How you can reuse all those essential oil bottles

Do you ever wonder how you can reuse all those essential oil bottles? I’ve got a few tips to help you get the most out of your essential oils and to reuse those bottles!

When you can see a little more essential oil in your bottle but nothing will come out of the reducer, what do you do? You can toss the bottle or use the remaining oil using either of these methods.

Using or Re-Using what you have:

The first way to use the remaining essential oil is to remove the orifice reducer and use a pipette to pull the rest of the oil out to use.

The second is for you to remove the orifice reducer, add your favorite carrier oil to it, and use a roller ball instead of a reducer! This does a few things. It allows you to use the diluted essential oil and reuse that bottle.

One final way is to use a high proof alcohol or perfumer’s alcohol to dilute the remaining essential oil. Fill the bottle about halfway, cover, and shake well. Then pour the solution into a small spray vial to use later as a room spray.

The other option is to clean and sanitize your bottle so it can be reused later for your own personal blends or stock blends. Just make sure to get new orifice reducers and caps for them!

How to Clean Bottles:

If you’ve done all of that and you want to recycle the bottle for a later use, there’s a few ways to clean it.

First, remove the label. Depending on the company, it may come off easily with hot water. If not remove as much as you can by hand. Then grab your rubbing alcohol and scrub the label remnants away adding alcohol as you need to get it all off. Other labels may only require vigorous scrubbing using dishwashing liquid and hot water. 

The first way to clean the inside of a bottle, is to use a liberal amount of dawn dishwashing liquid. You’ll wash it vigorously with hot soapy water. Then put it in your dishwasher on the sanitize cycle. 

Sounds simple enough right? It is! And it works well to remove carrier oils you might have added!

The second way which is best used when you have not added carrier oil to your essential oil bottle is this. Using a high proof alcohol like everclear, fill half the bottle, cover it, and shake well. High proof alcohol acts as a diluent and will pull any remaining volatiles off of the bottle. 

You can save the high proof alcohol and use it as a room spray later - just don’t toss it because it can be reused at least once.

The final step in the second process is to spray the bottle with rubbing alcohol to sanitize. Alternatively, you can just add the bottle to your dishwasher and use the sanitize cycle.

A note on rubbing alcohol and high proof alcohols…

These should always be kept away from little hands. Never store them in cabinets or on counters where little hands can find them as these pose a significant health risk if ingested. 

Additionally, make sure you use gloves when cleaning your bottles. Essential oils have the potential to cause reactions when not safely diluted or if they should become oxidized. Using gloves will also protect your hands during cleaning.