Welcome back, friends. You’ve made it week 8 of A Mom’s Guide to Getting Started with Essential Oils. If you have not read the first 7 installments in the series, you’ll want to click over to read Where to Begin with Essential Oils, How to Safely Use Essential Oils, Inhaling Essential oils, How to Choose an Aromatherapy Diffuser., and How to Use Essential Oils Topically before continuing on. The other articles in the series include tips and recipes for using essential oils in your DIY Natural Household Cleaners and DIY Health and Beauty Recipes.
Hopefully, you are beginning to feel more comfortable with the idea of using essential oils in your everyday life for cleaning, hair and skin care, and your family’s general health and wellness. Today I want to share about using essential oils for healing minor cuts, scrapes, bites, stings, burns and in other situations where you might need a little first aid.
Since the most popular members of your family for which you typically use first aid kits are your children, let’s talk for just a moment about using essential oils with kids.
Are Essential Oils Safe for Children?
If you are considering using essential oils with your kids you may be wondering: is it safe? Many parents who have discovered the awesomeness of essential oils want to use them with their entire family, but they worry that it might not be safe for their children. They’re all natural, right? So, is it okay to use with your kids? The short answer is yes and no. Many essential oils are safe to use with children if they are used in the correct way.
Essential oils have steadily grown in popularity over the last decade due to their ability to heal or reduce the symptoms associated with many types of medical conditions. While it’s not a new concept at all (it’s been around for centuries), it IS becoming more mainstream in our current population. Because there are different ways to use essential oils, this gives you options when using them with your children.
When using essential oils with children, you can choose the method based on the type of oil, the age of your child, the purpose of using it, and the potential sensitivity of the child. If it’s diluted in a bath, massage oil, lotion, or other product, or diffused into the air, it won’t typically be too strong for your child. This means you’re going to want some awesome kids’ essential oils recipes to help you do it right. You should never use oil on a child in its pure form, which means you must learn how to mix and dilute oils to create the right blend and strength.
While the majority of essential oils are safe for children (especially those over the age of 6), there are a few that should be used with extreme caution, or not all, before the age of 13 or so. Click here for a comprehensive list of essential oils and at what age they are considered safe to use with children.
Always do your own due diligence and learn all you can about a particular oil before using it with your children. Keep in mind that kids have immune systems that are still developing, and the oils may affect them differently than they do an adult. It’s always a good idea to introduce slowly and build up from there.
How to Build a Natural First Aid Kit
With few exceptions, you can replace nearly every product in your first aid kit with a healthier natural first aid kit using natural ingredients. From antibacterial ointments to steroid creams, insect repellents, and sunburn sprays, this article will help you treat all of your minor first aid needs with safer (and sometimes even more effective) products using essential oils.
The most recommended essential oils for first aid include:
Lavender is your essential oil first aid kit must-have. It can be used to disinfect wounds and burns, promote healing, and reduce scarring. Lavender is commonly used to help with inflammation from bug bites, bee stings, and sunburns, and is known for its antihistamine properties.
Helichrysum Italicum another first aid essential oil must-have. It is commonly used as a painkiller due to its analgesic properties and is particularly helpful for helping to heal heal bruises, sprains, and swelling from minor injuries.
Peppermint can aid in healthy digestion, soothes nausea, and helps with muscle aches and pains, headaches, and fever.
Tea Tree oil has been used throughout history because of its amazing antifungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral properties. Tea Tree oil helps disinfect skin irritations and supports a healthy immune system.
Clove oil is commonly used for dental issues due to its analgesic properties.
Frankincense is a great oil to use in blends because it can help enhance the properties of other essential oils. It is also commonly used for skin issues and is a wonderful anti-inflammatory oil.
Citronella is a well-known insecticide and insect repellent, but it can also be used as an analgesic, disinfectant, and astringent.
Other commonly used essential oils for first aid use include lemon, lemongrass, oregano, rosemary, thyme, eucalyptus, myrrh, and myrrh (not all of these are safe for young children)
Here are a few recipes to have on hand for your first aid needs:
DIY Healing Salve
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 oz beeswax
15 drops Tea Tree
15 drops Lavender
Melt the beeswax in a glass jar placed in a pan of hot water. Add the olive oil and coconut oil and stir to combine. Let the mixture cool down a bit before adding the essential oils (don’t wait too long or it will harden and become difficult to stir). Pour into two 4 oz glass jars. This salve can be used for many purposes, including insect stings or bites, cuts and scrapes, itchy or chapped skin, minor burns, and sunburns.
Sunburn Spray
1/2 cup witch hazel
1/3 cup pure aloe vera gel (I use one that is 99% pure and has a natural preservative)
10 drops lavender essential oil
10 drops frankincense essential oil
5 drops peppermint essential oil
8 oz spray bottle
Combine all ingredients and mix well. Pour into spray bottle. Shake well before each use. Apply generously to sunburned skin as often as desired. Avoid spraying around the eyes, as it will sting.
Bumps and Bruises Remedy
2 oz jojoba oil
8 drops lavender essential oil
8 drops helichrysum Italicum essential oil
To promote the healing of bumps and bruises, apply to affected area 1-2 times per day. Store in a squeeze “lotion” bottle for easy application.
Poison Ivy Relief
2 T distilled water
2 T natural apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 drops lavender essential oil
3 drops tea tree essential oil
3 drops peppermint essential oil
Stir ingredients together until the salt dissolves. Using a cotton ball, apply the mixture onto the affected area as needed. Stir well before each use. Store in the refrigerator.
Toothache Relief
Mix one drop of clove essential oil with 1 teaspoon olive oil. Saturate a cotton ball with the mixture and place the cotton ball beside the aching tooth. Leave for as long as possible (but not overnight).
