Learning how to use pet friendly essential oils for home cleaning is an easy and rewarding experience. This collection of synthetic free, essential oil based recipes will get the job done safely and effectively.
Odors and messes are the main home cleaning problems associated with keeping family pets. Used in DIY recipes such as spray cleaners, carpet powders and room diffusions, essential oils offer pleasant and synthetic free home cleaning solutions. But first a few words about safety. House pets, (like children) are smaller bodied individuals that can be more sensitive to the properties of essential oils, whether applied onto their bodies or into their environment. Follow these pet safety tips when cleaning your home with essential oils:
- Never apply essential oils directly onto your pet without first consulting your veterinarian or qualified pet health practitioner.
- It’s a good idea to remove your pet from the room until you’re finished cleaning and deodorizing the area.
- Limit essential oil diffusion times to a maximum of 15 minutes and observe your pet for any reactions or changes in their behavior after cleaning and deodorizing the room with essential oils.
- Stick to oils that are gentle-acting and have unobtrusive, sweet and fresh aromas such as: lavender, geranium, bergamot BF and lemon.
Keeping a pet friendly home clean presents some daunting problems with odors and messes. But you can meet those challenges cleanly and effectively with these top 5 simple homemade essential oil recipes:
- Carpet freshening powder. Pets spend a lot of time playing, rubbing and lounging on carpet and upholstery. A simple-to-make, (and use) carpet-freshening powder combines the odor-absorbing reputation of baking soda with the freshening power of clean-scented lavender and peppermint essential oils. Two synthetic-free ingredients – baking soda and essential oils, plus a vacuum are all you need to freshen pet-used carpet and upholstery. Forget about those synthetic fragrance-laden fabric sprays, which really only cover-up the odor rather than vacuuming it away.
- Air-freshening tablets. Homemade baking soda- and essential oil-based air freshener tablets can be discreetly tucked around a pet-occupied room to release a subtle, lingering background scent. Placed where a pet (and children) can’t get at them, these tablets offer a gentler alternative to a full-on diffusion. They’re a synthetic-free way to automatically address day to day pet home-freshening needs with a subtle, lingering background scent. Tablets can also be used in combination with a room spray when you have to temporarily address any particularly odiferous pet generated situations as they occur.
- Pet-friendly room spray. Sometimes we need a quick, go-to solution to immediately address pet odors as they crop up. A pet-friendly room spray featuring essential oils is a pleasant and safe way to overcome any particularly potent pet odor problems. Think of a pet-friendly room spray as a way to “wash” room air with a fine mist of essential oil charged water droplets.
- Floor and surface cleaner.. When it’s time to do a deep cleaning of pet-exposed hard-surface: floors, baseboards, walls, cabinet fronts, etc. make your pet home-cleaning solution in bulk with a scrub bucket full of essential oil-based floor and surface cleaning solution. Whether you’re dealing with a sealed wood floor, painted surface or metal appliance, warm, soapy, fresh-scented water is still the best, synthetic-free way to clean up any pet mess.
- Pet-friendly spray cleaner. Keep a bottle of essential oil-based spray cleaner with your pet supplies and you’ll be ready to spot clean any small pet messes as they happen.
Authored by: Charlynn Avery - former Aura Cacia Aromatherapist & Sr. Wellness Education Manager and Dog Mom.
This inspiring post lived on Aura Cacia’s Noteworthy site while it was in existence. The name “Noteworthy” was inspired by the three aroma notes – top, middle and base – found in essential oils. When these three notes come together they create a beautiful, balanced synergy. Noteworthy was full of contributions by real women aspiring to create a beautiful, balanced synergy in their own lives – and the lives of others. We are pleased we could continue to share this post to our aromatherapy community.
