Auto aromatics: The best car freshener essential oils
We spend a lot of time in our cars and often, we have other people along for the ride. Whether you’re a busy professional or a soccer mom, your car fulfills numerous roles other than just getting you from A to B. It's a place to grab a quick drink or snack, store your groceries and any other shopping, stow your gym bag or even transport your pets.
All of this takes its toll, and your car can start to smell a little off-color. Those synthetic-scented air fresheners often only make things worse or are so cloying that you’d rather live without them.
Fortunately, there’s a fantastic, natural way to make your car smell amazing.
Car freshener essential oils are the perfect deodorizer that can not only transform the way your car smells but offer an abundance of other benefits too.
When you start using a car air freshener with essential oils, you’ll also set the mood and tone for your journey. Plus, there are all sorts of mental and emotional benefits of essential oils. You can improve your focus, boost your energy levels and stay relaxed and calm while behind the wheel or in the passenger seat.
If you want to transform the way your car smells and make every drive about more than just commuting, this guide can help. We may not be able to do anything about the traffic, but we can do something to make the time you spend in transit more pleasant and even beneficial!
Content/Quick links
- Why you should use essential oils for cars
- How to use car freshener essential oils
- Top car freshener essential oils
- Balsam Fir
- Basil
- Bergamot
- Cedarwood
- Cinnamon Leaf
- Frankincense
- Lemongrass
- Sweet Orange
- How to use car freshener essential oils effectively
- Fantastic car freshener essential oil blends
- Energy
- Date Night
- Essential oils for cars FAQs
- How do you use car freshener essential oils?
- What are the best car freshener essential oils?
- Do essential oils really work?
- How long do car freshener essential oils last?
- What are the benefits of using car freshener essential oils?
- Make your car smell amazing with essential oils
Why you should use essential oils for cars
That new car smell is sadly the end result of hundreds of chemicals and sanitizing agents. While certain chemicals, like those that work as flame retardants, aren’t that bad smelling, many of them are not ideal for breathing in. They’ve been linked to everything from cancer to memory loss.
It’s not just new cars that are problematic either. Older cars can release toxic dust into the air, so you’re not much better off there.
In both cases, using essential oils in your car’s interior is an excellent and healthy idea.
You can even use certain essential oils for car sickness. Lavender essential oil, ginger, peppermint, cardamom and spearmint are all very effective anti-nausea agents. Create your own blend and tailor it to your needs and preferences!
It’s up to you to ensure that the environments you and your family regularly spend time in are as healthy as possible. Using essential oils for car freshness is one of the easiest ways to do this.
Not only will the oils keep your car smelling great, but they are also an excellent way to combat bacteria and viruses on interior surfaces.
How to use car freshener essential oils
Even if your diffuser wasn’t built for a car, there are several options if you want to buy one that is. But there are other ways to use a car air freshener with essential oils, too:
- Add a few drops of your chosen essential oil to a cotton ball before tucking it into one of your car’s air vents.
- Do the same with a wooden clothespin before clipping it into place on an air vent.
- Drip a few drops of essential oils for car sickness onto a terracotta ornament before hanging it in your car.
- Put a few drops of your essential oil or blend onto a piece of felt. Cut this into a shape that amuses you, thread a piece of string through it, and hang it over your rearview mirror.
Top car freshener essential oils
When you start using essential oils for car freshness, let your nose be your guide. Make sure that you know enough about the oils you’ve chosen to use them safely and to provide the maximum benefits.
These are some of the most popular essential oils for making your car smell amazing:
Balsam Fir
Balsam fir has a rich, sweet scent that brings to mind the gorgeous smell of a day spent in the woods. It also has a soothing and cleansing effect, so you can create an energizing, uplifting environment while getting rid of harmful bacteria.
Basil
With its sweet, warm, fresh, floral, crisp scent, basil essential oil can be characterized as airy, vibrant and uplifting. It stimulates the mind, clarifies your thinking process and calms your mood and fortifies it. It will leave you feeling energized and ready for anything.
Bergamot
Bergamot is not known as the Prince of Citrus for nothing. It has a sunny, pleasant aroma that’s refreshing and rounded. It’s a wonderful choice if you suffer from anxiety when driving, and it will boost your mental alertness.
Cedarwood
With a woodsy scent infused with citrus nuances, cedarwood essential oil improves mental activity while calming us down at the same time.