A few more first aid recipes can be found on my homeschool blog for: kid safe insect repellent, homemade vapor rub, and homemade hand sanitizer.
In case you’ve missed it, my Essential Oils Starter Pack contains a page with the recipes in this article, along with printable recipes cards for recording other recipes you want to try (or create) and essential oil worksheets for you to record your observations about the oils you are experimenting with. If you have not yet downloaded your free copy, you can enter your email below to receive it.
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Action Step
Begin creating your essential oils first aid kit with the most versatile recipe I shared today – the DIY Healing Salve.
Next Up: 25 More Simple Uses for Your Essential Oils
Precautions
Never use essential oils undiluted, in the eyes or mucus membranes. Do not ingest unless working with a qualified practitioner. Keep essential oils away from children. If applying an essential oil to your skin always perform a small patch test to an insensitive part of the body (after you have properly diluted the oil in an appropriate carrier oil).
For educational purposes only. This information has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
KidSafe Essential Oils Free Recipes Printable
Our friends at Plant Therapy have created a gorgeous FREE printable filled with KidSafe recipes for your first aid kit and other needs. KidSafe Essential Oil Recipes includes recipes that will work well for your natural first aid kit, such as a Better Than Kisses Ouch Spray, Shield Me Outdoor Wipes, Skin Soother Salve, and Sore No More Body Butter, along with other KidSafe recipes for sleep, tension relief, shoe/foot odor, calming/focus, hair gel, and anti-bacterial soap jellies. These recipes use essential oils and blends that are safe for kids over the age of 2-years-old.
I love using Lavendar with my kiddos!
My favorite eo to use with kids is Plant Therapy’s Immune boost blend. I guess it is tied with there nighty night.
Thank you for the info. I’ve been hesitant to use oils because I’m not sure what is safe for my kids!
My favorite oil to use on germ destroyer and immune boom. 😄
Thanks for the info. Have been wanting to make a first aid kit for awhile. Now I just need to do so.
I wish I was introduced to oils when my kids were a bit younger. They do enjoy diffusing them tho!!
The one I use the most would be Thieves oil in Winter but I also use peppermint a lot too.
We love Nighty Night and Sweet Slumber for diffusing in our children’s bedrooms. So comforting for them and us!
Anything that helps with seasonal allergies right now 🙂
Immune Boom or Germ Destroyer!
I don’t use too many oils. But would like to try the kid safe ones.
We absolutely love Plant Therapy’s Calm the Child and Sweet Dreams…we rotate which one we use every couple weeks.
Lavender for so many things:)
I use calming the child on my kids every morning before school. Love it!
I love Immune Boom for my grandchildren.
My kiddos really love the scent of the sweet orange. I tend to blend it with other oils so the kids can enjoy the scent along with the benefits of the other oils.
Tea tree and lavender in a roll-on for bug bites/itchiness.
I just bought my first synergies from Plant Therapy bc we were dealing with awful nightmares with my middle kiddo. LOVE Sweet Dreams in roller
My favorites for children are helichrisum (I have two fearless warrioresses), pan-away, and kid-gize
We love the PT Kidsafe line. One of our favorites is Calming the Child.
I love peppermint to clear sinuses for my kids.
These are the only brand of oils I have tried and am interested in adding more!
Love these oils.
My favorite oil for my kids is lavendar.
We love calming the child, it’s wonderful.
Wow thanks for sharing these great recipes!
My favorite oil is lavender.
We are very new to essential oils and I haven’t had an opportunity to use oils with my son yet.
What a great giveaway. Thank you for the opportunity.
Peppermint when they are sick
We use lavendar and frankincense for calming and congestion.
I have wanted to try these for a long time!
We absolutely love germ fighter and immune boom in this line of products!
I love sniffle stopper for my son’s allergies.
I like to diffuse bergamot and grapefruit together while we do school in the afternoons. It brightens my mood AND combats the bathroom smell from four little boys!
lavender!!!
Lavender helps my son so much.
We use Nighty Night or Sweet Slumber (alternating) with our kiddo every night. We use lavender for bug bites or burns.
I like lavender and also frankincense!
I like to diffuse Germ Destroyer during the winter months to keep the germs away.
Lavender
Chamomile & lavender are favorites.
I like to use lavender with the kids.
I love lavender for my kids.
My favorite to use is Lavender.
I love Nighty Night for getting everyone to sleep.
Definitely Lavender and Sweet Orange!
I add a bit of Nighty Night to my kids bed sheets when I wash them to help them sleep at night. Love it!!
I love a Germ Buster blend I have with my kids.
For the kids I use lots of lavender, ginger, and lemon
I love the idea of A+ attention as my son has ADHD!
I use eucalyptus a lot!
I am going to have my two grandsons this coming summer and have been doing research on what oils and blends I can use with them and stay safe. Thank you for the information.
Would love to have essential oils used more in my house. Kids are reluctant to try, but hopefully with this info, I’ll be able to persuade them to try.
Lavender
I love using Lavender and so does my daughter
I love plant therapys kid safe line, it is so convenient and useful! Thanks for the chance to win!
This is great information! I’ve been wanting to start using oils more but have worried about the safety for kids!
I try to use blends for a natural shield from germs in my classroom and at home. My daughter carries a first aid kit with her always. My husband is a scout leader and I am encouraging more natural remedies for all of us.
Lavender!
I love Plant Therapy’s Germ Fighter! Smells wonderful and really works. For the kiddos Sweet Slumber can’t be beat!
Nighty Night & Calming the Child 💚
My favorite to use w kids is lavender.
i like to use tea tree oil to help keep lice away
I like to use lavender with kids.
I like to use lavender.
Lavender or camomile.
Lavender is my favorite to use with kids, and Wild Orange!