After we find a scent we love, we want it to last as long as possible. You’ve probably wondered, though, why a scent can seem to fade faster or noticed that a scent once loved isn’t smelling as pleasant as it used to. Knowing oil-based perfumery lasts as long as opposed can keep your scent fresh. Let’s see how to store your HBNO essential oil fragrances for longer and longer.
What Impacts the Shelf Life of Essential Oil Fragrances?
Essential oil fragrances, like all-natural products, have a shelf life that depends on a few main factors:
- Type of Essential Oil: Essential oils are different in how long they last. Oils like lemon or orange, usually citruses, are usually volatile and have short shelf lives but oils such as patchouli or cedar wood are more stable and can stay for a lot of years.
- Storage Conditions: The big enemies of fragrance longevity are the impact of heat, light, and oxygen. It should be stored in a cool dark place so they don’t degrade with time from sunlight & heat.
- Ingredient Quality: Ingredients matter, the purity, and the quality. When shopping for essential oils, 100% pure essential oils, like those from HBNO are more stable than synthetic alternatives.
- Packaging: Dark-colored bottles store fragrances better than clear-colored bottles. Glass is a protective barrier that protects essential oils from oxidizing while preventing light and air from touching your blend.
Essential Oil Fragrance Shelf Life by Type
The shelf life of essential oil varies from one oil family to another. Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Citrus Oils: Lemon, lime, and orange oils are light fresh, and uplifting, and make great diffuser blends, but they have the shortest shelf lives usually six months to twelve months in a well-stored bottle.
- Herbal and Floral Oils: Lavender, chamomile, and eucalyptus are generally good for 1 to 2 years. This is where HBNO’s lavender oil decides to take the spotlight, a top-notch fragrance that comes with relaxing qualities you’ll not easily grow tired of.
- Woodsy Oils: Essential oils of cedarwood, sandalwood, and patchouli are stronger. For instance, Cedarwood from HBNO will retain its scent for more than 5 years, so it’s a great purchase if you’re a person who loves long-lasting fragrance.
- Resinous Oils: Deep and complex oils are known for their storage life of 7 years or more when stored correctly (like frankincense and myrrh). In particular, HBNO’s myrrh essential oil can be a lasting addition to any fragrance collection.
Signs Your Essential Oil Fragrance Has Expired
Even the most carefully stored fragrances will start to change as time goes by. Here are some telltale signs that it might be time to let go of an old favorite:
- Color Changes: You may be noticing that what was a clear essential oil has now taken on a ‘darker’ or cloudy appearance and that the scent has begun breaking down due to oxidation.
- Altered Scent: An expired essential oil fragrance may smell sour, metallic, or ‘off.’ That is an indication of oxidation and degradation.
- Changes in Consistency: Over time some oils may thicken and some may become sticky. If this occurs, the essential oil has probably oxidized and won’t smell as you intended.
Maximizing Shelf Life: Practical Tips
That’s why it doesn’t have to be complicated to keep your essential oil fragrances fresh. Here are some simple steps to ensure their longevity:
- Store in Cool, Dark Places: Keep your fragrance in a spot where your fragrance won’t get hit with temperature fluctuations like in a drawer or a cabinet out of direct sunlight. Don’t leave the bottles in places like the bathroom and front of the light as steam and light exposure can change the oil.
- Use Dark Glass Bottles: Always choose amber or cobalt blue glass bottles, because they prevent the light and retard the oxidation process. Many times, HBNO products will be put in dark glass bottles so they can stay pure for longer.
- Cap Tightly: Highly volatile means that essential oils ‘evaporate’ (speed up the transfer of the energetic movement from one point to the other). If you are keeping bottles closed tightly when not in use you’ll help prevent oxidation and keep your fragrance potent.
- Don’t “Double Dip”: Dipping droppers or roller balls in multiple bottles or using them with other products is a no-no since you don’t want to contaminate them.
- Consider Refrigeration for Citrus Oils: Refrigeration is a great way to keep citrus essential oils fresh for months longer.
The Appeal of Longer-Lasting Fragrances
Choosing fragrances with a longer shelf life doesn’t necessarily mean less frequent repurchase, but it also means more time to deepen and enrich the scent. For instance, you have HBNO’s frankincense essential oil which gives off a long-lasting earthy scent to ground yourself and is nice for combining with other oils to concoct a homemade fragrance you can use for years to come.
They also mature well, so woodsy fragrances can age into woodsy-resinous fragrances, and oil/fountain infusions can mature well. You’re not only getting a scent that lasts longer, you also get a scent that can evolve, and become more nuanced, with a wooded quality to it every time you use it.
Creating a Rotation to Keep Scents Fresh
Building a rotation is an easy way to get a set of orders in without risking your favorite essential oil. Here’s a quick guide to creating your own:
- Seasonal Selection: Based on the season rotate your essential oils. HBNO’s reserve fresh citrus oils like their lemon oil for spring and summer, and their warmer, woodsy scents, like cedarwood, for fall and winter.
- Weekly or Monthly Favorites: If you’re a collector and want to experience these scents fully without creating headache levels of dusty oils, try to work within one or two scents per week or month, so that you can enjoy them correctly while stowing away the rest in their proper spots.
- Layered Blends: Essential oil blending is a great way to try fragrance without spending money on premade blends, and because oil generally expires a little more rapidly than other commercial essential oil products, this is a fun way to use up oils before they expire. Combining all 3 oils in the list, you’ll get a comforting yet uplifting blend, that pulls unique notes out of each oil.
Why Choose HBNO for Long-Lasting Essential Oils?
The high-quality essential oils available today are great to choose from, but so important because of their use and knowing how to pick the better ones and purely engineered. The three essential oils each have their variety of sweet florals (lavender), and rich resins (frankincense), and are all of quality to create scents that last longer.
HBNO essential oils are a pure product free from synthetic additives because you know you are using them. It is this commitment to quality that means each bottle is made for you to enjoy now but is made to keep perfecting its aroma over time, to make an impression.
Embrace Your Essential Oil Collection
To maximize the aroma of your essential oils, you need to understand the shelf life of your basic oils and follow best practices for storage. HBNO has selected high-quality oils and with a little love and care, you can build a wonderful collection of scents to enjoy every day for years to come. This collection will be the olive and citrus an orange oil fire, and the warm, earthy nutmeg of frankincense, these will be timeless essential oils.
