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If you’ve spent any time learning about essential oils, you’ve probably realized that it can be easy to accumulate a large collection of little bottles rather quickly.
Most major essential oil brands produce dozens of single origin oils, blends, and rollers designed to cater to all kinds of needs and use cases. Once you incorporate essential oils into one aspect of your routine, it becomes easy to start imaging other uses.
Pretty soon, you can find yourself with more little essential oil bottles than you know what to do with. If you don’t have a system for keeping things tidy and organized, managing all of these bottles can quickly become a nightmare.
If you’re anything like I am, your anxiety builds at the same rate as clutter in the house. After a certain point, the essential oil bottles begin to undo the calming, soothing effect that their contents have on my mood.
Thankfully there are no shortage of storage options available for presenting, protecting, and organizing your ever-growing collection of EOs. We’ve researched and tested a wide selection of essential oil shelves, racks, organizers, and cases and have compiled here our top picks here.
Top 3 Essential Oil Racks & Shelves
If you want to display your essential oils in your home, you’ll want to pick an essential oil rack or shelf. Here are our favorites.
TJ.Moree Essential Oil Carousel
- Stores 11 bottles up to 20ml
- Turntable design for quick and easy rotation
- Fixed upper tray to hold diffuser or larger bottles
- Made from high quality natural bamboo
The TJ.Moree Carousel is one of our favorite essential oil display racks. Its small footprint—just 7”x7”—allows it to fit almost anywhere, and its convenient turntable design makes it easy to access all oils from any angle or vantage point.
Of course, the real star of the show is the fixed display tray that rises up from the carousel’s center point. It’s perfectly sized to fit most home essential oil diffusers. This space can also be used to hold larger-sized bottles that won’t fit in the 20ml turntable placements.
This flexibility along with its modern aesthetic and practical design make the TJ.Moree Carousel an outstanding option for anyone who wants a clean way to store and access their oils in their home.
Liantral Wall-Mounted Essential Oil Rack
- Stores 30 bottles up to 30ml
- Bottles held in place via rounded trenches in shelves
- Wall-mountable to keep out of reach of children
- No visible screws or brackets
- Made from high quality natural wood
The Liantral Wall Rack is a simple, classic display rack that fits easily with a range of home decor. The simple, two-screw installation makes mounting easy and gives the rack a stunning “floating” effect.
Each shelf has a rounded trench about 2-3cm deep to help hold bottles in place. While this design isn’t as secure as the rounded single bottle slots you more commonly see in essential oil racks, the lack of individual slots gives you the freedom to decorate with other items such as small plants or figurines.
Finally, we are big fans of wall-mounted units in general because they can be placed high enough such that they’re out of the reach of most pets and small children.
Terby Essential Oil Desk Organizer
- Stores 45 bottles up to 20ml
- Shelves can be removed and used as trays
- Bonus bottom drawer for accessories
- Made from high quality natural wood
The Terby Desk Organizer is the highest-capacity essential oil rack we recommend. Its design is minimal and not opinionated, ensuring it will stay in style for the long haul. It also comes in one of three tasteful color options to best match your home’s decor: natural brown, natural wood, and olive green.
The shelves can be removed and become lightweight “trays” that you can carry around the house with you. This can become very convenient if you have a set of oils you use in a certain part of the house or a certain time of day.
Our only complaint about the shelves is that the essential oil slots are a little shallow and still require a careful hand to keep them from falling out if you’re carrying them around the house with you. If they had made the slots just a quarter of an inch deeper, they would feel a lot more secure.
The drawer underneath is also very convenient for holding loose odds and ends you don’t want cluttering up your desk or tabletop.
Top 3 Essential Oil Organizers & Cases
Essential oil organizers and cases are ideal for people with larger collections who are concerned about light and temperature exposure.
If you like to bring your essential oils along with you while traveling, smaller, travel-sized cases are also great options for protecting your EOs on the move.
