mind, soothe your sinuses and reduce your headaches.
• Sandalwood Oil: It is good for mental agility as well as enhancing the atmosphere for romance.
• Rose Oil: Rosewood has many properties, including being antibacterial, a deodorant and an insecticide as well as enhancing the atmosphere for romance.
• Tea Tree Oil: Tea Tree oil is good for cold or flu symptoms as it fights infections since it is both an antiviral as well as an anti-inflammatory. In addition, it has an anti-fungal property.

Knowing what oil to use to help relieve your symptoms, is key to the health benefits of essential oils.

What Are the Benefits of Diffusing Essential Oils?

There are many benefits of using an oil humidifier. Immediately most individuals enjoy the aromatherapy and with the different varieties, there are even more benefits. For example, lavender is known for its calming effect, cinnamon for its anti-inflammatory properties, orange for inflammation, peppermint for anti-nausea and soothing of the digestive system and sandalwood for mental clarity, just to name a few benefits. For a baby, you might want to use essential oils for medicinal purposes.

Conclusion

Essential oils have been used by many cultures for over 5000 years, benefitting the health of those who enjoyed their fragrances. Unless you try, you will not understand the benefits of using a humidifier as well as essential oils. So give essential oils in humidifier a try if you want to alleviate any of the following conditions:

• Tension, body ache
• Dry skin, wrinkles
• Flu or cold
• Pain
• Indigestion
• Hormone imbalance
• Bronchial irritation for a baby

Categorised in: Equipment, Humidifier