To make essential oils at home may sound like a complicated process, but it is not if you have the right equipment, knowledge, and instructions.

I have been reading about the health benefits of essential oils, which you can use as aromatherapy or on your skin. Scientific studies show that essential oils may help relieve stress, headaches, and insomnia, improve focus, get rid of infections and inflammation, improve digestion, benefit prostate health, as well as improve skin and hair health. Therefore, I have included essential oils as part of my holistic approach to healing: SNEVM

My Own Journey of Making Essential Oils at Home

If you buy ready made essential oils, they are expensive. That’s why I decided to make my own essential oils at home.

I did extensive research on the internet about making essential oils at home. Although I found a lot of information, most of it was boring and confusing.

First, let me make one thing clear: Essential oils are very different from Infused oils, which are basically oils such as almond oil which has been scented with a fragrant plant material such as flowers. The process is simple and easy. Additionally, you get a large quantity of the infused oil. On the other hand, the real essential oil making process is called steam distillation, for which you need rather extensive equipment, and the amount of essential oil produced is tiny. For this reason, real essential oils are expensive.

Steam Distillation Process

Basically, you need to generate steam by heating up water, which then passes through the plant material (rosemary, lavender, etc). Steam extracts the essential oil from the plant material. The mixture of steam and essential oil passes through a condenser which cools down these vapors. Subsequently, the vapors turn into liquid: water and essential oil separate from each other. Lastly, you collect the essential oil.

Steam Distillation Equipment

After a lot of searches, I decided to buy a distillation kit at eBay. The kit arrived from China, nicely packed but with little instructions. That’s where I called my engineer friend for help. The two us were able to put it all together in about an hour. I demonstrate how to assemble the essential oil distillation kit in the video you are about to watch.

Over the next few months, I distilled various essential oils using fragrant plants from our backyard. These included rosemary, lavender, and eucalyptus. It has been a lot of fun. Reminds of my college days in the chemistry lab.

Live Video: How to Make Essential Oils at Home

One day, I was making Rosemary essential oil when my wife decided to record it. Here is the video. Enjoy making essential oils at home.