How To Properly Store Your Essential Oils

How do you properly store your essential oils? Pure essential oils are a wonderful way to improve and maintain health, but these amazing gifts from nature can become much less potent and lose their therapeutic value if they're not stored properly. Understanding how to properly store your essential oils becomes easy when you know the three primary things that hurt them. Sunlight/UV, oxygen, and heat are the main threats to the potency of your oils.

The first step in properly storing your essential oils is to ensure that they are kept out of sunlight and away from strong UV sources such as sun lamps and tanning beds. Store all of your essential oils in dark amber or cobalt colored glass bottles with secure, screw-on tops and never place them on a window ledge or anywhere sunlight will shine on them. You should also consider placing your bottles in an opaque container for additional protection.

Next, ensure that your unused essential oils receive minimum exposure to air. While pure essential oils don't go rancid like some pure vegetable oils can, they can oxidize when exposed to air for too long, decreasing their potency and therapeutic benefit over time. When you're not actually dispensing an oil be sure to keep the bottle closed with a secure, screw-on top. While you are dispensing an oil, you should also take care to use an orifice reducer in the bottle. An orifice reducer is a small insert inside the mouth of the bottle that acts like a built-in dropper and reduces the flow of air into the bottle. Many essential oil producers supply the orifice reducer with their bottles but you can also purchase them from various suppliers if needed.

Lastly, make sure to store your essential oils away from heat. Most oils you use frequently will be fine at regular room temperatures but cooler is better since higher heat will accelerate the degradation of your essential oils. So, never store your essential oils near heating vents or appliances that give off heat when they operate and consider placing some of your oils in the refrigerator door...especially citrus oils and those in a larger bottle that will take longer to use. However, never freeze your oils.

Whether you're using essential oils to reduce stress, relieve pain, sleep more soundly, support your immune system or digestive system, pure essential oils that are properly stored can give you therapeutic benefits for a long time to come.  

Author Resource:- Ben Crabtree is a Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Neuromuscular Therapist, and Essential Oil enthusiast in San Antonio, Texas. His successful private practice is dedicated to relieving pain through the use of several massage and bodywork techniques as well as the application of Therapeutic Grade Essential Oils. See his site MassageByBen.com