This post is part of our essential oil guide.

It is a fact that essential oils weakens and losses their potency over a period of time. The question that would be propping out of everyone’s mind would then be, “Can we still make use of the old and aging essential oils?”

Let’s find out the answer to this question.

You will know if an essential oil is already damage if the scent has severely changed, the oil has thickened, and it has become blurry. If all of these things happened, better dispose the essential oils right away. Essential oils that have gone old no longer possess the clean and calming scent that we usually enjoy.  It is not healthy to still apply it on your body for it can cause skin irritation aside from being ineffective. Avoid using the damage oil in room perfume because you might inhale the strong elements present and might trigger asthma and other respiratory problems.

Citrus oil aged sooner than other essential oils. Patchouli, sandalwood and vetiver on the other hand aged skillfully. Their therapeutic effect increases with age.

There are other alternative uses of aged essential oils but still smells good. Few of these are dryer sheet perfume; fabric softener additive; drain freshener and trash can freshener.

Dryer Sheet Freshener

Using your old essential oil on the dryer sheets is a reasonable way to perfume your laundry instead of disposing it. All you need is to get a fragment of cotton fabric and drops of light colored essential oil sprinkled around it. Do not use colored fabric when doing light laundries. Then place it into the dryer along with the laundry and after the process you’ll have scented sheets which are equally good as with commercial dryer sheets.

Drain Freshener

Old and aged essential oils which do not smell rancid yet can also be used as drain disinfectant and freshener. A drop or two of your essential oil is good enough to remove the sour smell of on your drain. Do not pour beyond two drops for essential oil components might contaminate the water supplies.

Trash Container Freshener

You could also freshen up the smell of your trash bin with the help of aged essential oils. Peppermint oil is the best essential oil to apply these containers. Just pour around two drops of an essential oil to the bin’s liner will not just remove the bad smell but also keeps out insects and pests.

The three alternatives cited above had just proved to us that everything has alternatives. And old and aged essential oils are not an exception to that rule. As long as we could think and find good points of such things, there is always a way of enjoying its purpose. We just have to be not to mistakenly ingest any of these as it will cause us damage to our body. Supposed for example, instead of using it as air freshener, you could still enjoy its services by using it as drain freshener or any of the three. There is a possibility that you could inhale the volatile substances of the essential oil when applied as air freshener. Now, here’s a piece of advice to those who are planning to dispose their old essential oil which still have the aromatic smell: THINK TWICE.

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About the author

jenny

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