Make Your Own DIY Essential Oil Diffuser – Homemade Reed Diffuser

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Love the idea for having an diy essential oil diffuser but don’t want to have to buy one? Or perhaps you just have a room or two that you would like to gift a lovely scent to? This is such an easy way to make your own DIY Oil Diffuser!

Easily make your own essential oil diffuser in minutes with what you already have on hand! #makeyourown #essentialoils #diydiffuser #reeddiffuser

Make Your Own DIY Essential Oil Diffuser

These are so cute to have around but they can be so expensive. They might be hard to give as a gift since it’s a liquid that you have to put in an open bottle but you might want to make some of these to make your house smell pretty for the holiday season!

These Homemade Diffusers are particularly perfect to have in the bathroom if you don’t care for the “typical bathroom smell”! You probably already have the things that you need to make these since they are so easy. Let’s get started!

DIY Oil Diffuser

What you need:

  • Empty small glass bottle
  • Unscented Oil
  • Skewers, dowels, or reed diffuser rods
  • Essential Oils

Essential Oil Diffuser

Here is a picture of what you need. I used plain wood skewers for mine that I found at the grocery store, however if you want to get fancy you can buy decorative you can get actual reed diffuser rods, but they will be more expensive. Since I used a small jar, I used the shorter skewers. I also used Peppermint Mocha Essential Oil Blend in this particular diy diffuser. I’m a little obsessed with the scent at the moment. It’s like a sweet, chocolately peppermint…so good!

You can use any single essential oil that you love the scent of, or experiment with an essential oil blend.

–Need another way to bring a lovely scent to your own? Add a few essential oils in these Olive Oil Candles!

Making an Essential Oil Diffuser

Pour some oil in the little bottle. The amount you use will depend on the size of the jar you use. I probably used about 1/8 cup. You only need to fill about 1/4 of the jar with oil. For the unscented oil, I used grapeseed oil because that’s what I keep on hand. If you have a different unscented oil that should work fine.

Drop in the essential oil in the scent of your choice. For my size jar I used about 15 drops. Like I mentioned above, I used Peppermint Mocha which is my favorite right now and perfect for the winter months.

–Keep your essential oils organized with these ideas.

Reed Diffuser

If you use long skewers you might have to cut them to the right size. Short skewers, which are about half the size of a regular skewer, are perfect for small jars up to a pint size. If you think you might want to make a lot of these and can’t find the skewers, you can buy them here on Amazon.

Stick the skewers or reeds into the bottle and thats it! If you want to keep reusing a reed diffuser all you need to do is replace the liquid & oils about every 1-2 months or so.

Oil Diffuser

Since these only take a few minutes to make, you can quickly make them up if you need your house to smell wonderful for company that may be arriving soon!

You may also love these homemade Beeswax Candles.

What is your favorite essential oil to diffuse? Do you think you will try to make your own diy essential oil diffuser?

This DIY Essential Oil Diffuser tutorial was originally posted on Little House Living in December 2017. It has been updated as of September 2021.

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39 Comments

  1. What a fab idea Thank you so much for posting this. I have been wanting one ,but the cost is a killer. Now I can fill my whole house with good smells. SO reasonable too.

  2. Pingback: Homemade Reed Diffuser
  3. Great idea! Thank you for sharing this. Most of my gifts have to be shipped, but I’m going to make this for me and my family. 🙂

  4. Thanks for this. I knew it had to be this easy. The cheap, dollar store diffuser I bought made my eyes water, and I am pretty sure more expensive ones would have even MORE artificial ingredients that would cause bad reactions. I already use essential oils, so for me the only investment will be unscented mineral oil. (I can’t stand the scent of baby oil and would rather not have to use enough essential oil to cover that scent.)

  5. Hi Merissa,
    What essential oil combinations do you recommend? I’ve been trying to come up with a lemon lavender combo, but I’m new to using essential oils.
    Thanks!