You’ll be more relaxed in the car and can enjoy enhanced concentration with a decrease in hyperactivity. This makes cedarwood a great essential oil car freshener if you’re on the road with little ones in the back seat.
Cinnamon Leaf
Cinnamon leaf oil has a spicy, musky scent that will boost your brain activity. It’s a great way to ensure your mental focus stays on track for long drives.
Frankincense
People generally describe frankincense essential oil as balsamic, earthy, piney, woody and sweet. It’s a complex, balanced aroma that will calm your mind and soul.
It has wonderful effects on the memory too, so it may help you remember which turn-off to take when you’re on your way somewhere new.
Lemongrass
A fresh, light smell with a hint of citrus, lemongrass essential oil specifically supports our nervous systems, combating anxiety and stress - emotions all too frequently felt when we’re on the road.
It will lower the levels of stress hormones in your body and act as a tonic if you’re feeling frazzled.
Sweet Orange
It’s all in the name with this essential oil. Sweet orange essential oil smells citrusy and candied, with an aroma reminiscent of orange peels. It will improve your ability to function mentally, a skill we all need in the car, especially when faced with traffic circles and rush hour.
How to use car freshener essential oils effectively
Essential oils do a lot more than just smell amazing.
These powerful natural oils interact with the limbic system of the brain, creating multiple effects on our minds, bodies and emotions as we breathe them in. This is above and beyond the antimicrobial effects that many oils have to offer.
However, as the great Peter Parker was once told, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Certain oils, for example, aren’t recommended for young children, such as camphor, clove, lavender, eucalyptus essential oil and thyme.
Others should never be used around infants, pets and pregnant women. So make sure that you choose an essential oils car freshener that has your usual passengers in mind.
It’s also important to remember that your vehicle is a small enclosed space and that essential oils are very concentrated. Let this dictate how much oil you use in your car.
Fantastic car freshener essential oil blends
It's a great idea to experiment with different car freshener essential oils to find your favorites. One of the ways you can do this is by blending oils instead of using individual scents.
What’s more, you can buy premixed blends or create something on your own! Volant has the following all-natural, 100% organic blends available, each of which has something special to offer drivers and passengers in cars:
Energy
Our Energy Blend is a bright, fresh and juicy mix that will make entering your vehicle a joy. Inhaling the uplifting scents of grapefruit essential oil, lime, bergamot and amyris will ensure you’re ready for whatever trip you’ve planned.
Date Night
Sure, you’ll get ready at home for a romantic night out, but why not get a little extra TLC on your way to the actual rendezvous too, or set the mood if you’re sharing a ride? Our Date Night blend offers the perfect mix of amber, lavender, frankincense and bergamot oils.
Amber is known for its ability to soothe, destress and lower anxiety levels. It will also energize and refresh you, ensuring that you feel your very best.
Essential oils for cars FAQs
How do you use car freshener essential oils?
Creating an essential oil car freshener is really easy. The quickest way to do so is to drop some oil onto a wooden clothespin and clip this onto an air vent.
What are the best car freshener essential oils?
Make a car air freshener with essential oils like balsam fir, basil, bergamot essential oil, cedarwood or cinnamon leaf.
Do essential oils really work?
Not only will using essential oils for car freshness make your vehicle smell amazing, but more and more research is also confirming their health and well-being benefits.
How long do car freshener essential oils last?
The right car freshener essential oils can have your vehicle smelling great for as long as three weeks.
What are the benefits of using car freshener essential oils?
When you create a car air freshener with essential oils, you’ll get all the scent benefits of these products along with the mental, emotional and spiritual ones.
Make your car smell amazing with essential oils
The fact of the matter is that, if you can smell something, it means that you’re breathing in miniscule particles of whatever’s creating that smell. Yes, smelly cars are worse than you thought!
This also means that if you’re bringing in air fresheners created using toxic chemicals, that’s what you’re breathing into your body. Then you have to consider that it’s not just a single artificial, possibly harmful, compound that we’re exposing ourselves to daily. It’s a long list of them, and that can result in very serious health consequences over time.
When you choose to use a car air freshener with essential oils rather than just another chemical mix, you’re doing the planet, your body and whoever else is in your vehicle with you a huge favor.
You’re protecting them from yet more exposure to possible poisons, and you’re exposing everyone to scents that have been scientifically proven to do us good.
Make getting from A to B an enriching experience for everyone. With Volant's high quality essential oils, you can get a better-than-new car smell that turns every journey into so much more than just your average drive.
