Many people looking for an easy way to do aromatherapy at home get a little confused about their aromatherapy machines. They look for essential oil distillers when they really want to be looking for essential oil diffusers. An electric diffuser for essential oil is just the thing you need if you don't want to have to cover your head with a tent of towels while you scrunch over a bowl of warm water to get the most from aromatherapy.Here are six things you need to know about electric diffusers and how they make using essential oils care-free.1. This is an aromatherapy machine you only have to check every couple of weeks.You just fill a tiny well with about a teaspoon (5 ml) of essential oil every 14 days. The diffuser is so efficient that is all the oil you need.2. This device is designed to create an ultra-fine mist of healing scent.The diffuser consists of a well to hold the essential oil and a fan to blow the tiny droplets of oil evaporating off it into a coiled glass tube. The coiling of the tube is what makes this diffuser so efficient. The fan propels the fine mist of essential oil against the walls of the tube, and as the already-microscopic droplets hit the tube, they get smaller and smaller. When the evaporated essential oil emerges from the open end of the tube, the droplets are so small that the whole room fills with scent in just seconds.3. This device makes an aromatherapy mist that can reach your sinuses and your lungs.It really doesn't do any good to do aromatherapy to help you get over a cold or flu if the vapors never reach the parts of the body where they need to go. An electric diffuser generates a mist fine enough that you can breathe it in deep.4. An electric diffuser won't super-saturate the air with scent.As important as how the diffuser works is when it works. Just as you wouldn't hold your head under a tent of towels over a bowl of hot water and essential oil all day, you don't want to have your diffuser running all day, either. Some oils, like the eucalyptus oil you might use for bronchitis or a chest cold, can actually become irritating if you are exposed to them all the time. And if you smell a scent all the time, eventually you don't notice it at all.Modern diffusers come with timers. They operate for 20 to 30 minutes, and then they go into standby mode for up to two hours. You can rely on the timer rather than turning the diffuser on and off.5. An electric diffuser conserves expensive essential oils.Just a teaspoon of oil every other week is enough for most diffusers. The way this appliance is able to conserve oil is by relying on pressure rather than heat. If you use the old-fashioned bowl over a candle approach, for instance, you guarantee that you are going to have every bit of the herbal oil boil away within an hour or two. (Essential oils evaporate at temperatures between room temperature and the boiling point of water.) If you use the bowl-and-towels method, you have to make sure the towels completely encase your head and the bowl.But if you use an electric diffuser, the machine conserves the oil by only releasing the tiniest droplets. It operates at room temperature�"even in a cold room�"and instead of replacing oil several times a week, you only use a teaspoon of oil about twice a month.A diffuser costs a little money up front, but it can save your hundreds of dollars a year. Every fan of aromatherapy needs an electric diffuser for every room in the home.
We all aromatherapy smells great, but does it really work? If you need to convince a significant other that you really need an electric diffuser, read more on aromatherapy science.
