Humidifier Tip

Even though we are having a mild winter here in the Northeast, the heat is still on at my house. The lack of snow, hasn't meant a lack of dryness from my forced hot air heating system. With a little one in the house, there is a delicate balance of keeping her warm and not turning her into a sweat monster.

Since my daughter started daycare, she has struggled with colds. She has also had a cough on and off since she was small. The doctors and my mom have said repeatedly, keep her nose clear, use saline and a humidifier. I was lucky to have a coworker give me two humidifiers she wasn't using. I had one in the nursery and one in mine. But a few weeks ago, she had a terrible nose bleed that woke her up and scared me half to death. She had a few more after that and it seems that we now have it under control. But I realized that her play area in the house, and likely her daycare, does not have enough humidity.

I plan to have one put on our furnace but I haven't gotten to it yet. The money always seems to go to something else.  Luckily I went down to my grandmothers house, my personal antique and thrift stop, and did some more cleaning up and out. I found a humidifier in the box. I could see it had been used but it wasn't old. So I took it home. after washing it and cleaning it with vinegar,  I used a magic eraser to clean out the hard water deposits. My grandmothers water is very high in iron so you can see the orange residue clearly. I got as much as I could out but when I ran it I could still smell the deposits. So I decided to add some lavender essential oil.

Within minutes the whole house smelled of lavender. When my husband came home from work he commented on how nice the house smelled (normally he calls the humidifier the stinky water machine).

When I refilled the other humidifiers I added a few drops of the essential oil to them as well. No more stinky water machines. The house smells fantastic and we have much needed humidity.

I'm sure with would work with whatever essential oil you prefer but, remember to get high quality pure oils and remember that they are very concentrated. Its better to go lighter and add more later than to overpower with scent.