Reuse Your Essential Oil Bottles; How To Properly Clean and Deodorize Them
Clean and Deodorize your Essential Oil Bottles
Hello Fellow Steemians,
If you use essential oils at all, then I'm sure you have had a stash of empty bottles laying around once or twice. The bottles are so useful for mixing your own essential oil blends or storing any other homemade herbal tonic. The problem is, sometimes it is hard to remove the residual scent left over from the original essential oil. Which, depending on what you want to put into the bottle, can be a big problem. Here is the method that works for us:
The first thing I would like to point out is that even when you have "emptied" your essential oil bottle, there is still quite a lot of essential oil left in there. Don't waste it! There are a few things you can do to be sure you take full advantage of it. Depending on what essential oil you have you could...
add olive oil to the empty bottle and let it set for 2-3 days, giving it a good shake each day. You could use this in a herbal salve (lavender or tea tree), or make your own wood conditioner (orange or lemon), etc.
add vodka to the empty bottle and let it set a few days, giving it a shake once a day. You could use your infused vodka to make a fragrant room spray, perfume or fabric refreshener. I find this strategy works for any essential oil that you enjoy the scent of. I make a perfume with a Lavender and Lemongrass combination while using pepermint as a natural spider deterent. The possibilities are endless!
Now that you have truly gotten every last drop out of your essential oil bottles, let's get them cleaned up...
Grab a large bowl and add about 2 Tablespoons of Baking Soda to it,
followed by enough boiling water to fill your bowl and a couple of drops of your favorite dish soap.
Stir until combined and add in all of your empty bottles and lids. Let them soak for about 20 minutes.
At this point the labels should rub off pretty easily by just using your fingers. For tougher ones I use the rough side of a sponge or a bbq scraper.
After you have removed all labels and residue, dump the water and clean your bowl well.
Give the bottles a good rinse as well and then refill your bowl with hot water and a few drops of your favorite dish soap. Then add about a 1/2 cup of White Vinegar and place all bottles and caps into the water. Let them soak for about 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes remove bottles and rinse well. Let them dry turned upside down on a towel. You should have beautiful, clean, deodorized bottles now ready for your homemade items!
Some of my favorite things to put in these are Herbal infused Oils, Garlic Oil, and Homemade Herbal Facial Toner. Your imagination is the only limit on this.
I hope you all will pull out your empty essential oil bottles and make them good as new.
Happy Homesteading!
Very cool & original idea! Thanks so much for sharing this with us!
Thank you!
I am all about re-using and re-purposing items and just like the glass jars I get from the grocery store... always clean and sterilize.. I can generally find a use for them!
GREAT post!
Thank you! I am such a horder of glass jars, but just like you...I always find a use for them!
Not a hoarder if you actually USE the items- lol... at least that's what I tell myself.
I can remember when all the kids were still at home, we'd buy those 5-quart pails of ice cream... Oh MAN! I used the heck out of those pails.Stored my flour and sugar because I bought them in 20-lb bags... yeah those little buckets are GREAT!
quite a process. Good old baking soda and vinegar. I dislike throwing things out as well. :) enjoyed your post.
Thank you. The less you throw out the less you have to buy afterall. Baking Soda and vinegar are my go to for most things. When I first started searching the internet for a trick to get my very potent essential oil bottles clean enough to reuse them (after just trying to wash them with soap and water), all I found were people suggesting an expensive cleaner by a name brand essential oils company. Which made me just laugh and shake my head. After a little experimenting, this process really got the job done.
I will have to share this with my wife. She is an essential oil's fanatic
Thank you for sharing
Thank you! I hope she finds it helpful.
This is a wonderful post. There is still so much left in those bottles even once we can no longer get a "drop" out. Infusing even more oil is a great way to capture that. Thanks for sharing!
Wonderful, thanks. I probably have quite a collection of empty bottles I could clean up. :)
Thank you for contributing your knowledge to help others! This post has been added to the Sotall.org Directory of Self Sufficiency & Survival posts. One of our goals is to provide access to the knowledge of our fellow Steamians, that will still be seen, long after the 7 day period is passed. If you write any future articles with instructions on how to do any tasks related to a homestead or survival, to ensure they are added to the directory, please submit them. They will be added as soon as possible.