Saturday, December 4, 2010

Uses For Lavender Essential Oil

You can use Lavender essential oil in a variety of ways, and to help with a variety of home care needs. Lavender oils have been used for many years, and while it is more commonly associated with its health and beauty benefits, Lavender has plenty of home care uses as well.

While it is easy to find out what to use lavender oil for, it can be difficult to figure out how to use lavender and lavender oils for these purposes. Here you can find a couple different uses for lavender and how to use them for your home care needs.

Lavender can be very easily used to refresh clothes, carpets, and rooms.

To use to refresh clothes

  • Place 5 drops of lavender essential oil into about a quarter cup of fabric softener, and add into washer like normal. When you take these clothes out of your washer they will smell just like the soft, fresh, flowery scent of lavender.
  • You can also make a lavender sachet and stick it in your drawers to keep your clothes smelling fresh. To do this, just add some dried lavender, and accompanying herbs (like chamomile, lemon, or mint leaves), and place them in a small pouch. You can make a pouch easily out of an old t-shirt and some ribbon. Just cut up an old shirt into a large circle, add herbs of choice, and tie up with an old string or ribbon.

To refresh carpets and area rugs

  • Mix 2 - 4 cups of baking soda with 10 - 15 drops of lavender essential oil, mix in a plastic ziplock back and let sit for a few days to dry out. Then take this mixture, which should smell wonderful when you open it, and sprinkle over your carpets. You can let this sit for a little bit, and then vacuum up. This will leave your carpets smelling wonderful and fresh.

To refresh rooms

  • Drop a few drops of the lavender oil into the hot wax of a burning candle, this will give off a faint smell. You can also easily find lavender candles at any home or specialty store. They are very common, and some even have lavender mixed with accompanying scents.
  • You can also create a lavender potpourri with dried lavender, fresh lavender, and a few drops of lavender essential oil. You can add any other types of dried flowers or herbs you want to this, as well.
  • For bathrooms you can easily make decorative lavender soap out of simple melt and pour soap bases. These soap bases can be bought at any hobbyist store, such as Michaels. You can also obtain an unlimited amount of molds online or at hobby stores as well. All this requires is taking the soap base of your choice, melting it down, and pouring into molds. To create the lovely lavender scent, just add some lavender essential oil (about 5 drops per cup) to the soap base after it has been melted. Make sure you don't add it in when the base it too warm or it will destroy some of lavenders beneficial properties. When these cool off you will have some very nice smelling soap that can keep your bathroom smelling fresh and clean.

In addition to some of the above home uses, lavender products are starting to show up on store shelves in everything from dish detergents, and laundry detergents, to wrinkle creams and lotions. Everywhere you look you seem to see more and more lavender products on the markets, and with so many benefits, its not hard to see why. To find more uses for lavender and read about all lavenders beneficial properties, check out this great Lavender Essential Oil Guide. There you will find useful information for soapmakers, cosmetic makers, and the everyday consumer as well.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ruby_Groves


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