Essential oils are a curiosity to many folks — they smell nice, but they’re just not sure what to do with them, never mind how to get the most from aromatherapy’s science-proven benefits. So where to start?! Inhale! Breathe them in! The simplest means is through diffusion: evaporating the oils into your home, office, or other living space. By using a diffuser to accelerate the evaporation of oils in the air around you, one can both enjoy the wonderful aromas of pure essential oils, and go so far as to use them for their therapeutic, medicinal effects.

Diffusion of an essential oil means to distribute the oil in the air around you. Essential oils easily evaporate — more easily than water — so this is a pretty straightforward thing to do. At the same time, there are ways to get even more essential oil in the air, at a higher concentration than, say, if you just let a bottle sit open on a table. This is where an aromatherapy diffuser comes it. The diffuser evaporates the essential oil faster, using one of many possible methods (more on that in a moment). And why would you want to evaporate the oil faster? If you just left a bottle sitting open, you and your family would occasionally smell the aroma coming from the bottle; if you’d like your whole room or house to be filled with that aroma, you’d use a diffuser.

All diffusers will improve the rate of evaporation of essential oils into your surrounding space. It is important to recognize that while this may use your oils faster, there are good reasons to do this: diffusing oils so they can be smelled over a much larger space; diffusing oils in a work environment to eliminate the scents of of other activities; and perhaps the most important is sometimes diffusing high concentrations of oils such that we can absorb more oils through our respiratory systems for our health. The least expensive diffusers will use a small heating element to evaporate the oils, or a small fan which moves air more quickly over the oils for the same effect. These are usually excellent choices for a small bedroom or office. A little more high-tech are the humidifying ultrasonic diffusers, which are actually just small ultrasonic humidifiers. They do a wonderful job in small to medium environments, particularly in dry climates or during the winter with forced-air heat systems.

There are other simple, inexpensive ‘low-tech’ methods of diffusing essential oils. These are as simple as candle warmers — where a candle gently evaporates a few drops of essential oil floating on a small bowl of water above a tea-light candle (don’t forget the water! So many people report these devices burn their oils, but they’ve put them just over the heat!). A Reed Diffuser is also common, which evaporates aromatic oils through bamboo reeds and slowly into the air. Though they do most often use a synthetic dispersion agent called DPG or dipropylene glycol, which most aromatherapists will not recommend using, as at some point the diffusion process requires one breathing in its vapors.

The most advanced aromatherapy diffusers produce a fine, concentrated mist of pure essential oil, without water or heat. In medicinal aromatherapy practices, therapists will sometimes have their clients actually breathe the visible vapor of an oil or oil blend to help them get well. In Europe, one can find an apparatus that looks like an oxygen tent, though instead allows the patient to breathe in oils that are considered highly anti-viral or anti-bacterial. This employs what is called a “nebulizing diffuser” (this is not the same as an “ultrasonic nebulizer” in that no water is used). The nebulizing diffusers are wonderful in that they can be used in both small spaces, just for aromatic needs, or for larger areas where a high concentration of essential oils are desired in the air. At the same time, they can take a little more attending to — needing the occasional cleaning — and typically use precision glass pieces to make the fine mist of essential oil evaporate properly. Even so, the best of these available today are small, quiet, nice looking and easy to maintain.

The choice of oils you can use in a diffuser is even more diverse than the kinds of diffusers available. It is really best to start with your desired reason for diffusing oils, then select your oils following this guideline. For general use, Citrus oils are very lovely, and combine very well to make your own unique scents. Try Lemon, Lime, Bergamot, Orange and Grapefruit together for example. Or the “evegreen” oils all blend together well: Fir, Spruce, Pine and Juniper create a very welcoming and warm atmosphere. Floral oils can be easily blended too, as can the woods and the herbs. Once you venture outside of blending oils from the same family, you’ll want to pay a little closer attention to the ratios of each oil you use, as it’s easy to make odd smelling recipes if you just start putting in “a little of this and a little of that”! On can always use a single oil at any time, particularly if you really enjoy one, but in the long run, blends can often be more interesting to the advanced aromatherapy user.

Finally, if you’re wanting to diffuse with specific therapeutic purposes in mind, you might want find some recipes from Aromatherapists created with your needs in mind. Lavender diffused during the course of the night (in very small amounts) can significantly improve sleep — this would be considered a therapeutic application. To improve mental clarity, Rosemary has shown positive results in many studies, and is a lovely stimulating aroma. To support the immune system, some therapists recommend a blend of Rosemary, Thyme Linalool, Hyssop and Melissa. You can pick and choose among the immune supportive oils that sound best for your needs — and the essential oils from herbs also seem to easily blend well together to create a fun and healing combination.

So there is a primer on diffusing essential oils. To recap, first pick the diffuser style that will suit your needs, whether you’ll just like to smell the aromas in a smaller space, or diffuse significant quantities for health reasons. Next, you can blend one oil at a time (diffusers usually do not require one to clean them between oils, nor are the therapeutic effects significantly altered by this), by a pre-blended formula, or create your own diffuser mixture. Just be sure not to include any fixed or carrier oils for diffuser use — many massage formulas can be converted to diffuser use simply by removing the carrier oil. Start slowly, remembering that you’ll generally need less oil than you think to produce the effect you need. And welcome yourself to a whole new world of natural medicine.