I did an experiment to see what products removed essential oil residue from painted drywall, factory pre-finished wood floors (UV-cured water-based polyurethane), and raw wood.
This protocol will apply to all-natural essential oils as well as products that contain essential oils like Benefect and other cleaners, diffusers, etc.
I used a number of mixes, first Lemon, Cinnamon Leaf, Rosemary, Clove Bud, and Eucalyptus for the first round of my test. It’s certainly a potent mix.
And in the last round, I used a Ylang-Ylang-based essential oil because I really hate this smell, I can pick it up in smaller amounts making my testing more accurate and more sensitive.
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Steps to Remediate Essential Oil Fragrance
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Step 1 Prep
If the area is large, and especially if this is on the walls, you will be doing a lot of washing of the walls so we need to protect the area from water.
Caulk around the trim, baseboards, and outlets with non-toxic caulking. Cover the outlets with tape and protect the floor with taped-down plastic.
Step 2 Degrease
Use TSP to wash down the walls. It works particularly well to remove fragrance.
It also is a de-glosser of your paint and flooring finishes so it will mar the surface of the paint/finish.
I used it in high concentrations on painted drywall, 1 part TSP to 3 parts water. I went over the area twice and then rinsed it off with water.
Be prepared to paint after using high concentrations of TSP as it can mar and discolor the paint and could also affect most floor finishes which you can’t repair easily.
(I couldn’t actually tell that the eggshell paint had any damage from what I did, however).
Alternative: If you can’t risk damaging the paint you can use a lower concentration of TSP or use a non-toxic industrial strength degreaser instead like Simple Green Crystal.
Step 3 Release Odor on Raw Wood
Spraying the area with alcohol (like rubbing alcohol or 95-100% ethanol like Everclear) helps release the essential oil odor.
This worked particularly well when the essential oil was on raw wood. It did not help when the oil was on drywall.
Step 5 Break Down the Fragrance
Enzymes
Earthworm Enzymes worked somewhat to break down the essential oils and their odors on the prefinished hardwood sample as well as the painted drywall sample.
I did not find anything that worked better than this.
It eliminated the remaining odor just about completely on the hardwood, mostly on the painted drywall and significantly on the raw wood. It didn’t work as well on raw wood.
Spray down the surface and leave it on for 1-3 days. You can respray it during that timeframe if you like.
Please note that oil-based hardwood finishes will be degraded by these and similar brands of enzymes.
I also tried concentrated lipase enzymes mixed into a paste (meant to break down fats), left on the wallboard and flooring sample for a few days, I misted it a few times to keep it wet. This may have helped but I think the Earthworm product on its own is enough.
Step 6 Optional: Paint/Seal
There are two options here.
The first is to paint with ECOS Air Purifying Paint which contains zeolite to absorb odors. This can certainly help quite a bit to noticeably reduce the fragrant odor.
The second strategy is to block the odor.
For this, we would use AFM Transitional Primer or BIN Shellac Primer (or even pure shellac for the extremely sensitive) which are a better block of odors than a regular primer. Followed by AFM Safecoat Paint.
Note: this step should only be done when you have cleaned up the odor as much as possible and it’s almost good enough for your standards. Once you paint you can’t go back to other strategies.
Also don’t use shellac/shellac-based primers on exterior walls if you use AC inside and live in a hot climate as it can cause a point of condensation.
Alternative Strategies
If the above has not worked well enough you can also implement the following:
- Time – essential oil odors go down with time without any intervention. It will go down significantly within the first few weeks and many essential oils will completely dissipate after a few months. (Citrus seems to be one of the most volatile but others can linger for a long time).
- Heat and air – speed up the natural breakdown of the fragrance by heating the home and airing it out at intervals. This is called a “bake-out” and this article has more details.
- PCO and/or ozone – some remediation companies can come in with photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) machines or PCO plus very low ozone. You can accomplish this yourself on a smaller scale by using Air Oasis Ionic Air which produces ozone and hydroxyl radicals (OH molecules from PCO) or a PCO-only air purifier like Molekule. You would want to move the machines around the room, moving them as close to the source as possible since OH molecules do not travel very far at all. Ozone can create byproducts like formaldehyde when breaking down some essential oils and can often go very wrong in creating terrible byproducts. I would never use ozone myself again but I would use PCO.
Products That Didn’t Work For Me
EnviroKlenze Everyday Odor Eliminator was applied at full strength and left on for a few days then reapplied and left it on for a few more days. This definitely helped somewhat, though they no longer make this product and it didn’t work as well as enzymes.
Oxidation with liquid products – We can use various products to oxidize the fragrance residue – chlorine dioxide, sodium carbonate peroxide, HOCL, or hydrogen peroxide. I used Closys Mouthwash (unflavored) which contains chlorine dioxide on the painted drywall – it was not a significant help. I also tried hydrogen peroxide which did not work.
Hydrogen Peroxide – The 12% formula caused the paint to bubble up. However, 3% hydrogen peroxide did not have much of an effect at all on the essential oils and it can often create a weird oxidation odor when mixed with essential oils. I would not recommend this.
Ammonia – I tried ammonia to wipe down the drywall sample that was fragranced with essential oils (essential oils had been on the drywall for weeks and I also applied fresh essential oil to get both dried and fresh samples on the drywall).
I diluted it 10 parts to one which was still very, very strong. Even though I’m not chemically sensitive anymore I have a higher sense of smell than most people and this was incredibly strong to mix even at the 10:1 dilution.
No one sensitive should mix this, use even the diluted formula themselves, or be in the home when this is being used to wash the walls.
Perhaps I could have tried an even more diluted formula like 20:1, but I did not try that.
However, it did not work to remove the essential oil smell at all.
Oil Cleanser – I tried using an unscented oil cleanser (meant for the face) as I thought it might help break down the oils. It did not work at all.
Glycerin – Even though thymol/Benefect dissolves into glycerin soap (source, source), this didn’t work in my experiments.
Vinegar – Other sensitive folks have also reported that vinegar doesn’t work to break down essential oils. I used a generous amount of vinegar followed by a little bit of dish soap.
Application to Other Surfaces
Some of these steps can be used on clothing and other textiles like carpets, rugs, and drapes. If you can wash it by hand you can start with dish soap to degrease then spray on the enzymes.
TSP can also be used on most clothing. For more detailed protocols to remove fragrance from clothing see this post.
If it can’t be washed by hand, you can have your carpets or upholstery cleaned with a non-toxic soap, then use enzymes.
Corinne Segura is an InterNACHI-certified Healthy Homes Inspector with certifications in Building Biology, Healthier Materials and Sustainable Buildings, and more. She has 10 years of experience helping others create healthy homes. You can book a consult here.
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