Although I have a recipe for a homemade dishwasher detergent on my homemade cleaners page, we don’t really use the dishwasher all that much and just wash our dishes by hand. If you know how many times I’ve attempted to make a homemade dish soap and had it fail on me, you’ll understand why I titled this post the way I did. 
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Before we went “green” a few years ago, I think it’s safe to say that I was completely obsessed with commercial air-fresheners. Spray fresheners, plug-in fresheners, scented candles, you name it. Every room in our home had some sort of air-freshening device that left a strong, fruity, cheery scent in the air.
Now that I know better (thank God!), commercial air-fresheners have become a thing of the past. And now that we don’t live with the constant strong scents in our home, it gets pretty overwhelming when we’re at a friend or family member’s house and all we can smell is those strong chemicals wafting through the air! Ughh, I still can’t believe we ever used those things, but as we’ve removed them from our home, our sense of smell has become much more sensitive to all those chemicals. I can barely make it through the cleaning and laundry aisle at the supermarket without getting a headache or watery eyes or a very irritated nose.
Homemade air-fresheners is an area that I’ve dabbled in only slightly because until now I was just in the “no smell is a good smell” camp. And that’s still very much true, but sometimes you just want a gentle, light scent to tickle your senses and lift your spirits.
I’m going to be experimenting with a few different options over the next few weeks, and today I’ll show you how easy it is to make some homemade reed diffusers – you know, those little jars of scented oils with all the sticks popping out of them? Yeah, those…
There are five items you’ll be working with here and all of them can be sourced pretty inexpensively.
The Jars
I picked up these jars from the thrift store for $1 each. I didn’t know what I’d use them for but I knew I just had to have them, and I’m so glad I got them because they’re perfect for this project!
When choosing your jars, look for small, short jars with a narrow opening at the top. The smaller the opening, the slower your oils will evaporate. My jars had somewhat large openings but luckily, they came with cork tops, so I just drilled about a 1″ hole into the cork and voila! Smaller opening!
Examples of jars you can repurpose for this project include old perfume bottles, small oil bottles, small vases, spice jars and shakers, etc.
The Reeds (Sticks)
Technically, you’re supposed to use reeds made from rattan because it contains small channels that help the oil travel up the stick to scent the room. But I’m using regular bamboo skewers I picked up at the dollar store and they’ve been working ok so far. I did just order some of these reeds online to use once these diffusers stop working. Just make sure your reeds are about twice as tall as your jars so they can distribute the scent well.
Carrier Oil (Base)
From what I’ve read online, it seems the most common carrier oils to use are safflower oil and sweet almond oil, as they are lighter oils that will travel up the reeds more easily. I had just picked up some inexpensive grape seed oil (a fairly light oil) the other day so that’s what I used. You’ll use about 1/4 cup of oil for each diffuser, depending on your jar’s size, so try to source inexpensive oil, even if you have to order it online. Along with my reeds, I also ordered some safflower oil to have on hand for the next batch.
If you can’t find these oils, or don’t want to use oils as your base, you may also use plain water as the base. However, your diffuser base will evaporate much more quickly. Also, you’ll need to add some alcohol to help the essential oils bind to the water (see note below).
Essential Oils (Fragrance)
This is where it gets fun! You can either play it nice and simple with one or two essential oils, or you can get creative and experiment with different oil blends to create all kinds of lovely aromatic concoctions. Here’s a great list of essential oil blends that you can try.
For your 1/4 cup of carrier oil, you’ll use about 10-15 drops, depending on how strong or light you want the scent. I blended 2 oils for each of my diffusers – cinnamon and lavender for the living room, and spearmint and rosemary for the bathroom.
You can find essential oils at your local health food store or order them online from Amazon or Mountain Rose Herbs.
Alcohol
You’ll also add a splash of alcohol (about a teaspoon) to the oil mixture to help the oils travel up the reeds more effectively. You want as high a concentration of alcohol as you can get – at least 90%. You can use either perfumer’s alcohol, rubbing alcohol, or vodka. We don’t drink alcoholic beverages, and I don’t have access to perfumer’s alcohol, so I used 95% rubbing alcohol I picked up from the drug store.
Have you started your Spring cleaning yet? I’m visiting my mom this week, and we’re planning on tackling some of those necessary cleaning tasks to get her house in tip top shape for the new season. We’ve got a pretty solid plan of attack that we’re confident will help us get through this in one piece, but we weren’t always this optimistic. In planning our cleaning routine, to be honest, we became a bit overwhelmed and felt almost defeated. Thankfully, we got out of our rut, thanks to some wonderful tips we found in an amazing book I came across this past week!
Spring is here! Spring is here! Spring is HERE!
I’m quite excited, if you can’t tell, because this winter was so darn long, but Spring has sprung and there’s not going back now.
Our garden is going in a little late this year, as we’ve been (and will be) traveling for a bit, so that’s going to have to wait. But what I have been working on is doing some Spring Cleaning, trying to get this house freshened up and ready for the new season!
It’s no secret that one of my absolute favorite green cleaning products is Dr. Bronner’s castile soap. I use it in everything from my homemade floor cleaner, to my homemade laundry detergent (both liquid and powdered version), and even as a body wash and hand soap! But besides the many uses I’ve found for this amazing soap, there are other reasons that this cleaner is at the very top of my green cleaning arsenal of products.
