DIY Essential Oil Mood Mist Can Help You Chill in Moments of Stress

My mood tends to vacillate between “laughing maniacally while clutching a giant glass of wine” and “crying to Sarah Bareilles in the shower” (save for some pretty joyous spurts over the weekend), so I am beyond here for anything that can help me regulate to a less chaotic plane of existence. And in this episode of Well+Good’s YouTube series Plant-Based, herbalist and holistic health coach Rachelle Robinett shows us how to make a mood mist with essential oils that’s bound to help you take things down a notch. It uses a blend of mood-boosting oils to create a spray that can be used on your face, body, or in your home.

“Essential oils are extremely concentrated oils extracted from plants,” Robinett says. “Essential oils are a kind of volatile oil, so when they’re exposed to the air they’re starting to evaporate and look for something to bind to… a lot of times that’s inside of our nasal passages or back in the amygdala in our brain. When we smell it, we’re actually inhaling those oils, and those oils are circulating through our body,” she explains. That’s also why it’s so important to buy therapeutic or medical-grade essential oils. “Make sure that they’re actually plant extracts and not just fragrance,” she says. “It’ll be functional psychologically, but if you actually want this spray to have some sort of medicinal benefits then you want your essential oils to be from plants.”

For the spray, she uses grapefruit peel essential oil, along with “deeply therapeutic” frankincense. She also adds one of the oldest plant fragrances in the world, neroli, which has a perfumey smell. The end result is “like a DIY aura.” I personally will be saturating myself with this on the hour. Watch the video get the full mood mist with essential oils recipe.