Sweet orange pressed straight from the peel, so it smells like the fruit rather than an idea of it. Lemon and bergamot beside it, peppermint and eucalyptus to clear a room, rosemary and geranium for everything in between. Twelve HIQILI essential oils in 100ml amber glass — the everyday dozen, the ones that get used on a Tuesday rather than saved for occasions.
Two in this selection surprise people. Geranium is rosier and greener than expected and does much of what rose does at a fraction of the cost, which makes it the quiet workhorse of any blending shelf. Rosemary is sharper than its reputation and cuts cleanly through a heavy mixture. The rest — lavender, cinnamon, vanilla, rose and jasmine — round the twelve out into something you can build almost any everyday blend from.
Two ways of getting the oil out come in the box, which is unusual at this price. A gold-collared glass pipette for counting drops into a blend or a carrier oil, and a plastic drip plug that seats in the neck for pouring a controlled trickle straight into a diffuser. Most 100ml bottles give you one or the other; having both means you are not decanting into something smaller every time you want to top up a tank.
Three to five drops per 100ml of water in a diffuser, adjusting from there — peppermint, eucalyptus and cinnamon travel much further than the citrus, so start those low. Sweet orange, lemon and bergamot are top notes, first to arrive and first to leave, so a drop of vanilla or geranium underneath keeps a blend in the room considerably longer. On skin, six to twelve drops per 30ml of carrier oil, half that for the face, patch tested first. Keep cinnamon out of skin blends entirely, and bergamot and lemon off skin that will see sun within twelve hours.
HIQILI sells the same oils at 10ml and 30ml and notes on its own packaging that the larger bottles cost less per millilitre — worth knowing, since this is the dozen you go through fastest. The non-GMO, 100% natural, cruelty-free and sustainable-sourcing marks are the manufacturer's own claims. At this price the rose, jasmine and vanilla are interpretations rather than true absolutes; the citrus, mint, eucalyptus, rosemary, lavender and geranium are exactly what they say.
See the other single notes in the Diffuser Essential Oil collection, machines in our humidifier and diffuser range, or the wider Aromatherapy Oils range.