Every recipe in the course and a good many more, indexed by how the oil is used β aromatic, topical, internal.
~18 min read
A collection of recipes can be arranged a dozen ways β by room, by oil, by season. Only one of them answers the question you arrive with. You do not usually want a recipe. You want a route: something to put in the air, something to put on skin, or something that goes into food.
Aromatic, Topical, Internal β the three ways a plant compound gets from a bottle into a person, and already the vocabulary of every oil in the library (how to use oils). Each has its own arithmetic. [Aromatic](#aromatic) never asks you to read a dilution figure. [Topical](#topical) states a percentage every time. [Internal](#internal) opens with the label rule and does not move past it. The cleaning preparations sit apart at [Home and cleaning](#home-and-cleaning): none of them enters a person at all.
Diagram to come
A single human figure at the centre, with three routes entering it and a fourth bypassing it entirely. From above, a route through diffuser mist and a nose into the head. From the left, a drop landing on a forearm and passing through a cross-section of skin drawn as a few layers. From below, a glass and a spoon into the torso. From the right, a fourth route that stops at a drawn worktop edge and turns away without reaching the figure. Each route is labelled with its letter and with the one number that governs it. The point of the drawing is that three arrive and one does not.
Each entry gives quantities, oils, method and a shelf life, and links the lesson that reasons it through. Read [Before you start](#before-you-start) once, then go to the route you need. Which doTERRA products are available differs by country; where a blend named here is not in your market, [Building your own](#building-your-own) says what to put in its place.
Five practicalities run underneath everything below, and every one is the reason a batch fails.
Glass, and why not plastic
Amber or cobalt beats clear β monoterpenes oxidise in light. Limonene (60β75% of lemon, 80β97% of wild orange, 90β97% of grapefruit) is a non-polar solvent and dissolves non-polar plastics: polystyrene fails in seconds. Nothing neat ever goes in plastic.
What a drop actually is
About 0.05 mL from a standard orifice reducer β roughly 20 to the millilitre, so a 15 mL bottle holds about 250. Every count here assumes 20.
Small batches, because there is no preservative
Anything anhydrous β oil, butter, balm, salt β keeps for months because there is no water for anything to grow in. The moment water goes in the clock starts. Never top up a half-empty bottle: empty, wash hot, dry, remake.
Label and date it before it leaves the worktop
What it is, the oils and drop counts, the date, and who it is for if diluted for a child. Unlabelled homemade bottles are just another unknown mixture.
Storage
Cool, dark, upright, caps tight, away from a hob or window. Every opening lets air in and it stays, so decant into something smaller once a bottle is half gone.
In a topical preparation the carrier is 97 to 99.5% of the product, so choosing it badly matters more than choosing the essential oil badly. What separates them is the fat: the more double bonds in the fatty acids, the faster the oil oxidises and the shorter the shelf life.
| Carrier | Feel and use | Keeps |
|---|---|---|
| Fractionated coconut | Clear, thin, odourless, liquid at any room temperature. The default in a roller. | Two years or more |
| Virgin coconut | Solid below about 24Β°C, scented, rich. Right in a butter, awkward in a roller. | One to two years |
| Jojoba | A liquid wax rather than a fat, close to sebum. The face and scalp; the dearest. | Years |
| Sweet almond | Heavier and slow β the massage carrier. A tree nut, so out of households that avoid them. | Six to twelve months |
| Shea butter | Solid, thick, sits on the surface. Hands, feet, and the base of any butter. | Two years |
| Grapeseed | The lightest feel and the shortest life β linoleic-rich, so it oxidises quickly. | Three to six months |
The simplest route and the one with the fewest rules, because nothing lands on skin and nothing goes into food. What governs an aromatic preparation is a number of drops and a length of time, not a percentage.
Three to four drops of a single oil, or four to six of a blend, in a 100 to 150 mL reservoir, run thirty to sixty minutes rather than all afternoon. More drops do not make a stronger effect β the nose stops registering a constant scent within minutes.
A diffuser is not an extractor, and it does not clean air
One adds molecules to a room; the other removes them. A diffuser does nothing to what is already in the air. While you cook, run the extractor or open a window; diffuse afterwards, into air that is already clear.