  6. This is such a great idea! I am going to re-use a store bought reed diffuser that ran out of oil!
    Thanks for posting!!!

  7. Just found this on Pinterest, great idea, thanks! I just made one out of an old reed diffuser I had that wasn’t smelling very good anymore. I rinsed out the bottle, put in baby oil (which I just bought this week by lucky coincidence) and some lilac essential oil I had around, and then a bunch of bamboo skewers! Love it!

  8. Hi Marissa,

    I am Jo, from Queensland in Australia, and I have just discovered your website and I am soooo glad I did. The ideas are buzzing my head..
    Just a question, is baby oil safe to use? Does it release any baddies at all?
    Its a great recipe, as one poster already commented, shop bought ones are expensive and the scents give me headaches, so I will be making these for every room on the house.
    thanks again for such a wonderful site

      1. Thanks so much for getting back to me Marissa, I have been so excited about trying this project, thinking of who i can make these for and also going to the $1 outlets here to get cheap as possible baby oil.

        Nice to know my comments made it all the way from Australia to the USA

        Keep up the great work

  9. Thank you, just came across your site and I am going to try with the baby oil as other sites use Rubbing Alcohol or Vodka and neither are cheap.

  10. This sounds like a great idea and I can’t wait to try it out. Just a couple of questions real quickly, one, is this pet friendly, because I have been searching forever for a pet friendly air freshner(they won’t be able to eat it) and two, are there any essential oils that you reccommend, preferably without any overly strong scents, as this will be going in my bedroom and I still want to be able to sleep at night. I have asthma so I still need to be able to breathe too. Thanks, and hope this wasn’t too much trouble. Have a great day.

  11. Hi,

    I came across other posts where they say that you need to use alcohol (and not baby oil) what’s best and what’s the difference? Would it take longer for the fragrance to diffuse if you use baby oil?

      1. I would also worry because the alcohol is flammable. I think it may also evaporate over time.

        Just recently found your site and Love, Love, Love!

  12. Hi, Thanks for such a great receipe. I tried to make this but the oil is very thick and I haven’t been able to smell anything yet. I wanted to ask you if there is anything I can use to thin it out? Cheers.

  13. This is wonderful! I love essential oils, but my diffuser is packed up right now. This would be great! It seems strange to me that a wooden stick would carry the smell though… Can not wait to give it a try.

    Hopping over from #WonderfulWednesday

    Blessings,

    Amy

  14. With my commercially made one, I occasionally upend the sticks so the soaked in fragrance is now exposed to the air. I scored 3 little jars with pumpkins painted so that they show on the inside and can’t wait to make some pumpkin spice ones; used a craft store coupon for that! Love making homemade gifts!

  15. I just came across this on Pinterest. Great idea. What would you recommend to curb the scent of a wood burning fire. Sometimes it gets too overwhelming. Would be nice to add another more pleasant scent.

    1. It’s really hard to cover up that smell, I would say that you’d need an air purifier to begin removing it from the home. This will help add a pleasant scent though!

  16. Hello, thank you for sharing this. I have been somewhat confused with what carrier oil to use. We have a shop here called Crazy Store in South Africa and l saw they have the small skewers. Now l just have to find out more about the carrier oil then l am going to give this a try.
    Blessings to you 🙂

  17. I have tried making one without any success with any method. I use fractionated coconut oil smirniff vodka and tisserand essential oils and used reeds and even fibre ones. No smell entered my rooms at all. So exasperated as to what’s wrong. Any advice would be appreciated.

  18. Hello, your blog, Little house living has been hyper-linked icon on my I-Pad,
    have wanted a reed diffuser, happy to learn can make these myself!
    Will an unused wooden chopstick work as the diffuser,

  19. If you use a liquor bottle abt 8-10 inches tall , how much of each oil and carrier oil would you use ?
    The liquor bottles have a small opening at the top , and I like to use them for their different shapes .
    Thanks
    Nina Hicks
    [email protected]