What is aromatherapy, and what can it do at home
Aromatherapy is the use of scent from plant-derived essential oils to change how a room feels, and many people simply find it pleasant. In most British homes that comes down to a few drops in a diffuser on a dark evening, rather than anything clinical.
By the editors of Aromatherapy Diffuser GuideUpdated 18 September 20265 min read
In short
- Aromatherapy means using the scent of plant oils for atmosphere and because people enjoy it, nothing more medical than that.
- At home it comes down to three things: diffusing, a few drops in a bath, or a massage oil diluted in a carrier oil.
- Essential oils are concentrated, so keep them diluted, never swallow them, and keep them well away from cats.
What the word actually means
Essential oils are the concentrated aromatic oils distilled or pressed out of plants. Lavender comes from the flowering tops, sweet orange from the peel, eucalyptus from the leaves, frankincense from resin. Aromatherapy is the practice of using those oils for their scent, and the word stretches from one drop on a tissue to an hour on a massage couch.
The part anyone can confirm is the smell itself. Scent sits close to memory and mood, which is why a smell can put you somewhere else before you have named it. What people describe afterwards is usually a change in how a room feels, not a change in their body.
The three ways it usually happens at home
Strip away the shelves of bottles and there are only a few methods in ordinary use. The table below sets them side by side.
| Method | What it involves | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Diffusing | A few drops in a diffuser, or a ready-made pod | Scents a whole room and is the easiest to keep gentle |
| In the bath | Drops stirred into a carrier oil or full-fat milk first | Oil and water do not mix, so neat drops float and sit on skin |
| Massage oil | Diluted in a carrier such as sweet almond or grapeseed | Skin contact, so the dilution on the bottle matters most here |
| On a tissue | One drop, kept off the skin | The cheapest way to find out if you like a scent |
Diffusing is where most people land, because it scents the room instead of a person and you can switch it off. If that is the route you like the sound of, our guide to choosing an electric diffuser sets out what separates one machine from the next: the area it covers, how loud it is, and what scent costs a month.
What aromatherapy can and cannot do
It can make a room smell the way you want it to, and it can mark a moment. Many people find lavender calming in the evening and peppermint or citrus sharper in the morning, and plenty of us keep a scent going simply because the house feels more finished with it. That is a reasonable thing to want.
What it cannot do is treat, cure or prevent anything. No essential oil is a medicine, however the label is worded, and a scent you find calming is not doing the work of sleep, rest or a prescription. Anything to do with symptoms belongs with a professional rather than a bottle.
The cautions worth taking seriously
Essential oils are strong stuff in small bottles. Most of what follows is simply about keeping the dose low and the oil where it belongs.
- Dilute before any skin contact. Use a carrier oil and follow the dilution the bottle gives, and try a small amount first on the inside of your forearm before you use more.
- Never swallow essential oils, and keep the bottles out of reach of children. Concentrated oils are not drops for tea, whatever you read online.
- Cats above all. Cats handle these compounds differently from us, so keep oils and diffusers out of any room a cat cannot walk out of, and ask your vet before you diffuse around a cat, dog or bird.
- Babies and young children have smaller airways and thinner skin. Leave oils out of the nursery unless your GP or health visitor has said otherwise.
- In pregnancy, ask your midwife before using oils on the skin or in the bath. Several oils are usually avoided, and a midwife will know which.
- Asthma, hay fever or a sensitive chest: strong scent can irritate airways. Start with less than you think, keep a window on the vent, and stop if anyone starts coughing.
Placement does a lot of this work for you. A diffuser set on a shelf across the room, on a low setting, gives you the scent without anyone sitting in a cloud of it. Our page on which diffuser suits which room goes through coverage in square metres, which is the figure that decides whether a machine is too much for a small bedroom.
A sensible way to start
Buy one oil you genuinely like rather than a set of twelve you do not. Run it for short spells instead of all day. The nose stops noticing a constant smell within minutes, so the usual mistake is adding more oil to a room that already smells of it, until a visitor tells you.
After that it becomes a question of hardware more than chemistry. Water-based machines need refilling and rinsing, waterless ones take a pod and run on. We set the types against each other in our comparison of diffusers for a British home, with noise, coverage and running cost in one table.
Thinking about a diffuser?
Our guide sets out the types, the coverage figures, the noise levels and what scent costs a month.