Essential Oil Room Spray DIY: Perfect for Holiday Gifts

So I know that spring cleaning is a thing, but what about fall freshening? There’s something about the changing of seasons that makes me want to refresh my life — my closet, my home, my mind. It’s a great time of year to clean out your closet, wash those flannel sheets that have been hanging out in your linen closet all summer and generally make your house a little cleaner and a little cozier. (Joanna’s note:  This is especially true when your closet is as tiny as ours!)

For me, this process always involves scent. At night, I love to light some fall-scented candles and during the day, I love to spritz a bit of DIY essential oil room spray around my house. I keep a stash of a few different scents so I can use the one that best suits my mood. Right now I can’t get enough of eucalyptus essential oil spray since it smells so peaceful and has the added benefit of boosting immunity due to its antimicrobial properties (stay away, flu season!).

How To Make an Essential Oil Room Spray at Home

Making your own essential oil room spray really couldn’t be easier! It’s just a three-ingredient process: water, essential oil, and witch hazel. The witch hazel is a key member of this party because it helps the water and essential oil combine nicely so you get a good amount of scent with each spritz. Seriously, these are so easy to put together, which makes this DIY essential oil spray an ideal homemade gift for the creatively challenged!

DIY Essential Oil Room Spray Recipe + How to Make Essential Oil Room Sprays:

Ingredients:

• distilled water — it’s important to use water that’s been distilled so you’re not depositing any minerals when you spray this around the house.
• witch hazel — like I mentioned before, witch hazel helps the water and oil combine.
• essential oils — you can really use any that you like. For this, I chose to make a eucalyptus, a jasmine and a lavender room spray.
• dried flowers — I like to add some matching dried flowers to the bottle for decoration and to help me remember which scent is which!

What You Need:

• glass spray bottles (similar)
• twine
• melting wax
• melting spoon
• wax seal
• lighter

Directions:

Unscrew the top of your glass bottle and add 20 drops of essential oils.

Fill the glass halfway with distilled water, then fill the other half with witch hazel. It’s totally fine to just eyeball these measurements — they don’t have to be super exact. As long as it’s relatively close to a 1:1 ratio, you’ll be good. Be sure to live a little room a the top so you can add in your dried flowers or greenery.

Replace the lid and shake the bottle to combine the witch hazel, oil and water. Give the mixture a test spray and add a bit more essential oil if you want a stronger scent.

Once you’re happy with your mixture, add a handful of dried flowers or a sprig of greenery to your room spray. I added a couple of pieces of eucalyptus to mine for a pretty touch that also easily shows the scent of the solution.

*A quick note about essential oils: feel free to mix and match to create scents that you love! Each oil has a distinct smell and properties to match, so do a little research to figure out how to create a mix that does what you’re looking for (this chart is super handy).

For example, jasmine is romantic and relaxing so would be great to spray on fresh sheets; eucalyptus is revitalizing and clarifying and is perfect for the home office; and lavender is soothing and balancing and would be wonderful to spritz around the living room. Just be careful what you spray in areas that your pets frequent, some essential oils can be poisonous to dogs and cats (list of non-pet safe scents here).

Now our room spray is finished and you can absolutely use it as-is, but if I’m using this as a gift, I like to go the extra mile and really package it in a thoughtful, beautiful way.

Cut about 20″ of your twine and tie it around the center of the bottle. Knot it twice.

Wrap the loose ends of the twine around the bottle two or three times each, depending on how much extra twine you have.

Double knot the ends again, making sure you have at least a couple of inches left either side.

Place a small gumball-sized amount of melting wax in the melting spoon. Hold your lighter under the bowl of the spoon until the wax starts to melt. Be very careful! The melting wax gets very drippy and you really do not want it to drip on your skin (I may or may not know this from personal experience). Use a long-handled lighter, if you have one, to save your thumb from soreness.

As the wax melts, use a little toothpick or wooden skewer to carefully stir it around.

Once the wax has fully melted, pour it onto a piece of glossy paper. Firmly press your wax seal into the center of the melted wax and hold for a few seconds. Pull the wax seal directly up and let the wax finish drying.

Peel the wax seal off the paper and set it aside. Melt a little bit more wax and carefully pour it over the knotted portion of your twine. While the wax is still hot, press your finished seal into the wax, affixing it to the bottle.

Alternatively, you can pour a little extra wax onto the bottle and stamp the seal directly onto the bottle. However, I found this method to be more difficult and the curvature of the bottle makes it hard to get a really good impression of the seal.

And that’s all there is to it! These really do come together so quickly and make great-smelling hostess gifts, especially as the holiday season is coming up. I also love keeping one of these pretty spray bottles in the loo for use as a chic air freshener.

You gotta love a DIY project that can be done in under 30 minutes! That’s only like half an episode of The Great British Bake Off. I’m also very sensitive to scents, so I love that this formula is all-natural and totally customizable. It’s a way to make my home smell clean and cozy for these long fall nights spent cuddled on the couch. Joanna also uses her essential oil room spray to make their Vanagon smell better!

Which essential oil blends are you most looking forward to using for your room sprays?

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If you liked this Essential Oil Room Spray DIY, you might enjoy these as well:

• Shampoo Bar Recipe with Essential Oils
• Fall Scented Bath Bombs
• Eggnog Soy Wax Candles with Essential Oils
• The Benefits of Essential Oils inBath Bombs

photography and styling by Jojotastic, DIY by Hannah Cross for Jojotastic.