Winter essential oil recipes are some of the most enjoyable and useful of all the seasonal recipes we’ve discussed here. For your diffuser, there’s plenty of cozy, therapeutic blends to try out, and we’ve assembled a handful of the most versatile recipes from DIY lip balm to a quick and easy throat discomfort remedy.

When there’s a chill in the air and the snow is falling, there’s no better time to enjoy essential oils like peppermint, clove, and nutmeg. Curl up inside with a good book, watch the frost collect on the windows, and get your diffuser going!

In this seasonally-themed post, we’re going to teach you…

• …How to make your own DIY, organic essential oil lip balm
• …How to soothe throat scratchiness with a simple 2-minute recipe
• …How to lift your spirits and knock out winter blues with essential oils
• …Which essential oil diffuser blends are perfect for wintertime
• …And more!

Let’s get started by looking at which essential oils are best for the cold months of the year, either for their utility or just because their aroma is so delightful.

What Essential Oils are Best for Winter?

Essential oils best for winter are generally warming and comforting, but naturally, a few members of the mint family have to make an appearance. When you’re making your own blends for your diffusers, traditional-feeling aromas like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and vanilla are great choices. Add some citrus like orange or lemon to mimic buds on a wreath, and don’t forget peppermint for that unforgettable and nostalgic candy cane scent.

We discuss this a bit in our lip balm recipe instructions, but remember that citrus oils like orange or lemon can absorb sunlight better than others. During the winter, especially if it’s a dry and cold season where you live, moisturizing essential oils like lavender and frankincense are better choices.

Let’s take a look at some popular winter-themed essential oils:

• Allspice essential oil
• Cardamom essential oil
• Cassia essential oil
• Cedarwood essential oil
• Myrrh essential oil
• Ginger essential oil
• Peppermint essential oil
• Vanilla essential oil
• Sage essential oil
• Nutmeg essential oil
• Spruce essential oil
• Cypress essential oil
• Sweet orange essential oil

Ready to learn some new winter recipes? Read on!

Homemade Essential Oil Lip Balm for Chapped Lips

We tend to think of wintertime as being a very wet, moist season, and depending on where you live it most certainly can be—but in many parts of the world, wintertime can mean arid, cold air. This, of course, leads to dry and cracked lips, which are unpleasant, to say the least. Rather than picking up store-bought lip balm with who knows how many unnecessary chemical additives, we recommend giving our all-natural essential oil lip balm a try.

To keep your lips moist and crack-free over a dry, cold winter, you’ll only need the following:

• 1 tablespoon beeswax. We recommend picking up beeswax pellets rather than beeswax blocks, simply because they’re easier to work with. Beeswax is an excellent sealant and makes its way into many skincare-related essential oil recipes to help “lock in” some of these other goodies:
• ½ tablespoon cocoa butter. Cocoa butter plus beeswax makes your lip balm creamy and thick, which means it’ll last longer and fill in all of the cracks on your lips. You may swap this out for shea butter if it isn’t handy, but we’ve found that cocoa butter has the best consistency for lip balm.
• 4 teaspoons of your carrier oil of choice. Jojoba or sweet almond oil are great choices since they aren’t greasy and have properties good for your skin and lips.
• 3 drops vitamin E oil. Easily found in most grocery stores (just make sure it’s pure, organic vitamin E), vitamin E is excellent for your skin and will help preserve your lip balm. That’s important since this recipe should last you a good long while. If you don’t want to buy vitamin E on its own, you can break open a liquid-gel vitamin capsule if you have some handy.
• 8 drops lavender essential oil. Lavender is one of the best essential oils for your skin, and your lips are no exception. Lavender will help heal cracked lips.
• 1-2 drops of other essential oil. This part of the recipe is completely optional, but it allows you to add a scent of your choosing to the lip balm. Don’t use any citrus essential oils like bergamot, lemon, or orange, since they can make your lips drier if you’re outside on account of their photosensitizing properties (basically, they absorb sunlight easier). For a lovely winter theme to your lip balm, we recommend peppermint—it feels nice on your lips too.

If you remember our essential oil skin cream from Autumn, these preparation instructions will seem familiar. It’s all pretty simple:

Take your beeswax, cocoa butter, and carrier oil into a heatable measuring cup. Heat the mixture—we recommend not using the microwave, instead, fill a pan with about an inch of water and place the measuring cup into it, then turn the stove heat to a low setting. Wait until the ingredients have melted, perhaps 20 minutes or so, stirring all the while. Once melted, remove from heat.

Before the solution cools, add the vitamin E oil, lavender essential oil, and 1-2 drops of another essential oil if you’ve chosen one. Stir once again thoroughly to make sure the lavender is fully distributed throughout the balm, then pour into a small glass jar (a funnel may help make this considerably easier).

After the solution cools, you’ll have an all-natural lip balm that’s going to absolutely knock your socks off—cracked and dry lips will be almost immediately soothed, and you’ll find that any little abrasions and cracks will heal much faster than they would with the store bought stuff. Prevention is the best cure, so if you’re going to be outside for any length of time, apply this DIY essential lip balm before heading out into the cold!

