Let’s admit it, essential oils are amazing. Nowadays they are being used heavily in aromatherapy, a treatment that helps to live a healthy and long lasting life. On the other hand, humidifiers are pretty cool too. It helps to control humidity and protects us from cold and other type of fevers. But what if we can combine the power of both. Can you add essential oil to a humidifier to increase its effectiveness? We’ll try to find the answer in this article. But first we need to learn about essential oils.
What is an Essential Oil?
Essentials oils are the natural extract from the plants that come with the natural components. It is purely organic and does not contain any artificial chemicals. Essentials oil is used in food flavoring products, perfumes, and beauty products, and they help in curing various problems. They calm your mood, act as a stress buster, soothe your headache, and many more.
Essential oils are named after the name of the plant from which it is derived. There are various kinds of essential oils, such as rose oil, eucalyptus oil, lavender oil, rosemary oil, and so on. Now the burning question is whether we should add essential oils in humidifiers or not.
Can You Add Essential Oil to a Humidifier? Short Answer
The short answer is Yes. You can add essential oil to a humidifier, but only if it is designed for that. Most of the regular humidifiers won’t be able to handle essential oil in it, and thus it will affect them. So you must research about it before adding, and if you’re confused you should contact the manufacturer to confirm the same.
If your humidifier supports essential oil, then you should use it. It will increase its effectiveness to multiple folds for sure. To understand that we need to understand the purpose of adding essential oils to a humidifier first.
Purpose of Adding Essential Oils to a Humidifier?
Generally, humidifiers are used to increase the humidity level of your room. In extremely cold regions, people deal with various issues related to the dryness of the atmosphere. In such circumstances, a humidifier is the one solution.
Now the motive of adding essential oils in your humidifier is to make your room’s air perfumed. Essential oils are no doubt great for lifting your mood up when they are present in the air. They also wipe away the odors in the air.
Humidifiers mainly come with a reservoir or a water tank, a wick filter, and a fan. Some humidifiers come with a mister and fragrance diffuser. Now let us discuss these two types of humidifiers, and what would happen if we add essential oils in them.
Humidifiers without Mister and Fragrance Diffuser
This type of humidifier does not have any extra parts to hold the essential oils. So, you need to add the essential oils to the water tank or reservoir directly. We all know that the water and the essential oils do not mix up with each other. As a result, the oils will start collecting on the wick filter. It would create a coat over the filter and would finally break down.
The ultrasonic nebulizer will not work properly as it is clogged sensitive. The essential oils will clog this filter and nebulizer. In such a situation, the humidifier will lose its strength soon. You need to change the filter frequently.
Humidifiers with Mister and Fragrance Diffuser
This type of humidifier comes with a separate essential oil holder, generally known as the mister. This mister does not mix this oil with the water in the reservoir. So the chance of clogging the ultrasonic nebulizer and damaging the wick filter is zero. Many companies have now come up with this mister and fragrance diffuser to keep this need for using essential oils in the humidifier. The fragrance diffuser is another important device.
Oil diffusers used in humidifiers are mainly of four types- ultrasonic diffuser, evaporative diffuser, heat diffuser, and nebulizing diffuser. The fragrance diffuser of the humidifier breaks the essential oils into molecules and transmits them into the air. This makes your room perfumed and odor-free. While doing this, your humidifier is not damaged at all.
To restore the essential oil’s fragrance for a long time, a cool-mist humidifier would be great. It uses the ultrasonic diffuser to transmit the oil into the air.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Essential Oils in Your Humidifier
Our primary aim was to answer the questions i.e. “Can you use essential oil to a humidifier?, and we have already done that in this article. But we want to dig deep into the topic, and inform you about some of the advantages and disadvantages of the same. Let’s start!
- Essential oils have certain properties that can calm your agitated mind and make you fall asleep soon. So, for those who have some issues with sleeping properly, may use essential oils in the fragrance diffuser.
- Essential oils help in curbing your appetite. If you always feel hungry, this increases your appetite. New research has shown that essential oils help to control your appetite.
- Essential oils help in killing certain bacteria present in the air. Essential oils have antibacterial properties. So, they are good for your health too.
- The essence of these essential oils helps to calm your mind and releases stress. Your mood gets better instantly with the help of these oils.
- Essential oils make your room odor-free. Your guests feel wonderful about the indoor air and the environment.
- Some people have allergies due to essential oil. This type of allergy can be serious and may lead to an undesirable situation. They should strictly restrict themselves from inhaling the air infused with essential oils.
- The nebulizing essential oil diffuser causes a loud sound, which can cause a headache. So, instead of soothing your mind, it would rather make it worse.
- You need to clean the oil diffuser quite frequently. This is quite time-consuming.
- Essential oil diffusers require a lot of maintenance. It causes you an extra expense.
Best Essential Oils to Add in Your Humidifier
Lavender essential oil
Fragrance of lavender is enjoyed by everyone a lot. It is heavily used in scents and perfumes. In the case of essential oil, this lavender one will be a good choice as it calms your mind instantly.
Sandalwood essential oil
Sandalwood is another popular option in the wide range of essential oils. This soothes the agitated mind and improves your sleep.
Tea tree essential oil
The tea tree is full of antioxidant. The essential oil extracted from this plant helps in killing the flu virus present in the air.
Eucalyptus essential oil
This medicinal plant is good for dealing with respiratory issues. Eucalyptus essential oils are good for those who have asthma.
Rose essential oil
As we already know that rose essential oils are good for skin, it also has a sweet fragrance. Rose essential oil can make your room odor-free and lift your mood instantly.
So, this article was a proper guide regarding whether you can add essential oils to your humidifier and how to add it. If you can keep these safety measures in mind, your humidifier and fragrance diffuser will serve you in the long run without causing any trouble.
We hope now you will stop searching for, “can you add essential oil to a humidifier?”, as now you know the exact answer. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any more queries.