Seven blends, by time of day and season. Counts are totals for one reservoir.
| When | The blend | What it smells of |
|---|---|---|
| First light | 3 Wild Orange, 2 Peppermint | Sweet and cold. |
| The desk, mid-morning | 2 Peppermint, 2 Lemon, 1 Rosemary | Sharp and green. |
| The kitchen, after cooking | 2 Lemon, 2 Wild Orange | The highest-limonene pair. |
| An hour before bed | 3 Lavender, 2 Cedarwood, 1 Frankincense | Soft, woody, resinous. |
| High summer | 2 Lime, 2 Spearmint, 1 Grapefruit | Spearmint is carvone-led, rounder than peppermint. |
| Autumn | 2 Wild Orange, 1 Clove, 1 Cinnamon Bark, 1 Siberian Fir | Or 3 to 4 drops of On Guard. |
| Deep winter | 3 Siberian Fir, 2 Wild Orange, 1 Cedarwood | Conifer resin over citrus. |
A room spray
480 mL distilled water, 15 mL high-proof spirit, 25 to 30 drops. Without the alcohol you have water with a slick on top. Away from a flame, off polished wood. Three months.
A linen spray
250 mL water, 1 tablespoon vodka or witch hazel, 15 to 20 drops β lavender, or lavender with cedarwood. Test a hidden seam. A month.
A car vent clip
Two to three drops on a clipβs felt pad or a wooden bead. Re-dose every few days. Neat oil off the dashboard β most interiors are plastic.
Shower discs
200 g bicarbonate of soda, 100 g citric acid, misted until it just holds, 25 to 30 drops across the batch, pressed and dried 24 hours β about twelve. One on the shower floor, away from the stream. Three months sealed.
A steam bowl
Hot water, not boiling. One or two drops on the surface, a towel over the head, eyes closed. Keep children away β the hazard is the water.
A simmer pot
Orange peel, a cinnamon stick, cloves and rosemary in a pan of water on the lowest heat. No essential oils in a simmering pan β heat drives them off in minutes. A dry pan on a hob is a fire.
A personal inhaler
10 to 15 drops onto the cotton wick of a blank inhaler, wick in, cap on. It reaches one person and nobody else. Two to three months.
A reed diffuser
100 mL thin carrier, 2 tablespoons high-proof spirit, 60 to 80 drops, six to eight rattan reeds turned every few days β a high count because nothing is heated or atomised. Three to four months, in glass.
A topical percentage describes what lands on skin, because all of it lands and the carrier holds it there for hours. Four drops in a diffuser is about 0.2 millilitres released into the several thousand litres of air in a room, and one person receives whatever fraction passes through their nose. The dose is set by the room and the ventilation, not the recipe β which is why the limits here are not numbers: ventilate, keep sessions short, keep a diffuser out of a closed room where a baby is sleeping, and stop when anyone says they have had enough.
The largest section, because skin is where the most decisions are. Everything here carries two numbers: a percentage, which transfers to any bottle size, and a drop count you can do at a worktop.
Drops = millilitres Γ 20 Γ percentage Γ· 100. So 30 mL at 2% is twelve drops, 10 mL at 3% is six, 100 g of butter at 1% is twenty. For a solid, treat a gram as a millilitre.
| Strength | Where it belongs | Per 10 mL | Per 30 mL |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5β1% | Face, children over two, sensitive skin | 1β2 drops | 3β6 drops |
| 1β2% | Daily whole-body use on an adult | 2β4 drops | 6β12 drops |
| 2β3% | A small area, a short run of days, an adult | 4β6 drops | 12β18 drops |
| 0.5% or less | Hot oils at any age β oregano, thyme, cinnamon bark, cassia, clove | 1 drop | 3 drops |
For children under two, ask a healthcare practitioner first. Keep peppermint, eucalyptus and rosemary off the face and neck of a child under six. Patch test each new preparation at final strength, checked at 24 and 48 hours. Safety is the authority.
