Reusing glass bottles

Most of you know that glass bottles colored to shield the contents from light are best for the storage of essential oils; it helps to preserve their vitality.  It's best to have little dropper inserts inside the bottle's top, to keep you from spillling or dumping more than you intend onto your skin or into your blend.  And you need a tight-fitting cap to keep the oils from evaporating into the air.

(I hope that you also know that the nifty little eyedroppers with the rubber squeeze tops are a bad idea.  The reason is that the essential oils will eventually soften the rubber and turn it into goo, tainting your oils in the process.  Essential oils are POTENT, I tell you.)

Those bottles, even the littlest ones, can easily cost you at least $1.00 apiece when you factor in shipping.

So how do you keep your costs down as you start making blends for friends and family and every possible emotional and physical need in your own house?  You start trying to wash your emptied ones, that's how.

I can already hear you whining, 'cause I did too.

"I TRIED," you wail.  "THEY STILL SMELL LIKE WHAT USED TO BE INSIDE THEM."  I know.  The dishwasher doesn't help, handwashing doesn't help, multiples of both even don't completely take care of the smell.

That's because EOs are so potent, and so NON water soluble.  Washing is good, but it's not going to get it all out of there.  And sometimes you just don't want to mix a delicate sleep-inducing blend in a bottle that still reeks fairly strongly of cinnamon and clove, y'know?

I looked for a solution for quite a while, and finally stumbled upon a cleaning process recommended by Al and Penny at Birch Hill Happenings:

To clean the glassware: Soak in hot soapy water, rinse, rinse, rinse and then do a final rinse with alcohol such has vodka or a denatured alcohol. Don't use rubbing alcohol as it doesn't have a high enough alcohol content (look for 180 or 190 proof).  Let air dry.  Some essential oils can be very difficult to clean from bottles and you may need to soak them for several hours or days to remove the essential oil residue. Make sure not even a hint of oil remains or alcohol for that matter as this can ruin your new blends.

Hooray for reusing those pricey little bottles!

Posted via email from the Oil Crowd