Keeping every room of your home fresh and fragrant can be a bit more challenging than one might expect.
With all the fragrancing options available, you might wonder if there are places to put a diffuser in your home that might be better or worse. This article outlines the best places to put your oil and reed diffusers.
7 Best Places to Put Oil & Reed Diffusers in Your Home
Every room of your home deserves to have a pleasant fragrance. But how do you make sure that you’re appropriately using your oil or reed diffusers and putting them in the best places within your home?
Since room function and sizes vary, let’s look at the differences between placing diffusers in the bedroom, living room, kitchen, home office, and bathroom.
1. Place an Oil Diffuser in Your Bedroom
Your bedroom is one of the best places to use a diffuser for rest and relaxation. Some essential oil scents like rose, ylang ylang, lavender, or chamomile can help those with mild sleep disorders to fall asleep.
Some people even reported feeling as though they had more restorative sleep when they woke up the next morning.
Depending on the size of your bedroom, you might want to use a medium to large-sized ultrasonic diffuser. This way, you can fill the reservoir with enough water to last you through the night.
Smaller diffusers require refills sooner. In order to enjoy aromatherapy throughout the night without having to refill the container four hours later, just start with the bigger water reservoir.
Some people are hesitant to diffuse as they’re sleeping, but there’s really no need for concern so long as you take heed to a few precautions.
Is It Safe To Have A Diffuser In Your Bedroom?
Essential oil diffusers and reed diffusers are both safe to use in your bedroom. In terms of placement, though, it would be wise to place the diffuser on the opposite side of your nightstand.
You don’t want it too close to your bed, to prevent accidentally knocking it off the table as you sleep. It also helps for there to be some distance between your face and the essential oil vapor to prevent direct inhalation.
Should You Use a Diffuser Overnight?
If you plan to run an essential oil diffuser throughout the night, be sure that it’s one that has an auto shut-off feature and interval settings. In this way, you can rest knowing that the diffuser won’t overheat if it runs out of water, and you won’t be overexposed to the botanical oils.
Another way to prevent overexposure is to diffuse oils in your bedroom for 20 to 30 minutes before going to bed, and then turn the machine off. If you’re using quality oils, they will remain in the air as you fall asleep.
This might actually be the better option because we experience olfactory fatigue even while sleeping. After about 20 minutes, you may no longer smell the oils as you’re sleeping.
Use Pure Essential Oils
Lastly, only diffuse 100% natural essential oils in a high-quality diffuser. Synthetic fragrance oils have too many unknown chemicals in them that can cause you to become ill.
Stick with oils from companies like Rocky Mountain, NOW, and similar brands.
2. Put an Oil Diffuser in Your Child’s Bedroom
Children should not be exposed to essential oils as long as adults, but aromatherapy can also help children over the age or three to feel calm and have better sleep.
If you place an oil diffuser in your child’s room, it should be smaller, have interval options, and an auto shut-off feature. Many diffusers also have an LED light feature that can operate as a night light in your child’s bedroom.
Similar to adults, you can run the diffuser prior to the child going to bed, and then shut it off. Or, you can turn the diffuser on right at bedtime, and then program it to shut off within 10 to 15 minutes. It’s best not to exceed this time frame with diffusing oils in an area where there are children.
I would not suggest placing reed diffusers in children’s bedrooms. They might mistakenly knock over the oils, consume the oils, or spill the oils on their sensitive skin. The latter two examples can cause toxic illness for your child, so avoid that by only placing essential oil diffusers in their room.
3. Place Oil or Reed Diffusers in Your Living Room
If you do not have children in your home, you can place either reed diffusers or essential oil diffusers in the living room. Since this is typically a high traffic area, you might opt for placing a large oil diffuser in the living room.
Similar to a child’s bedroom, if there are children in the home, don’t run the diffuser all day. Program it to run in short intervals with long pauses in between, or turn it off altogether after 10 to 15 minutes.
When only adults are in the home, then you can operate it for longer periods of time, but there still needs to be pauses in between so that you aren’t overexposed to any of the oils.
Can You Put A Diffuser Near Electronics?
Most living rooms double as a common area where television is watched and video games are played. And you’re right to wonder whether a diffuser would damage your electronics.
Oil diffuser vapors travel upwards. So it’s best not to place your essential oil diffuser on a shelf or table beneath your electronics. Those oily vapors can potentially cause damage to electronics or any surface that’s above your diffuser.
If you have electronics in your living room, I would suggest placing your diffuser on the opposite side of the room, or if possible, in a central location.
Mists might look harmless, but you don’t want moisture accumulating inside your big screen television or gaming console. Condensation can lead to corrosion, mineral deposit build-up, and even interfere with circuitry.
By operating an essential oil diffuser near electronics on a regular basis, it’s highly likely that those electronics will begin to malfunction over time when there’s close contact.
Reed Diffusers in the Living Room
To truly centralize the fragrance in your living room, you could opt instead to put reed diffusers on your coffee table or side tables. Since this is a high traffic area, it would be more important to monitor them so that they don’t get tipped over.
If you have children, you might place the reed diffusers on a higher shelf out of their reach.
Considering room size, you may want to use all available reed sticks or order additional ones for adequate scent distribution throughout the room.
4. Use Diffusers in Your Kitchen
Depending on your kitchen size and how often it’s being used, either an oil diffuser or reed diffuser could work in this space.
