26 Amazing Reasons to Have Lavender Essential Oils on Hand

As a frugal and trying to be healthy family, we do and have used essential oils in our home.

First, as mentioned many times before, we have used essential oils in cleaning for 8+ years now.

Second, a few years ago, we started using essential oils for personal care too! The combination of the two uses have been life-changing for our family and our health.  We are very thankful to have healthy, affordable and effective options.

So as we shared with the 17 Household Uses for Lemon Essential Oil, we wanted to talk about our favorite oil – Lavender!

Some of these uses can also be in the dried and fresh form, in fact, I am trying to grow lavender as well as there are many, many benefits to fresh and dried lavender.  But the benefit of the oil is that if you buy the right oils, you are getting a pure, unadulterated highly concentrated form of lavender that goes a long way and can be used much easier than a fresh or dried version – however, don’t throw out any dried or fresh lavender either!

The Details

Let’s talk about what lavender does (I am quoting my aromatherapy books and an essential oils encyclopedia where the hundreds of sources/tests/studies are listed).

Properties

The properties of lavender essential oil are that it has acted as an analgesic, anticoagulant, anticonvulsant, antidepressant, anti-fungal, antihistamine, anti-infectious, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antimutagenic, antiseptic, antispasmodic, antitoxic, antitumor, cardiotonic, regenerative and sedative in hundreds of studies and tests.

Historical Uses

It has been used for thousands of years for homeopathic care and everyday use.  In a nutshell, lavender has been traditionally used for emotional issues, calming, cardiovascular functions, nervous system and for the skin.

Precautions

First, always use an oil that is approved and certified for internal use or therapeutic use before you use an oil for the purpose (see notes below).

Second, evidence suggests that long term use of lavender has shown to be beneficial for hormones for women, but cause hormonal imbalance in males.  With that, we would suggest using it sparingly with young children and males.

Qualities of oils

I wanted to mention something very important – the types of qualities of essential oils that you purchase and use. First, these are not fragrance oils and you cannot get them at big box or grocery stores – those are different. Essential oils can be purchased at health food stores and online.

 

Where to get essential oils?

I have quite a collection of both my cleaning grade and higher quality personal use oils. You can find essential oils in many places, including health food stores. However, the #1 place that we purchase oils is from a company that provides very affordable, 100% pure essential oils.

I have purchased all of them from Vitacost website and they are affordable, convenient to get and have worked well.  You should also be able to get them at health food stores and from Amazon. For the best deal, see our post HERE on the 7 Best Essential Oils for Cleaning. 

 

How Households Can Utilize Lavender Essential Oils Today

We personally find that we use lavender the most, or rather for the most purposes.  If anyone were to ask what one oil they should start with or have on hand, it would be lavender.

Personal Uses (we would only use the highest quality, pure, therapeutic grade oils for these) 

1. Use lavender oil to help with sleep issues and sleeplessness. The main use that most everyone knows about is for anxiety and help with sleeping.  We have used it for this purpose for a very long time! It’s WONDERFUL this way! This is also a great use for the fresh and dried leaves, as well as the oil! We simply diffuse the oil or place on a cottonball and stick in pillowcases.
2. Relieve headaches naturally.  I get headaches a lot.  Lavender oil has been my go-to natural drug.  I don’t like using OTC meds too often due to risks associated with them.  However, lavender has been amazing and I am so grateful and thankful that don’t have to worry about it being to harsh on other parts of my body.  When I have a headache, I rub diluted lavender oil in a rollerball (I dilute with fractionated coconut oil, but many carrier oils will work) and roll this on my temples, the base of the back of my neck and sometimes my feet/toes. I was so amazed at how well this works. In fact, I used this even today as I was blogging (I get headaches from working on the computer :)) and I had relief in 15 minutes – you can see my picture on Instagram HERE. Are you following us on Instagram yet? It’s a great place to see what we are up to each day! 
3. Heal and relieve burns. If myself or anyone else gets accidentally burned from a pan or something, a drop of lavender oil will help to heal the burn and heal much quicker.
4. Heal, clean and relieve cuts. If there is a skin abrasion, this is the go-to oil! We will sometimes use others in addition to lavender for further help per issue, but on it’s own is mighty fine!
5. Help clear acne. Due to it’s antimicrobial and healing properties, it can clean out the acne and help your skin to recover.
6. Help relieve and heal sunburns. We have also used vinegar, but we will follow some burns with lavender because of how helpful lavender is for the skin.  In this case, it is best to apply by spraying. Dilute the lavender in a glass bottle with purified water.
7. Seasonal allergy reliever! Smelling lavender, diffusing lavender oil and even rubbing it on your feet or temples helps to relieve seasonal/environmental allergies like hay fever.  Honestly, this works sometimes, and sometimes this works best when combined with allergy meds too.  We only have to take allergy meds a couple of times a year (assuming this must be our extreme allergy time) and the rest of the year, the other reactions are often relieved with lavender!
8. Menstrual cramp reliever.  Just rub it on your abdomen during that fun time of the month!
9. Cold Sore healer. Similar to the acne issue, cold sores can be relieved the same way.
10. Achy muscle soother.  If you have a muscle ache, rub lavender oil on your sore muscles for relief!
11. Most any issue involving the skin, lavender is a great option!
12. It is also my most favorite oil in my homemade personal care recipes (and be watching for those as I will start sharing them now :))

Household Uses (many of these are links to other articles)

1. Make aromatherapy tissues for allergy and cold relief.
2. Make your own laundry detergent with scent like Tide. 
3. Make your own fabric softener.
4. Make your own Downy Unstoppables laundry scent booster, but with natural ingredients.
5. Make your own soothing baby wipes.
6. Fabric refresher – Create this by mixing purified water with lavender oil. Just spray your fabrics when needed!
7. Diffuse in the air with an oil diffuser. Check out the post HERE on diffusers. 
8. Make your own fragrance diffuser.
9. Spa Baths – Enjoy a calming, relaxing and healthful bath with a few drops of lavender essential oil. Even use epsom salts with lavender oil in your bath! 
10. Lavender pillow or rice warmer.  Fill a small pillow with rice and then sprinkle lavender oil and warm this up in the microwave for less than a minute for a sinus, headache, calming treatment.
11. Make your own cleaning products. Because of the many cleaning, purifying and cleansing properties of lavender, it is a GREAT ingredient to add to homemade cleaning products for a chemical-free option. We share over 26 homemade cleaning products on our cleaning page HERE and some of these contain lavender oil.

Many of these cleaning recipes use lavender oil! 

Cooking Uses (only the high quality, pure, therapeutic grade essential oils for this purpose!) 

1. Teas – brew your own tea with dried lavender or even with lavender oil.  As a tip, don’t let the water boil – remove the water right before it reaches boiling point. If not, it will burn the oil.
2. Homemade breads – adding a drop of lavender can really enhance and make a very earthy and yummy flavor to your breads.  This requires experimentation, but lavender is an herb and think about how yummy breads are with herbs!
3. Flavor enhancer in recipes.  Yogurt, salads, ice cream, Soups, Mediterranean and Italian dishes are nice with a very slight hint of lavender – one drop is more than enough. Another area where it is fun to experiment and receive nice flavor and health benefits too!  I don’t use lavender often in the kitchen (not like other oils that I will talk about later) but I do use it on occasion.

What uses do you use lavender essential oil for?  

See more household tips HERE

See our Essential Oils Pinterest Board HERE 

*Please note, this article is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition or replace any medicines or medical treatment, it is purely our opinion from our experience and research from a non-medical perspective.  Please confirm all of these things with your doctor.