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How To Create Therapeutic Essential Oil Blends in 7 Steps

How To Create Therapeutic Essential Oil Blends in 7 Steps | Growing Up Herbal | Ever wanted to know how to take individual essential oils and create your own therapeutic essential oil blends for everyday ailments? Here's how in 7 steps!

Blending essential oils together is easy. All you do is pick out your oils and combine them in a bowl.

Blending essential oils that smell good together or create some type of therapeutic effect… well that’s another story. It isn’t as easy as mixing whatever you want together.

You have to know a bit about the oils and how they work together. You have to think about what the oils are known and used for, how they react with the body, what some of their chemical components are, how they’re categorized, what notes they’ve been given, who they’re appropriate for… things like that.

If you’re interested in learning about blending essential oils for beginners, click the link and check out my post. I’ve tried to simplify the process and direct you towards some great resources.

Today, I’m going to walk you through how I do it… or am doing it as of now. I’m always learning and growing in this area so as I learn new things, I change my methods, and you should too. But for now, this is how I do it.

Therapeutic Essential Oil Blends in 7 Steps

In the photo below, you’ll see my blending notes along with what I was doing in each area of my notes. I’ll explain my method better below the photo.

How To Create Therapeutic Essential Oil Blends in 7 Steps | Growing Up Herbal | Ever wanted to know how to take individual essential oils and create your own therapeutic essential oil blends for everyday ailments? Here's how in 7 steps!

Step 1 – Research Oils

The first step in my process is that I research the oils that are known to do certain things or that are used in certain situations. Here I was researching oils for my post on Essential Oil Blends for Fevers so I was looking for anti-pyretic oils, oils used for fevers, seizures, and epilepsy, and oils that cool the skin. Remember… Google and books are your friends.

Once I had a list of my oils, I immediately marked off the ones that weren’t safe for kids using this list of essential oils safe for children, and I put them on this here list. (Note: Be sure to know the scientific name of the oils you are researching in order to make sure the oil is safe. There are different varieties of certain oils, some are more toxic than others or recommended for certain ages and not others. Do your research!!)

At this point, I have a good list of oils know to help children when they have fevers. Now I just need to blend these to create a more effective blend that smells nice together.

Step 2 – Categories & Notes

Once I have my oils listed, I begin by putting each oil’s category (floral, woodsy, medicinal, citrus, etc.) in a circle after it. Then I list each oils note (top, middle, base) above each oil. This helps me to know which oils will blend well together without smelling awful!

Step 3 – Potential Category Combinations

In this step, I list potential combinations that will work well together based on their categories. This is to ensure that my blend doesn’t come out smelling really bad. What sick child is going to want their parent putting a stinky essential oil blend on them?

So here, I work with categories only. This narrows my oil choices down a bit.

I think in the photo above I had 9 potential combos.

Step 4 – Potential Note Combinations

At this point, I start paying attention to which of these 9 category combinations have a top and middle note oil in them. This helps to narrow my potential blends down even further because many of the potential combinations contained two top notes and that’s not what I wanted.

After doing this, I think I had 5 potential blends out of the original 9.

When it comes to needing a base note, I only had one oil that was used with seizures and epilepsy (frankincense) and happened to be a base note and in a category that would work in any of my potential blends. Plus, it was safe for children! Score!!

Step 5 – Perfecting Blends

In this step, I take my 5 potential blends and look at them a bit more closely. I don’t like listing a large number of essential oil blends in my posts because I think it makes things confusing for you. You may wonder — Which one is best? If they all work, why are there so many? Do I use them all or pick one? I don’t really want you to have to think through things like that. I want things to be as simple as can be so I narrow the choices down even further.

Out of my 5 blends, one worked for very small children and four worked for older children so that helped a bit.

For the smaller children, the blend that worked promoted relaxation which is a plus in fevers.

For older children, I had four different blends that worked. In three of them, only the middle note oil needed changing each time so I wanted to look into each of those oils a bit more to see which ones were best when using them with fevers.

