How To Clean Essential Oil Bottles & 4 Uses For Your Bottles

If you are like many people you have a lot of bottles of essential oils laying around the house that are empty.  However, you don’t want to just throw the bottles in the trash.  You can always reuse your essential oil bottles.

The hard part is getting the smell out of the bottles.  For instance, you don’t want to add peppermint to your old lavender bottle.  Let’s face it using just water and soap isn’t going to get the smell out of your old essential oil bottles.

There is a lot of misinformation out there about cleaning your essential oil bottles.  I have actually tested the process which I will explain down below.

• 

How To Clean & Reuse Your Essential Oil Bottles

• Remove the cap and droppers of the bottles.
• Soak the bottles in a big bowl.  (Make sure the entire bottle is submerged in water).  Use Dawn dish soap in the water.
• After the bottles have soaked for 12 to 24 hours remove them from the water.
• Use 1-2 drops of lemon essential oil to help get the label off the bottle. (use a scratch pad to help).
• Fill the bottles with baking soda overnight.  Put foil on the top of them.
• Get all the soap and water out of the essential oil bottle.
• If the smell is still there use Epsom salt and submerge the bottles in the salt for 2-10 hours.
• Let the bottles air dry.

To clean your droppers and caps use a separate bowl and soak them in water and Dawn dish soap over night.  Put them in a big glass or plastic container with baking soda over night to help remove any of the oils that might be on them.  Then let them dry over night.  Again, you can use Epsom salt to for 2-10 hours to help get the smell out if the baking soda if Dawn dish soap hasn’t done the job.

I tend to wait until I have 5-10 bottles and do them all at once.  Then, I will have more bottles that I can use all at once.

Ideas For Reusing Your Essential Oil Bottles

If you’re wondering what you can do with your newly cleaned bottles I’m going to give you some ideas down below.

Create Your Own Synergies

If you have a blend that you really like and use all the time premix your own essential oils in the new bottle.  For instance, two oils that I combine for sleep are lavender and cederwood.  So, I used one of my newly cleaned out essential oil bottles for a night time synergy blend.

Can make holiday essential oil blends; Christmas, Thanksgiving, Summer, etc.

Don’t forget to make a label for your bottle.  You can be as creative as you want, use a sharpie to label it, or use a simple label maker.

Make A Travel Kit

Let’s face it traveling with essential oils isn’t always easy.  If you’re like me you have 4 oz bottles of peppermint, tea tree, orange, etc. and you don’t want to have to travel with them everywhere you go.  Instead you can add some in your smaller 5 to 15 ml bottle.

Also, you can use your cleaned out essential oils for carrier oils that you need on the go rather than lugging around a big bottle of 16 oz grapeseed carrier oil.

Lastly, you can use the bottles for facial washes, moisturizers, toner, mouthwash, etc.  Whatever you commonly travel with go ahead and put it in your cleaned out essential oil bottles.

Use Them For Gifts

You can even give the bottles to your friends or family or fill them with their favorite essential oils.  You could even make them your own synergy blend if you want to.  It’s a great idea for stocking stuffers at Christmas time, too.

Use Them To Repurpose Your Favorite Oils

For me I have oils that I use a lot like cederwood, lavender, peppermint, rosemary, eucalyptus, etc.  What I typically do is buy them in larger quantities from Now Foods and put them in a smaller bottle.  Therefore, I always have my favorite essential oils around.

Above shows you what I am talking about.  I have my bottle of 4 oz of Peppermint and use my Aura Cacia bottle because I like the size and how the essential oils pour out of Aura Cacia’s bottles.

So before you throw away your empty essential oil bottles maybe you should reconsider and clean your essential oil bottles out to repurpose them.  The bottles are not cheap and it can cost $10 for 12 5 ml Amber bottles.

Hopefully, this has help you when cleaning out your essential oil bottles.  Please let me know if you have any questions down below.