There are few things more lovely about Christmas than the way your home smells with a tree in your parlour. Really, why don’t we keep fir trees in our homes year round? They smell fantastic—far better than dog, dust, and old furniture, or whatever houses usually smell like. Anyhow, if it is going to be Christmas time, I am going to milk it for all it is worth with a delightful inspired by Christmas room spray.
The base of the spray is fir and cedarwood, two scents which never fail to remind me of Christmas trees. Then; orange, cinnamon, clove, and vanilla. Delicious scents that bring about memories of Christmas supper and baking, and general warmth. Last, a hint of wood smoke from the birch tar (which smell more of campfires than you can imagine), and a wee hint of cocoa, as Christmas is nothing without a surplus of chocolate.
The final spray can be misted about wherever you’d like a boost of holiday cheer.
Christmas Room Spray
30 drops fir essential oil
20 drops cedarwood essential oil
20 drops orange essential oil
10 drops vanilla essential oil
10 drops frankincense essential oil
5 drops cinnamon bark essential oil
5 drops clove bud essential oil
1/2 drop birch tar essential oil (or vetiver)
1 drop cocoa absoluteSolubilizer—equal volume to that of the essential oils (optional—see other methods below the instructions)
Water, to fill your bottleMeasure out the essential oils into your empty spray bottle (I used a 50mL one). Top with the solubilizer (if you’re using it) and swirl to combine. You want to have a 1:1 ratio (by volume) of solubilizer to essential oils to ensure everything emulsifies properly.
Add water to fill the bottle half way, cap, and shake to mix (it’s easier to get everything to mix when you have some shaking room). Add more water to fill, and give it a light shake to combine everything.
Spritz whenever you need a sensory boost of the Christmas spirit!
You have two non-solubilizer options: One is to simply dissolve the essential oils in perfumery alchohol (cheap vodka will do) and use that as your spritz. The other is to mix the oils into a low-scent carrier oil (though this will not spray well [it mostly blasts out of misters] and is quite messy as you are basically hosing your house with scented oil).
I just wanted to say I love your blog, all the wonderful ideas you have and amazing products you make! Your blog is the only one I subscribe too! : ) I was wondering if you ever tried to duplicate the cream foundation from Real Purity. It’s one of the only foundations that doesn’t react to my skin, but it sure is expensive! It only has 5 ingredients: water, glycerin, kaolin clay, rice bran oil, and iron oxide. Do you think this would be something easy to try and duplicate? Thank you so much again for all your ideas! I always look forward to your new postings!
Hi Aria—thanks so much for your kind words 😀 They really brightened up my Friday!
I’d never heard of the brand Real Purity before, so went and looked it up, and I am really intrigued. I think I can do a dupe! I am curious, though—the list of ingredients looks almost exactly like a face mask (minus the iron oxides), and those dry up and crack on the skin. They’re great for your face and all, but obviously not something you’d want to wear outside 😛 So can you tell me more about the foundation? How opaque is it? How thick is it? How does it dry (quickly/slowly/smooth/etc.)? Anything you can think of will help. If I can figure it out I bet mine will be something like 2% the cost of theirs to make 😛
Hi Marie, thank you so much for getting back to me! That would be so amazing if you could dupe it and 2% of the cost is unbelievable – woo hoo! How interesting that the ingredients are the same for a face mask. The foundation is lightweight, soft, smooth and creamy, but is also a thin liquid consistency. It’s not greasy, but also doesn’t dry out your face. It gives a light to medium coverage and you can layer it (in certain acne areas) without it getting cakey. I’m very fair skinned and it evens out the skin tone but it does have trouble lasting all day. I hope this helps and I’m so excited to see what you come up with! Thank you so much again and hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Ok, I spent a couple hours today working on this and I’ve sorted out something that’s pretty good. Quite light coverage, but it goes on smooth and doesn’t appear powdery or greasy. How does the original feel to the touch on your face? Can you feel tiny granules of clay or anything? And how does it rub off? I had some versions that would sort of roll up into eraser-shaving like bits if you rubbed your face… that was interesting lol.