I looked at the chemical constitutes of each oil… trying to see any similarities or differences, and what I found was great. Each of the middle note oils contained constitutes that helped to cool the skin so I knew that instead of listing three separate blends, I could list one and make the middle note oils interchangeable… meaning that mom can use any of these oils based on what she has on hand or likes best.

The last oil for older children was specifically for a certain age range so it was categorized all by itself.

Step 6 – Finalizing Blends

Now that I have 3 blends to work with, I can finalize them and list amounts in my blend formula. I like to keep my blends simple… for me and for you. These blends aren’t for perfumery so I don’t need to mix 10 different oils together to create great smelling natural perfumes. I only use three and I keep them blending ratio simple.

I use the 30-50-20 rule. I’m not sure if that’s an actual blending term or rule, but it’s what I call it.

My top note oil makes up 30% of the blend, the middle note oil makes up 50% of the blend, and the base note oil makes up 20% of the blend. Simple and easy.

Step 7 – Testing Blends

This is the last step in blending essential oils.

Here you want to combine small amounts of your oil blends together (3 drops, 5 drops, 2 drops based on the 30-50-20 rule) and then let them rest. Now you’re ready to test them.

First things first! Make sure they’re diluted properly for adults or children. Obviously, I don’t have a fever, but I can still tell if they help me to relax or if they cool my skin or make me sweat, right? Right. Once I’m happy with each blend (if I’m happy with them) I’ll make a larger batch for myself, and I’ll put them in a post for you to use.

A Word On Essential Oil Safety

Essential oils are strong and concentrated, and they can be poisonous in large does. They can also cause allergic reactions in some individuals, and some can even react badly with people who have certain medical conditions or who are on certain medications. It’s not recommended to use essential oils on children younger than 3 months old although lavender and chamomile are the safest, they still need to be properly diluted and used in small amounts.

Almost all oils are going to caution you about safety, especially when using them with children or with people with medical conditions. I’d recommend Googling the safety of specific oils or checking to see if they can safely be used. Remember, Google is your friend.

There’s also a great site called UsingEOsSafely.com that is all about giving you unbiased information from certified aromatherapists about essential oils and how to safely use them. I’ve learned and am learning SOOOO much from this site!

And lastly, let me caution you about who you get your essential oil information from. I am NOT an essential oil expert. I do not have any sort of background or education on essential oils other than what I’ve taught myself via books and blogs. You can take my advice (as I always try to research well), but I recommend you double check me and do your own research. Essential oils are many times stronger than herbs, and they don’t contain plant properties that will buffer their side effects as an herb does. Children, in particular, are more sensitive to them than an adult is. I strongly recommend you get your information from certified aromatherapists that aren’t affiliated with specific companies as you’ll know they’re unbiased and not out to get you to buy their oils. Just sayin’.

So there you have it. This is how I create my own formulas for therapeutic essential oil blends. I hope it helps you in two ways. One – I hope you feel a bit more confident to do this yourself, and two – I hope you know that the essential oil blends I share here on the blog are researched and tested… not just pulled out of thin air or another blog.

If you liked this post and found it helpful… be sure to share it on Facebook and pin it to your Pinterest boards!
  1. Tara Norman says:

    This is a great post! We are essential oil users! I am learning how to clean with them right now! Thanks for the info! xoxo

  2. Kristin says:

    Great post! I’ve been using EO’s in my homemade beauty products, but slowly branching out to more uses in our home. Pinning this for later too. Thank you.

  3. Randi Finn says:

    Very interesting read, thank you. I have so much to learn about this stuff – I’ll be subscribing. Thanks so much for what you’re doing!

  4. kate says:

    Hi Meagan. Finally, simple and understandable directions for blending eos! Thank you! My only question is: how do I add additional (more than just one of each) top, middle or base note eos to produce a therapeutic blend? For instance, I want to make an anti-inflammatory/pain relief blend with Copaiba, Black Pepper, Frankincense, Ylang Ylang, Roman Chamomile, and possibly Peppermint. Should I leave any of these out? How do I decide which middles and which bases, or can I use them all, but less of one or the other? Is Peppermint a good top note for this blend? Oh ya, “I only have one question” LOL!

