There is so much misinformation around the topic of essential oils for housework. As a company, we at VINEVIDA cannot abide waste and believe you as the customer should always be clear on what it can do and can’t. So today, we will get on our soapboxes around the best essential oils for laundry. (That pun was just too good to ignore.)
What are the Best Essential Oils for Laundry?
- Lavender essential oil
- Tea tree essential oil
- Petitgrain essential oil
- Geranium essential oil
- Ylang Ylang essential oil
- Jasmine absolute
- Pine essential oil
- Sandalwood essential oil
- Orange essential oil
- Grapefruit essential oil
1. Lavender Essential Oil
Okay, so let’s cut to the chase. Using essential oils for laundry is ineffective and a waste of money.
Let’s think about it.
Imagine I gave you a selection of five essential oils for laundry dryer purposes.
How are you going to apply them?
Come on.
Think about it.
How do you use essential oils for laundry?
They’re oils!
Do you want oily marks all over your washing?
Okay, let’s suppose that oil slicks on your best blouse have a particular appeal…
If I gave you some orange essential oil and you put it on a tissue in your drier, what would happen? First, essential oil volatiles evaporate...then, pooof...they’re gone with the steam sent out through your condenser waste pipe.
You can use essential oils for laundry balls, but the effects are so short-lived that you might be better looking for synthetic fragrance oils with fixative qualities.
You can add essential oils to your ironing water, but remember that oils and water do not mix. Disperse the oil into a little vodka before adding it to the water. The effects will be so short-lived, though, since essential oils do not have any fixatives and will evaporate off incredibly quickly. Lavender spritzes on sheets are timeless classics, but the best way to use essential oils for laundry odors is old school. A few drops of lavender essential oil on a lavender bag shoved between your laundry stack has never really been bettered.
2. Tea Tree Essential Oil
Tea tree is antiviral, antifungal, and antibiotic. We like to scrunch them into socks before putting them in the washer when the kids have athlete’s foot or a nasty germ is doing the rounds. We love to pop a drop of tea tree onto our sheets if someone has been ill. A good tip is to recognize that oils do stain. You want to benefit from its fumigatory action but not ruin the bed linen, so put the drops onto the edge seams, then screw the sheet gently around it. The molecules do their work without making too much of a mess.
How To Use Essential Oils For Laundry
We’ve already established that they won’t work in your washer or drier.
Likewise, if you iron with them, they’ll evaporate too.
However you use them on your washing, that will happen because they don’t have any fixatives.
The best way to use them will be to make a laundry spray and give them a quick spritz before you put them away. Whatever effects you do manage to achieve will be transient. Fleeting, but lovely.
The Best Essential Oils for Laundry Spritzes for The Kitchen
While we’re still up here on our soapbox, a couple more points, it amazes us that people would have enough money to splash around this way, but more to the end, essential oils are ecologically expensive things. People give their entire lives to producing plants that have medicinal qualities. Some of these plants are challenged species. We don’t care what the latest homesteading post says is a great idea; please do not shove them in your drier!
However, that said, essential oils do deteriorate. In addition, they become precarious as they age, as some can risk skin sensitivity. Nevertheless, using essential oils for household purposes can be an excellent way to use them.
Citrus essential oils are notoriously flawed because their monoterpenes oxidize quickly. However, lemon, lime, and grapefruit essential oils make nice spritzes for the kitchen. Give your tea towels a lift with these.
The great thing about how transient the fragrances are from these spritzes is you can change them up as you like.
Citruses are beautiful and revitalizing for the morning, but perhaps you want something a bit more sophisticated for the evening. How about lovely basil or cinnamon?
The Best Essential oils For Laundry Spritzes for Bedroom
3. Petitgrain Essential Oil
A bit of a break from lavender, but did you know that petitgrain has a similar chemical makeup. The essential oil made from the leaves and twigs of the orange tree is relaxing and soothing, so it is one of the best essential oils for laundry spritzes for the bedroom and the bathroom towels.
Not that we’re biased, but we think this is the best smelling essential oil for laundry, but it’s entirely a matter of choice.
4. Geranium Essential Oil
A little more elegant, a bit stronger, geranium makes a great spritz if you are stressed. Using rose absolute or essential oil would be too wasteful. This makes a great substitute.
5. Ylang Ylang Essential Oil
Relaxing, heady, and erotic.
6. Jasmine Absolute Oil
The most sophisticated, alluring, and seductive. A very racy addition to your sheets.
The Best Essential Oils For Laundry Spritzes for Bathroom
7. Pine Essential Oil
Our brains register so much through smells. Pine has a fresh, clean fragrance that feels strong and healthy. This one is great for spritzing towels for morning showers
8. Sandalwood Essential Oil
A beautiful sensual, and relaxing fragrance for evening towels after bedtime baths.
Best Essential Oil for Laundry Spritz Recipe
- 30ml Distilled water
- 1 tsp clear alcohol (Vodka works well)
- 20 drops of your chosen essential oil
- Decant into a spray bottle or atomizer
Conclusion
There aren’t any best essential oils for laundry. They need to be mixed with other chemicals and surfactants to give them fixative qualities, which becomes expensive. However, they can bring a restful and attractive new ambiance to the home.