Reed diffusers are ideal for continuous fragrance release. That makes them useful in a kitchen for keeping garbage, compost, or food odors at bay throughout the day.
You can keep the kitchen smelling fresh without having to refill water reservoirs or program interval cycles on an ultrasonic diffuser.
Placing a reed diffuser in the center of the kitchen on an island or table, or even on the kitchen counter, will aid in circulating the scent.
In order to prolong its use, I would position a reed diffuser away from the stove or other appliances that generate heat.
If you have cats, then you would want to put the reed diffuser in a place where they won’t be exposed to it.
Reed diffusers are the easy peasy kitchen solution but if you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, then an oil diffuser can be equally efficient.
5. Don’t Forget to Put a Diffuser in Your Home Office
Although plenty of people were working from home pre-pandemic, it’s a far more common occurrence in our present times.
If you work from home throughout the day, it might help to inhale an invigorating fragrance to help keep you focused and productive. Or you might opt for a more subdued earthy scent to help balance your emotions and stress levels throughout the day.
Either an essential oil diffuser or a reed diffuser can be beneficial in this setting. It really depends on the extent to which you want to have to engage with the scenting device. For the least amount of interaction and uninterrupted scent, choose a reed diffuser.
If you don’t mind, or even prefer to periodically fill the reservoir and add essential oils to an ultrasonic diffuser, then it’s an equally fine choice.
One note is that not all reed diffusers are made with 100% natural essential oils. All of them are combined with a carrier oil, but the scent oil composition varies.
So if you want your work from home experience to be all natural, you might want to veer towards an oil diffuser.
For an aromatherapy experience with reed diffusers, make sure to choose one that only adds essential oils to its mixture.
Will An Essential Oil Diffuser Damage Your Mac?
While working on your computer and using an oil diffuser, you might notice small droplets of oil on your Mac’s display screen – at least I did when I first used a diffuser.
There’s lots of online debate about this and since computers are made differently from model to model, the answer might vary.
If you want to use an essential oil diffuser in your home office or anyplace where you’re also using a Mac, then I would advise you to place the diffuser on the opposite side of the room, away from your Mac.
Speaking only from personal experience, the diffuser mist is real. Some people say that the oil and water molecules simply evaporate, but I haven’t found that to be true when using either a nebulizing diffuser or an ultrasonic diffuser. They may only leave a fine mist, but it’s a mist nonetheless.
With that said, you don’t want to have to constantly wipe oil droplets from your computer screen. Nor do you want to risk the accumulation of moisture inside your computer, which realistically speaking, can build up over time if you’re using a diffuser daily.
To preserve the integrity of your computer, keep adequate distance between it and your diffuser.
6. Reed Diffusers Work Well in Your Bathroom
Since bathrooms are smaller and unattended for most of the day, reed diffusers are the perfect scenting solution.
If you have a windowsill in your bathroom, this is the ideal place to set a reed diffuser – but only when the window is closed. If the window is open, a breeze can move the fragrance throughout the room, but a stronger wind could knock over the container.
So choose a place in the bathroom where the fragrance can circulate well while keeping the container away from areas where it might fall or get knocked over.
You may want to use fewer reeds when placing reed diffusers in the bathroom. Once inside with the door closed, you don’t want to be overtaken by too strong of a fragrance.
7. Place a Reed Diffuser in Your Entryway
You always want to keep your foyer fresh. Whether you place a diffuser on an entryway console or storage shelf, reed diffusers do their best work in high traffic areas such as this.
What’s most convenient, is that aside from periodically flipping the reeds, these diffusers require minimal maintenance.
Since reed diffusers last for months at a time, this is the best hands-off approach to eliminating entryway odors.
I wouldn’t suggest placing a reed diffuser on a wooden surface unless there’s a tray or some other protective element beneath the container. If oil spills onto your table, it might leave a stain.
Keep in mind that the more you flip your reeds, the quicker the oils will evaporate. Also, you can adjust the intensity of your entryway fragrance by adding or removing reeds.
Lastly, remember to protect your fingers when flipping the reeds. The oils are still concentrated and can irritate your skin. I use a paper towel when turning the reeds in my diffuser.
Additional Tips for Finding the Best Place to Put a Diffuser in Your Home
When deciding where to place diffusers in your home, think about who lives there, how often you want to monitor the diffusers, the size of the room, and any safety concerns you might have. Here are some additional tips:
- Avoid placing reed diffusers in direct sunlight to prevent rapid evaporation.
- Place essential oil diffusers below eye level in order to avoid contact with your face.
- Protect the surface beneath your diffuser with a mat or cloth.
- Any placement should always be out of the reach of children.
- Also avoid placing diffusers in the path of pets.
- Choose scents that complement one another from room to room.
- Make sure vents within your home are open in order to circulate fresh air. Or you can open a window or door for better ventilation.
- Avoid placing essential oil diffusers against a wall.
- Make sure there’s adequate spacing around an essential oil diffuser to prevent the mist from landing on and clinging to items that might be ruined by the moisture.
Conclusion
Diffusers help cover up and neutralize odors within your home; some essential oil blends can even purify the air and enhance your overall well-being.
Ultimately, you want to put your diffusers in areas that you frequent the most. This will give you a pleasant feeling when you walk into the room or space. It’s also a pleasing experience for your guests.
For lowest involvement, choose reed diffusers but keep them away from children and pets. For the purest form of aromatherapy with a little added work, choose an oil diffuser.
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