**Roller bottles.** A 10 mL glass roller: oils into the empty bottle first, fractionated coconut to just below the neck, ball pressed home, inverted ten times. Six drops is 3%, four 2%, two 1%, one roughly 0.5% for a child over two.
The evening roller β 3%
3 Lavender, 2 Cedarwood, 1 Frankincense in 10 mL fractionated coconut β lavender is 25β45% linalyl acetate, 20β47% linalool. A year.
The morning roller β 3%
3 Wild Orange, 2 Peppermint, 1 Rosemary in 10 mL fractionated coconut. Expressed citrus: no direct sunlight or UV on that skin for twelve hours. Not on the face or neck of a child under six. A year.
The desk roller β 3%
2 Peppermint, 2 Rosemary, 2 Lemon in 10 mL fractionated coconut. Lemon is expressed: no sunlight or UV on that skin for twelve hours. A year.
The grounding roller β 3%
3 Frankincense, 2 Vetiver, 1 Ylang Ylang in 10 mL fractionated coconut. Vetiver drops larger than citrus, so count carefully. Two years.
Diagram to come
A 10 mL glass roller drawn four times in a row at the same size, each filled to the same level and each holding a different countable number of drop symbols β one, two, four, six β with its percentage and who it is for beneath. To the right, the same bottle in cut-away as three numbered build steps. Along the bottom, a filled-in label panel as legible example text, because the point is that a reader copies it. The drops must be drawn and countable rather than written as numerals, so the comparison works without reading.
**Skin and body.** None of these contains water, which is why none needs a preservative.
Body oil β 1 to 2%
30 mL fractionated coconut or sweet almond, 6 to 12 drops; start at six. Lavender and frankincense, or geranium and cedarwood. With wild orange or lemon: no sunlight or UV on that skin for twelve hours. Two years in coconut, six to twelve in almond.
Body butter β 1%
100 g shea, 50 mL fractionated coconut, 30 drops into the 150 g batch at body temperature: melt, stir, chill until just setting, whip. Graininess is slow cooling. Six to nine months.
Face oil β 0.5 to 1%
30 mL jojoba, 3 to 6 drops β frankincense, lavender, geranium or myrrh. No citrus in anything worn in daylight, nothing minty near the eyes. Two years.
Lip balm β 0.5%
By weight 10 g beeswax, 10 g shea, 20 mL fractionated coconut, melted β about eight tubes β with 4 drops into the 40 g batch: peppermint or lavender. No hot oils and no citrus at all; a lemon balm worn in sunshine is the textbook photosensitive reaction. Twelve months.
Hand salve β 1.5%
30 g shea, 10 g beeswax, 30 mL sweet almond melted together, 20 drops stirred in as it cools β lavender, frankincense, geranium. Twelve months.
Oils do not disperse in bath water
Drops tipped into a running bath do not dissolve and do not spread β they float as neat droplets, and the first thing they meet is skin, at full strength, on the most sensitive parts of a body. Stir them into a tablespoon of carrier oil, castile soap, whole milk or cream first, and put that in the water. A dispersant is not a refinement of the recipe. It is the recipe.
Bath salts β about two drops per bath
200 g Epsom salt, 50 g bicarbonate of soda. Stir 10 to 12 drops into 1 tablespoon of carrier or castile soap, then fold through the salt. Four tablespoons per bath. Six months sealed.
Sugar or salt scrub β about 1%
200 g granulated sugar, or fine sea salt for something coarser, 100 mL sweet almond or fractionated coconut, 20 drops stirred into the oil before the grain. Rinse the shower floor after. Never the face. Three months, six for salt.
Scalp oil β 2%
30 mL jojoba, 12 drops β rosemary, cedarwood, lavender, tea tree. Into the scalp, thirty minutes or overnight. Rosemary is among the ketone-rich oils left out in pregnancy. A year.
Hair rinse
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar in 250 mL water with 2 drops rosemary or lavender, after conditioning β the cuticle lies flat in mildly acidic conditions. Mix it fresh.
Deodorant β about 1.5%
3 tablespoons coconut oil, 2 arrowroot, 1 bicarbonate of soda to a paste, 12 to 15 drops β tea tree, lavender or geranium. No expressed citrus if that skin will see sun. Bicarbonate sits near pH 8 to 9, skin near 4.5 to 5.5, so halve it or leave it out. Three months.
