Reed Diffuser Friendly Fragrance Oils

You will see reference on some of our fragrance oils that they are reed diffuser friendly but what does that mean?

IFRA sets out a maximum percentage that a fragrance oil can be used in various applications. One of the major recent changes in IFRA is that a number of products were added to the skin sensitisation list. This change was brought about, in part, because customers were inverting the reeds in their diffusers and not washing their hands after being in contact with the reed diffuser oil.  In some cases, this was causing skin irritation and rashes.

With this reclassification, many fragrance oils which could previously be used at an acceptable percentage (15 to 20%) could now only be used at single digit percentages which meant that they were no longer effective in reed diffusers.

Our ever popular White Sage & Lavender could only be used in reed diffusers at 9% so we had the fragrance oil reformulated and it can now be used at 22.5%. 

With a fragrance oil that cannot be used as a reed diffuser at a sufficiently high  percentage there are three possible avenues :

1. A simple swap of component(s) with the same fragrance to make the fragrance oil 'reed diffuser friendly'
2. A total reformulation of the fragrance oil to create a new reed friendly version
3. The oil cannot be made made reed diffuser friendly

Luckily, the fragrance oils that we have had reformulated have only required simple component swaps to make them reed diffuser friendly.

As the oils have different formulations, they have different SDS, CLP, IFRA and Allergen Reports. These documents can be found below each fragrance oil listing on our website. 

We flag the reformulated fragrance oil on our website with the words 'reed diffuser friendly' after the fragrance oil name. On the bottle, we suffix the fragrance oil name with RD.

In terms of fragrance oil strength, there is no difference between the two versions of the same fragrance oil. Both versions of the fragrance oil are still suitable for use in wax melts and candles, it is just that the reed diffuser friendly version of the fragrance oil can be use at a reasonable percentage in more products, giving you more options of products to make.

We maintain a list of reed diffuser friendly fragrance oils  which gives the fragrance oil and the maximum percentage that the fragrance oil can be used at as a reed diffuser. Our recommendation with our fragrance oils is to try the reed diffuser at 15% and increase the percentage of fragrance oil to 20% to find the optimum mix for that fragrance oil and your reeds / reed diffuser base.

As with candles, too much fragrance oil in the reed diffuser base can clog the reed and reduce fragrance throw.