Next up, let’s take a look at one of the easiest yet most effective ways to soothe throat discomfort:

A Simple Way to Soothe Throat Irritation Using Essential Oils

One might argue that a scratchy throat in summer would be the most miserable of all, but that doesn’t mean that getting sick during winter is any more fun!

Throat discomfort is relatively common in the winter, a lot of the time due to throat irritation from breathing in cold, dry air. Rather than getting the (pretty nasty tasting) spray stuff from the store, try this dead-simple treatment using only a single essential oil: melaleuca alternifolia, which we affectionately refer to as tea tree oil.

Take 1-2 drops and place them into a small cup of water. Stir it around with a spoon or stirring stick, and then gargle as normal. Do this until the entire cup of water has been finished, and try to avoid drinking anything for a few minutes. You should notice the effects very quickly—in milder cases, feelings of soreness in your throat may even be completely abated.

For a very irritated throat you can even apply a single drop to a paper towel, let it disperse a bit, and then dab your tongue with it. Take a sip of water without swallowing, gargle, and spit. Do this every few minutes until you start to experience relief in your throat.

Don’t ever ingest or swallow tea tree oil if you can help it—it can be toxic. Assuming you’re in good health, trace amounts from a single drop are generally fine for things like throat irritation and so on, since you’re gargling and not swallowing. Use your best judgment and again, don’t ingest it!

Got Some Mild Frostbite? Soothe it With This Essential Oil Recipe

We’re not talking about severe frostbite here, as would be the case if you were scaling a mountain and you got trapped in a snow storm. We’re talking about the kind of still ridiculously unpleasant frostbite that might occur if you were in a snowball fight, forgot to wear gloves while shoveling the walk, or just got a little too enthusiastic when making a snowman with the kids.

For those kinds of instances of frostbite, where your fingers feel like they’re about to fall off (but aren’t really), this little essential oil concoction will help you warm up and soothe the pain from the cold:

• 4 drops geranium essential oil
• 2 drops clove essential oil
• 1 teaspoon olive oil or jojoba oil

You’ll also need some lavender essential oil.

Put the olive oil, geranium, and clove essential oils into a small container or glass drip-bottle. Mix them together well and set aside. (It helps to have this prepared before you become cold, since trying to mix them together with iced-over fingers is more or less impossible).

When you get that aching cold frostbite from being outside, go inside and immediately apply 5 or so drops of your lavender essential oil to your hands or the area. Very gently rub and massage the lavender in. Once you’ve warmed up (but probably still aching), use the other ingredients you prepared and massage into the affected area again until the pain goes away.

Gentle rubbing is the key word here, as you can actually damage your tissue if you’re too vigorous—if you’ve ever had mild frostbite on your hands and then rubbed them together in an effort to warm them, you might have noticed later on that they’re quite sore. Being gentle and using this solution should prevent any lasting effects from the cold.

This recipe works a lot better than just warm water, which as you probably know can be pretty painful. Keeping it prepared beforehand is smart. You’ll definitely thank yourself later!

Lift Your Spirits During Winter With These Essential Oils

Anyone can suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Before the condition was properly named, folks called it the winter blues. A lot of the time it occurs after winter starts settling in when the days get shorter and we start spending more time indoors. In addition to any recommendations from your doctor, you can try incorporating some of the essential oils we’re going to discuss here into your daily routine.

While a diffuser is your best bet, you can even just smell these essential oils right from their containers—you’ll feel a little perked up right away.

If you’re feeling a bit down during the cold months, try these essential oils for winter blues:

• Bergamot essential oil
• Frankincense essential oil
• Geranium essential oil
• Lavender essential oil
• Lemon essential oil
• Rose essential oil
• Sandalwood essential oil

When you’re suffering from SAD during the winter and you have to work, it can feel really rough—we’ve been there. Try a small desk diffuser for your office, or if your job involves being out and about, wear a little portable diffuser. In addition to your essential oils, a little extra vitamin D can go a long way.

Essential Oil Diffuser Recipes for Winter

Diffusers are an absolutely lovely essential oil accessory any time of year, but they really shine during winter.

If you’d like to infuse your home and office with a candy-cane aroma, try “Winter Mint”:

• 3 drops peppermint essential oil
• 2 drops wintergreen essential oil

If you’ve found your nose a bit stuffed up from the cold, this nasal-clearing recipe we’ve called “Naisly Nancy” should help you breathe a bit easier:

• 4 drops tea tree essential oil
• 1 drop peppermint essential oil
• 1 drop eucalyptus essential oil

“Eggnog Delight” has to be the coziest of all essential oil blends for winter:

• 5 drops nutmeg essential oil
• 3 drops vanilla essential oil
• 1 drop cinnamon leaf essential oil

If you’d like to try even more of our custom winter-themed diffuser blends, grab your free copy of our printable winter essential oil blend sheet!

Winter & Essential Oils: Final Considerations

We’d like to wish you nothing but the best for your winter festivities from everyone here at Aroma Outfitters. Essential oils are so wonderful in this season—we hope we’ve helped you discover some new blends and recipes to make your nights a little warmer.

After the winter chill thaws, spring will arrive. Be sure to check out our favorite essential oil recipes for spring!