Cleaning essential oil spills and residue

The more I handle and use essential oils, the more I'm realising just how powerful and potent they are. Whether you're handling doTERRA or any brand of essential oils, they always need to be treated with the utmost respect so you don't hurt yourself or damage any of your property. Spill some neat essential oils on your hands, you can end up with redness, heat or even skin burns. Spill some undiluted essential oils on furniture, it can strip away the top surface of your furniture. Citrus oils in particular are well known for cutting through grease in cleaning and taking the top off furniture if you spill them. Citrus oils can also leave your skin sensitive to the sun, so please read up on essential oil safety before handling them. When you use essential oils in an ultrasonic vaporiser, oils also leave a residue that can linger behind for your next diffusion. Here's my top tips for cleaning up after essential oils use.

Cleaning up an essential oil spill on your skin

As quickly as possible, grab some kind of oil and generously smother the affected area in oil to dilute the essential oil as quickly as possible. If you shop with us, there's a pretty good chance you have coconut oil in the kitchen. Just use that. There's no need to waste the doTERRA Fractionated Coconut Oil on cleaning up a spill. Even olive oil, canola oil, rice bran oil or safflower oil will do the job just fine. Dilute as quickly as you can. If you're near your beauty bag and your organic skin care regime has pure oils in it, these can be used too. Anything from Jojoba Oil to argan oil, marula oil, hemp seed oil, almond oil or camellia oil are all perfectly acceptable ways to dilute an essential oil spill on your skin. If the reaction doesn't calm down, please seek medical advice.

Your first reaction will be to wash it off with water. Don't. If you don't have any oil, a skin cream is your next best choice. If you somehow happen to get it in your eye, everything I read says to flush with milk. I would be seeking professional medical advice about this one.

Cleaning up an essential oil spill on furniture

Sorry, I have bad news here. Once you spill essential oils on furniture and it starts to eat away at the surface, you're done for. You will only ever do this once. Even a small spill can leave oil on the bottom of a bottle and leave a mark. Prevention is better than cure here. Don't put an essential oil bottle down on any surface unless you don't mind it being damaged. You're best to keep them all in an essential oil box or even a little plastic tub.

Cleaning your aroma diffuser between blends

One day you're diffusing something sweet and light, the next day something heavier. If you don't want todays blend half smelling like yesterdays, you need to clean out the water chamber in your aroma diffuser. You may find a damp tissue or cloth sufficient, but the best way to remove all trace is to get a bottle of really cheap white vinegar from the supermarket and use that. It's always a part of my natural cleaning products kit (along with cheap bi-carb soda). You can waste apple cider vinegar if that's all you have, but the cheap stuff works fine. You can get white vinegar from the supermarket for about $1 for 2 litres. I use it with bi-carb to clean my drains.

Put a generous amount of the vinegar in, swirl it around and tip it out. Rinse with water to get rid of the vinegar smell. You can use this same technique to get all manner of smells out of plastic containers too. It's a really great life hack!