Massage oil β 1%
100 mL sweet almond, 20 drops β a large area and long contact, so the strength stays low. Lavender with frankincense, or AromaTouch, whose grapefruit is expressed: no sunlight or UV on that skin for twelve hours. Six to twelve months.
After-exertion rub β 2%
30 mL fractionated coconut, 12 drops: 6 Deep Blue, 4 copaiba, 2 marjoram. Wintergreen-led: away from children, off broken skin, never internal. A year.
A warming winter rub β 1.5%
30 mL fractionated coconut, 9 drops: 4 marjoram, 3 ginger, 2 black pepper, which is 8β46% Ξ²-caryophyllene. Off the face, hands washed after. A year.
**Outdoors.** Citronella and lemongrass are the traditional outdoor oils. A preparation you make at home is not a registered insect repellent and is not tested as one, so where that protection matters use a product registered for it. These also go on skin that will be in sun, so the dilution and the sunlight caution apply in full.
An outdoor body oil β 2%
30 mL fractionated coconut, 12 drops: 5 citronella, 4 lemongrass, 3 cedarwood. Reapplied every couple of hours; these are volatile and they leave. Not under two, half strength over two. A year.
An outdoor spray β about 1%
100 mL water, 1 tablespoon high-proof spirit or witch hazel as a dispersant, 20 drops of the same combination. Shake hard. No expressed citrus as written; add lime or bergamot and the twelve-hour sunlight caution applies. Two months, in glass.
The label on your own bottle decides, and nothing else does
Every entry in this section is conditional on one thing: that the label on the bottle in your hand says the oil is for internal use. Not the label on the same oil in a photograph, not a recipe written in another country, not a friendβs bottle from a different market. Countries classify concentrated botanicals differently β one treats a flavouring within stated limits as a food ingredient, another treats identical material as a supplement, another allows no food pathway at all. Same batch, same still; the label differs because the law it was written for differs. Where the label does permit it, the usual direction is one drop diluted in about 120 millilitres of liquid. If your bottle does not say it, make the recipe with the herb, the zest or the spice instead.
The working measure here is not the drop but the toothpick. Dip a clean wooden toothpick a few millimetres into the open bottle, stir it through the dish, taste, take a fresh one if it needs more. A toothpick tip carries a fraction of a drop, so you approach the right amount from underneath β and you cannot take an oil back out. Cooking with oils is the full account.
Water and drinks
One drop in about 120 mL, in glass or stainless steel β never a plastic bottle, because limonene is a solvent and many bottles are a non-polar plastic, so the oil pulls compounds out of the wall and you drink them. The oil does not dissolve, so the first mouthful carries most of it: put the drop into a teaspoon of honey and pour the water over that. Drunk at once.
Infused honey
250 g runny honey with 4 to 6 drops stirred right through β lemon, wild orange, cardamom, or a toothpick of cinnamon bark. Honey is viscous enough that the droplets cannot gather again, which is why this works where water does not. Keeps as long as the honey does.
Infused salt and sugar
100 g flaky sea salt or caster sugar, 2 to 4 drops across the surface rather than in one place β lemon into salt, wild orange or cardamom into sugar β rubbed through with clean dry fingers. Spread on a tray an hour, then jar it. Six months.
A vinaigrette
Six tablespoons olive oil, and the oil goes in here and nowhere else β 1 drop of lemon, or a toothpick of oregano. One teaspoon Dijon whisked in until it thickens; the mustard is the emulsifier and must meet the oil first. Then two tablespoons of vinegar, slowly. A week in the fridge.
Vegetable capsules
A size 00 capsule holds roughly 0.9 mL; the conventional fill is one drop of oil topped up with fractionated coconut, taken at once with water. Do not fill them in advance β oil softens the shell from the inside and a stored capsule leaks. This is the form for oregano and thyme, where the label permits them at all.
