Essential Oil Diffuser — This easy, 5-minute DIY reed diffuser is the perfect budget-friendly way to keep your house smelling naturally fresh! Even better, it’s made from simple household items for a quick weekend DIY project…
In case you’ve missed the memo, aromatherapy is all the rage these days. It just so happens that there’s a double bonus of making your house smell great and feel cozy along with it.
I’ve been known to go a little overboard when it comes to filling our home with smelly good things. I realized it was a problem when a friend politely mentioned that my cat smelled like perfume, ha!
After that, I jumped on the essential oil bandwagon very quickly for a more natural alternative.
While there are a ton of aromatherapy diffuser options floating around, it’s just as easy to make yourself a DIY reed diffuser for a super budget-friendly version…
Essential Oil Diffuser Ideas & Options
One of the most popular aromatherapy diffuser options is the electronic version.
They usually have cool mist settings, a water capacity, led lights, a night light, automatic shut off and run time. They also make versions with a large water tank to help fill large rooms, too.
I love our electronic diffusers (shout out to Amazon reviews, ha!), but it’s also convenient having a simple reed diffuser for small spaces. They’re perfect for places like the bathroom or home office where you don’t want to have one plugged in at all times.
A nebulizer diffuser (or ultrasonic diffuser) is another electronic option that’s ideal if you can afford one!
They’re very similar to traditional aroma diffusers except that the nebulizer requires no water tank. It simply diffuses pure essential oils into the air without needing water to create a mist.
This DIY reed diffuser uses no electricity like the nebulizer and lasts a lot longer than the time in between needing to refill the water tank of a traditional electronic version. What it lacks in lighting options, it makes up for in being easy to use!
No matter which option you choose to go with, the essential oils will only spread over so many square feet, so keep that in mind!
Materials to Make Your Own Essential Oil Diffuser
When it comes to making your own reed diffuser, you only need a vase or vessel to use as a diffuser bottle, a carrier oil, your choice of essential oils, and reed sticks.
You can make your diffuser bottle as fancy or as simple as you’d like. I opted to use a clear and gold diffuser bottle, but you could use wood grain, matte black, clear, or any other small vase.
Pure liquid Coconut carrier oil
Essential oil combinations of your choice
Rattan reeds for reed diffusing sticks
How to Make a DIY Reed Diffuser
Once you have all of your reed diffuser materials, you can make them into an essential oil diffuser super quickly!
All you have to do is fill your diffuser vase with 3.5 ounces of liquid carrier oil like coconut oil (or even baby oil!). Next, you’ll add 3 to 5 drops of your favorite essential oil blend to the vase.
Now you’ll insert 5 to 7 of the rattan reeds into the vase, and you’re all set!
Since there is no timer on a reed diffuser like the electronic aromatherapy diffusers have, you don’t want to add too much of the essential oil.
Essential oils have a chemical base and you want to be sure to not risk overexposing yourself, pets, children, or anyone else to too many oils.
Be sure to read up on potential toxic essential oils and proper usage before making your own essential oil diffuser at home.
What are The Benefits of an Essential Oil Diffuser
Whether you’re making a DIY diffuser or using another alternative, there are several benefits to using essential oils.
Essential oils provide a boost to the limbic system to enhance relaxation and anti-anxiety benefits, along with respiratory disinfection, clearing toxins in the air, and more.
There is still some controversy over just how much essential oils have an effect on your body and mind, but they’re undoubtedly great for making your living room smell good!
Regardless of how you find some of the health benefits to be, there’s no denying that having an essential oil diffuser in the room gives a relaxing aroma that you can customize with any number of essential oil combinations.
What Combination of Essential Oils Should I Use
The sky is the limit when it comes to choosing what essential oil diffuser combinations to use. There are also a lot of essential oils that you can buy already mixed for certain purposes.
For instance, you can purchase essential oil blends for relaxation, immune support, better sleep, energy, or mood-boosting.
My favorite essential oil diffuser blends —
- Soothing citrus oil blend: combine 1 drop of lavender, 1 drop of ylang-ylang, and one drop of wild orange
- Sleep oil blend: combine 2 drops of bergamot and one drop of patchouli
- Immunity oil blend: combine 1 drop of tea tree, 1 drop of eucalyptus, 1 drop of sweet orange, and one drop of frankincense
- Good mood oil blend: combine 2 drops of lavender and 2 drops of lemongrass
Needless to say, you’ll likely get hooked when you realize just how easy it is to make your own essential oil diffuser. Especially when it costs less than $25 to make them for multiple rooms in the house!
In case you’re looking for a few other candle and aromatherapy DIY ideas, here are some of my favorites from the archives —
- How to make wax candles with rosemary and grapefruit
- DIY faux wood candle holder
- DIY copper candle holder
- Rainbow DIY taper candle holder
- Wooden taper candle holder
- DIY citronella candles
Below is a full printable tutorial for how to make a DIY reed diffuser for every room in your house…
DIY Diffuser | How to Make a Reed Diffuser
DIY Reed Diffuser: How to Make an Essential Oil Diffuser
Ingredients
- 1 Diffuser bottle or vase
- 3.5 ounces Pure liquid Coconut carrier oil
- Rattan reeds for reed diffusing sticks
- Essential oil combinations of your choice
Instructions
- Fill your diffuser vase with 3.5 ounces of liquid carrier oil like coconut oil (or even baby oil!).
- Next, you'll add 3 drops of your favorite essential oil blend to the vase.
- Now you'll insert 5 to 7 of the rattan reeds into the vase, and you're all set!
