How to Make a Dilution Using Essential Oils and a Base Material

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A dilution is a mixture of liquid in which a unit volume of a liquid material is combined with a volume of a solvent liquid to create a specific concentration. It can be done with any type of liquids or chemicals for any number of purposes from chemistry to perfumes or more. A dilution begins with an essential oil (solute), which needs to be diluted by a base material (diluent) to create a specific concentration. A dilution factor is the total number of unit volumes in which your solute will be dissolved or diluted. More specifically, a dilution is defined as being the ratio of "volume solute / (volume solute + volume diluent)" or the formula of "D = Cf/Ci", where D = Dilution, Cf = Final Concetration, Ci = Initial Concetration. The terms may be switched around to solve for the piee of data being calculated.This "how to" will show how to create a dilution of essential oil in a base material oil or water. For compatible terminology, the essential oil is the solute and the base material is the diluent. Two different methods are shown, depending on which piece(s) of information that is given or required.

Things You'll Need

• Essential oil
• Base material or carrier
• Glass bottle (about 2 ounces)
• Eye dropper (glass is best)

Instructions

Dilution Given Ratio

1. Determine the required ratio of the dilution, which tells us number of parts of the ingredients. The first number is the number of parts of solute. The second number is the total number of parts of solute and diluent combined. (1:5)

2. Determine the required volume of the concentration. (10 ounces)

3. Determine the volume of each part by dividing the volume of the concentration by the total number of parts (the last number of ratio). (10 / 5 = 2 ounces)

4. Calculate the total number of parts of diluent by the subtracting the number of parts of solute from the total number of parts of the concentration. This means subtract the first number of the ratio from the second. (5 - 1 = 4)

5. Calculate the volume of diluent to be used by multiplying the number of parts of diluent from Step 4 by the volume from Step 3. (4 x 2 = 8 ounces)

6. Calculate the volume of solute to be used by multiplying the number of parts of solute by the volume from Step 3. (1 x 2 = 2 ounces)

7. Pour the diluent and solute into a bottle.

Dilution Given Final Volume

1. Determine the required dilution ratio and final volume. (dilution = 1/10, final volume = 200 ml)

2. Plug the known numbers into the formula D = S / FV, where D = Dilution, S = Solute, F = Final Volume. (1/10 = X/200)

3. Solve for x to find the amount of solute to add to the final volume to make the desired dilution. (x = 20 ml).

4. Calculate the amount of the diluent for the concentration by subtracting the solute from the final volume. (200 - 20 = 180 ml)

5. Combine the measured solute from Step 3 to the measured diluent from Step 4 in a bottle.

Tips & Warnings

• Buying quality essential and carrier oils will bring much better results.

Resources

• Primer on doing dilutions