Cooking, in one line each
Into the fat, never the acid. Off the heat at the end of anything simmered. At the start with the butter and sugar in anything baked, because the oil is trapped as the structure sets. For four: 1 to 2 drops lemon or grapefruit, 1 to 3 wild orange, 1 of lime, ginger, cardamom, black pepper or coriander, and a toothpick only for peppermint, oregano, thyme, cinnamon bark and clove.
Two things never done, under any label. Nothing neat on the tongue or straight from the bottle. And nothing internal for a child: a childβs portion is a fraction of an adultβs, so the same drop is several times the amount relative to body size.
These sit outside A, T and I because none of them enters a person: the preparation goes onto a surface, does its work, and is wiped or rinsed away. Nothing here carries a dilution percentage in the topical sense β what matters is how much goes into how much water, and the thing being protected is the surface rather than the skin.
All-purpose spray, soap version
470 mL water, 5 mL plant-based liquid soap, 20 to 30 drops, in a 500 mL glass bottle: oils in first, soap onto them, swirl, water down the inside wall. For greasy soil. About a month. Never vinegar in the same bottle β the acid strips a true soap. The all-purpose spray has the formula.
All-purpose spray, acid version
440 mL water, 60 mL distilled white vinegar at 5% acidity, 20 to 30 drops β about 0.6% acetic acid in the bottle. For limescale and soap scum. Two to three months. Never on marble, limestone or travertine, which are calcium carbonate and etch.
The kitchen bottle
470 mL warm water, 15 mL plant-based liquid soap, 15 drops lemon, 10 wild orange, 5 On Guard. Triple the soap, so food-contact surfaces get a second wipe with plain water. On Guard contains clove and cinnamon β hot oils β so keep it off bare skin.
The glass and mirror spray
400 mL distilled water β not tap, which spots as it dries β 100 mL white vinegar, 15 mL high-proof spirit, 3 to 5 drops lemon and nothing else. Soap and oil are what streak. Three months.
The bathroom spray
250 mL white vinegar, 250 mL warm water, 15 drops tea tree and 10 lemon, or 20 drops Purify. Left ten minutes β scale needs contact time. Off cement grout, stone and acrylic baths. Three months. Bathroom and personal care has the room in full.
The scouring paste
100 g bicarbonate of soda with about 30 mL castile soap stirred in until it holds like wet sand, plus 8 drops lemon. Left a minute, rinsed well. Two weeks in a lidded jar. Never on unsealed stone, an acrylic bath or anything polished.
The wooden board conditioner
2 tablespoons food-grade mineral oil with 2 drops tea tree or lemon, along the grain of a dry board, left overnight, excess wiped off. Monthly. Mineral oil rather than a cooking oil, which goes rancid.
The carpet freshener
200 g bicarbonate of soda with 15 to 20 drops, shaken hard and left 24 hours so the oil distributes. Sprinkled thinly, 15 to 30 minutes, vacuumed thoroughly. Test a hidden patch, off wool, not where a pet sleeps. Six months.
A spray cleans what is in front of you. These five keep the thing itself from becoming the source, and each is a schedule rather than a recipe.
The fridge and bin routine
Fridge: find the source first, wash with a tablespoon of bicarbonate to a litre of warm water, dry the seals, leave an open dish of 100 g bicarbonate at the back. Bin: hot water and washing-up liquid, dried, bicarbonate under the fresh liner, a drop of lemon on a pad in the lid. Kitchen and odour has the reasoning.
The mopping bucket
Four litres warm water, one teaspoon castile soap, 8 to 10 drops stirred into the soap before the water β the soap is what keeps the oil dispersed. Optionally 60 mL vinegar, on tile, vinyl or sealed laminate only; never stone or wood.
The laundry methods
Wool dryer balls, 3 to 4 drops each, ten minutes to soak in before the load. Or 5 to 8 drops in the softener compartment with a tablespoon of white vinegar. Drops into the drum do nothing β they go into the detergent micelles and rinse away. Laundry, dishes and floors is the reasoning.
The dishwasher routine
Weekly: filter out, rinsed and scrubbed, spray-arm holes cleared, door seal wiped. Monthly: empty on the hottest cycle with 2 tablespoons citric acid. Door ajar between cycles. No oils in a dishwasher; nothing volatile survives it.
