How To Make Your Own Reed Diffusers
Reed diffusers have become very popular, and it’s not surprising that many people want to make their own using essential oils. Most store-bought reed diffusers use synthetic fragrances, but making your own natural reed diffuser oil with essential oils is simple. This article outlines how.
What You Need to Make Your Own Reed Diffuser
Decide on a recipe and calculate how much of each ingredient, glass bottles (and what sizes), and how many diffuser reed sticks you’ll need. Before you begin, make sure you have everything you need.
Ingredients and Supplies You Need to Make a Reed Diffuser:
Essential oil(s) (You also may use fragrance oils.)
Dipropylene glycol, fragrance grade
Perfumer’s alcohol (You may or may not need this.)
Diffuser reeds (Reeds should be a few inches taller than the bottle.)
Narrow neck glass bottle (Do not use plastic or metal containers.)
How to Make a Reed Diffuser
1. Add your reed diffuser oil to the glass bottle (Instructions on how to make the oil is detailed below). Don’t fill the bottle completely full. There must be enough space so that when you put in the diffuser reeds the liquid doesn’t spill over the top.
2. Put the cap on the bottle and mix by gently turning the bottle upside down a few times.
3. Remove the cap and insert the diffuser reeds, and fan them out. It may take several hours for the oil to wick all the way up the reeds and diffuse the scent into the room. You can “refresh” your reed diffuser by flipping over the reed sticks every few weeks.
Reed Diffuser Oil Ingredients:
There are three basic components of natural reed diffuser oils:
1. Essential oils, which provide the fragrance. You also may use synthetic fragrance oils.
2. Reed diffuser oil base, Dipropylene glycol (fragrance grade). The base dilutes the essential oil or fragrance oil, and helps the reed diffuser oil wick up the reeds.
3. Perfumer’s alcohol, which thins the diffuser oil to allow better wicking. The Perfumers alcohol is excellent to predissolve the fragrance oils before adding to the DPG to product clear solutions of the finished product.
Making Your Fragrance
Your imagination is nearly your only limit when it comes to which essential oils to use in your reed diffuser oil. Use single oil or a blend. But note that thick or heavy essential oils do not work well in reed diffuser oil blends.
If you want a reed diffuser oil that is as strongly fragrant as store-bought reed diffusers, you may need to use synthetic fragrance oil instead of essential oil.
Make Reed Diffuser Oils
Make your reed diffuser oil with about 30% to 40% essential oil and about 60% to 70% dipropylene glycol or reed diffuser base oil. Slightly more or slightly less of either ingredient should work, too. If the diffuser oil is too thick (viscous) and doesn’t absorb up the reeds well, you can add 5% or 10% perfumer’s alcohol to make your formula more wickable.
Perfumers alcohol is available to buy online at MistralNI.co.uk (Business users) and MistralIE.co.uk
We also stock a range of fragrances and other perfumery related products.