    • Meagan says:

      So first off Kate, I’m not an aromatherapist, and my training in EOs is on the beginner side. I’m simply sharing what I’ve learned and how I do things. With that said, if I want to make some kind of blend with a therapeutic purpose, after I’ve researched my oils and I know what to include, I group them together according to their notes. Then I follow the 30-50-20 rule mentioned in the post because I want the blend to smell good. If I have more than one oil in a note, I write out how much of each oil I’m adding to the blend that will make up the percentage I need. For example, if I have 3 top note EOs that I want to use in the blend, I may use 15% of oil A, 10% of oil B, and 5% of oil C. I do that for all notes, and I make sure I keep good notes. Once I’ve mixed everything together and given it time to rest, I test it and make sure I write down everything I’m thinking. If something is not quite the way I want it to be, I can make changes easily because of the notes I’ve kept during the process. Honestly, I don’t make my own blends that much anymore because there are so many companies making their own synergy blends these days that it’s easier to go with the experts and buy them. But, it sure is fun to do it yourself!

  5. Kimberly Burk says:

    Hello Meagan – thanks so much for your helpful articles. I have researched and found several single oils that have diuretic properties that I want to start taking orally every morning. I plan to do take in a quick shot with my morning Ningxia. So I am not so worried about how the mixture of oils would smell or taste. Is there any issue that you are aware of to just premix them all in a glass bottle with a glass dropper to use each day. It seems far more convenient then opening up 12 bottles everyday and taking a drop. But I want to make sure I don’t create some weird chemical reaction or change the properties of the oils.

    Thanks!!!

    • Meagan says:

      It’s totally fine to create oil blends out of individual oils and bottle them together to use as needed. I can’t speak on using EOs internally as I’m not a certified aromatherapist, but from what I know of the practice, it seems that taking 12 drops of EOs a day is quite a lot… and potentially unsafe. EOs can damage the lining of your mucous membranes, cause changes to gut bacteria levels, and can cause problems with your liver and kidneys (depending on how they’re metabolized) if you don’t use them correctly. Again, I’m not a certified aromatherapist, but I want to caution you. There’s a lot of misinformation out there by big companies and their distributors. If it were me, I’d get some second opinions from people not associated with any particular oil companies. Hope this helps, Kimberly!

  6. Fatma says:

    Hi Meagan! Reading your articles on blending and you’ve really done a great job of sorting out ratio issues that i had…so thanks a lot! I’ve been using EO’s for at least a year now but always had this question about how to decide on ratios when making a blend… I’m planning on making a tummy tuck blend and another moisturizing blend for the face…i guess the first one would fall in the therapeutic category, or would both? I’ll start making notes now, and see how it goes…. 🙂

    • Meagan Visser says:

      I’m assuming that you want to either decrease tummy fat or firm up loose skin in that area with the Tummy Tuck blend. That would definitely be a therapeutic blend. As for the moisturizing blend, moisturizing doesn’t come from the EOs themselves, but rather from the oils and liquids used in a face cream. The EOs in that blend could be anti-inflammatory (therapeutic) or for scent only (aromatic). Hope that helps, and good luck with your blends.

  7. Erika says:

    Hi!! Want to ask about Kate’s question……if I have 3 Top, 3 Middle and 3 Base….is it ok to use all 9 EOs in the blend or is it better to use only 1 of each Note and use 3 EOs to make up the blend??

    • Meagan Visser says:

      You can use as many oils as you’d like. I suggest starting with 3 just so you get familiar with the blending process, notes, and oil scents. Ultimately, it’s up to you and what smells nice to you. My advice would be to create a small blend with all 9 as well as some blends with 3 and see what you think of them once they’ve rested. Best of luck!

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