The drain routine
Strainer out. A bottle brush around the first few centimetres of pipe wall β the step that does the work. Three tablespoons of bicarbonate into the dry drain, fifteen minutes, then hot water with washing-up liquid. Bicarbonate followed by vinegar is the popular version and the weakest: the fizz is the two cancelling out.
Sooner or later you want something this collection does not contain β because you are out of an oil, because a batch is the wrong size, because the person it is for is not you. Four skills cover almost all of it, and together they are the difference between someone who follows recipes and someone who writes them.
Match the chemical family, not the smell. Two oils that smell alike can behave quite differently on a surface or on skin, while two that smell nothing alike are often close relatives β and it is the family that decides how volatile a constituent is, how gentle, and what it does to a plastic. Functional group families makes this properly usable.
| If you are out of | Reach for | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Lemon | Wild Orange, Grapefruit, Tangerine | All limonene-led: 60β75%, 80β97%, 90β97% and 80β99% in turn. |
| Lavender | Coriander, Clary Sage, Basil | Coriander 60β75% linalool, clary sage 40β75% linalyl acetate, basil 40β80% linalool. |
| Tea Tree | Marjoram | Both terpinen-4-ol led, which is the constituent doing the work in either. |
| Eucalyptus | Rosemary, Cardamom | 1,8-cineole in all three; cardamom runs 25β50% of it. |
| Copaiba | Black Pepper, Ylang Ylang | Ξ²-caryophyllene: copaiba 45β65%, black pepper 8β46%, a principal constituent of ylang ylang. |
| Cedarwood | Vetiver, Patchouli | Heavy sesquiterpene alcohols β cedrol, khusimol, patchouli alcohol. Slow base notes. |
**Scaling a recipe.** Percentages scale and drop counts do not, so convert once and work from the percentage. A 2% body oil is four drops in 10 mL, twelve in 30 mL, forty in 100 mL. Going the other way, six drops in a 10 mL roller is 6 Γ· 20 Γ· 10 Γ 100, which is 3%. With the percentage in hand you can make the same preparation in any vessel you own, and judge any recipe you find elsewhere against the table above.
**Adjusting for a different person.** Always downward, never up. Halve an adult figure for sensitive or elderly skin. For a child of two to ten the range is 0.5 to 1%; below two, ask a healthcare practitioner before anything goes on skin at all. The hot oils sit at 0.5% or less for everyone β oregano, thyme, cinnamon bark, cassia and clove β and peppermint, eucalyptus and rosemary stay off the face and neck of a child under six. Pregnancy is its own conversation, and the ketone-rich oils, rosemary among them, are the usual ones to leave out. Where someone has reacted before, start at the lowest figure, on a patch test.
**Knowing when a batch has turned.** Each kind fails in its own way, and none is ambiguous once you know the sign.
Photograph to come
One shelf in a real cupboard, shot straight on in ordinary light. A mixed group of finished homemade preparations: two amber spray bottles, three 10 mL rollers, a lidded jar of butter, a jar of bath salts, a small tin of salve. Every one carries a handwritten label with contents and a date, legible enough in frame that a reader can see the four fields being used β the labelling is the subject of the photograph, not the bottles. Domestic and slightly untidy: mismatched jars, one label peeling, a pencil on the shelf.
Keep oils away from eyes and inner ears, and out of reach of children β including finished bottles, which look like every other bottle under the sink. Use oils in food or otherwise internally only where the label on your own bottle says it is for internal use; labelling differs by market. Dilute every topical preparation, and dilute the hot oils β oregano, thyme, cinnamon bark, cassia and clove β considerably more heavily. After applying an expressed citrus oil to skin, keep that skin out of direct sunlight and off UV for up to twelve hours. Never mix any cleaning preparation, or any ingredient of one, with bleach or with an ammonia-based product; the combination releases a hazardous gas within seconds. Label and date every bottle you make. If you are pregnant, nursing, under medical care or taking medication, speak to your healthcare practitioner before use. Nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Lesson 7 of 7 Β· Clean Home + DIYs