Oh my goodness, you are so amazing! I never felt any granules and my skin always felt pretty soft and not like it was caked on. I actually ran out of It and couldn’t bring myself to spend that much money again so I’m not sure how it rubs off, but I’m pretty sure I never experienced eraser shaving bits coming off my face lol. Thank you so much for spending so much time on this! It’s so much more than I ever imagined! You are the coolest!
Ok, so… I realize this is a dumb late reply, but now that I’m done my manuscript for my book I’m happy to say it includes a really lovely liquid foundation 🙂 It is nothing like the one you were buying, but I LOVE it! Stay tuned for the release to grab the recipe 🙂
Sounds wonderful any suggestions if I don’t have vanilla eo
You could just leave it out, substitute peru balsam, or even try a wee bit of vanilla extract.
What is Cocoa Absolute please?
Cocoa absolute is as close as we can get to cocoa essential oil. Absolutes are like highly concentrated essential oils, and require a much more complex extraction process. We generally get absolutes where the item is too delicate to distill into an essential oil (like jasmine or mimosa). Cocoa absolute is a dark, thick liquid that smells strongly of bittersweet chocolate. Yum!
I forgot to ask what size bottle are you using?
50mL—thanks for catching that, I’ve noted the size in the recipe now 🙂
Please unsubscribe me….I do enjoy your blog, but until I can’t get into it all now (purchasing the ingredients~ not enough cash now). I couldn’t find a place to auto unsubscribe.
Thanking you in advance.
Hi Ellen—I can’t unsubscribe you, you will have to do that yourself using the unsubscribe link that is at the bottom of the emails you get. Sorry to see you go!
Where can I get the essential oils from? I would love to make this..Love the smells of christmas..
I link to my suppliers in the big grey box with the green border above the comments section 🙂 For this recipe I believe most of the essential oils came from New Directions Aromatics.
I just made some of this spray and it’s made my house smell wonderful (even without the cocoa)! Thank you!
Amazon is where I found the vanilla E.O. I used, it smells good all by itself. I just started to subscribe to your blog a short time ago & enjoy it so much. You have so many things I want to do. Thank you again!
Fantastic, I’m thrilled to hear it! Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me 😀
Hi,
I’ve been wanting to try out something like this for a while, but I’m not sure what kind of solubilizer to use? Many websites say polysorbate-20 but this also seems to have many websites saying that it can be harmful. Which solubilizer do you use/suggest?
Thanks 🙂
Eloise
I use Polysorbate-20. It has a fairly low rating on Skin Deep, and I don’t use that much of it. Most of the concerns are with contamination as well, so if you get it from a reputable source you should be fine. That said, you can also just leave it out, though the spritzing gets harder with all the shaking you need to do to keep the oils dispersed.
Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
ive seen alot of all natural room spray recipes use just water and essential oils, do you think that would be ok to do with the mixture of essential oils in your recipe?
Since oil and water doesn’t mix, you’ll end up with a layer of EOs floating on top of a bunch of water. That’s why I include the solubilizer—it allows the two to mix. You can kind of fake it by allowing the EOs to dissolve in a bit of clear grain alcohol first, and then topping it off with water. It won’t emulsify, but when you shake the bottle the oil will stay dispersed longer.
Think of a simple oil + vinegar salad dressing without any mustard or egg, and think of how quickly you end up with separate blobs of oil and vinegar on your salad—that’s what will happen here if you just mix EOs with water (and with all the other recipes you’re seeing online).
I can only find vanilla oleoresin. Will that work ok?
In this case it should be OK as this recipe contains both oil and water 🙂
Polysorbate 20 is usually used as a solubilizer. However, it is found to be a carcinogen. Can you recommend an organic/natural alternative that can be used for linen spray formulations?
You can try dissolving the EOs in high proof clear grain alcohol instead and make an alcohol based spray.