A Note On Bottle Cap Stickers
You’ll notice organizers in this category generally store bottles side-by-side in individual tubes or squares. This configuration makes it hard (if not impossible) to see the bottle label without removing each bottle entirely.
Some brands (such as Rocky Mountain Oils) ship every essential oil bottle with a bottle cap sticker denoting its contents. This makes it much easier to tell which bottle is which from the top down.
If your bottle caps aren’t already labeled, most of these recommendations will come with a sheet of pre-labeled bottle cap stickers for all of the most common essential oils.
If and when you run through these and want to get more, we highly recommend Outus Essential Oil Bottle Cap stickers. A pack of 10 sheets (almost 2,000 stickers) costs just $10.99 and is enough to last you through 10 replacement cycles of each one of your essential oils.
Soothing Wellness Essentials Mammoth Essential Oil Case
- Stores 208 bottles up to 15ml
- Includes 384 stickers, 30 pipettes, and 6 funnels
- Two large accessories pockets in top panel
- Hard-shell case with handle for transporation
- Shock resistant interior padding
Soothing Wellness Essentials’ Mammoth Case is, well, huge. With 208, 15ml-sized bottle slots, even the most avid collector of essential oils will find a hard time filling this up.
The Mammoth case is built with sturdy materials and a strong double-zipper design, so you have the peace of mind to store it anywhere without worrying about rupture.
At just 3.9” tall, it’s the perfect height to slide underneath your bed or slip onto a high pantry shelf—really, wherever you can find the space. It can even be stored on its side.
It zips completely shut to block out all potential sunlight and its padded shell helps absorb external changes in temperature.
Despite its carrying handle and shock-resistant padding, this case is not intended to be used as a travel case. And to be honest, it’s a rare person who needs to bring 208 bottles of essential oils with them while they travel anyway. If you’re looking for a travel case, check out some of our smaller form factor recommendations below.
Beschan Essential Oil Carrying Case
- Stores 42 bottles up to 20ml and 6 roller bottles
- Includes 4 sticker sheets, 4 droppers, 1 bottle wrench
- 3 bottle slot sizes for snug fit while carrying
- Two large accessories pockets in top panel
- Hard-shell case with travel handle
- Also includes bonus decorative keychain
If you need an all-around essential oil organizer that you can take with you to travel, look no further than the Beschan Essential Oil Carrying Case.
The Beschan has storage for up to 42 bottles ranging in size from 5ml to 20ml. There are three different sizes of bottle slots to ensure that every bottle fits snugly and doesn’t bounce around when carrying it on its side. The top also includes a removable buffer layer with space for 6 roll-on bottles and two accessories pockets.
High-quality construction with an above-average capacity makes it a great travel case for any EO enthusiast.
Hipiwe Compact Essential Oil Travel Case
- Stores 12 standard or roller bottles up to 10ml
- Elastic straps keep oils snugly in their places
- Neoprene divider keeps bottles from touching eachother
- Compact, hard-shell design fits easily in luggage
- Avaialble in Black, Blue, Pink, and Purple
The Hipiwe Travel Case is lightweight, compact, and high quality. Of all the cases on this list, the Hipiwe is our favorite for its (relatively) high capacity and small size.
You won’t find extra accessory pockets or other bells and whistles here. The Hipiwe is built with the singular focus of protecting your essential oils on the go, and it does that very, very well.
The combination of the elastic strap restraints and the neoprene divider provides outstanding protection against pressure and sudden impact. You can throw it into a suitcase or purse and rest easy knowing your oils will be safely restrained in the places you left them.
We also love that the Hipiwe is designed to support roll-on bottles in addition to standard-sized bottles. Roller bottles tend to be taller and thinner than standard bottles, and the Hipiwe’s elastics fit them just as snugly as they do shorter bottles.
And for just $10.99, it’s hard to imagine a better price for so much value.
Key Buying Considerations
Space
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when beginning the search for a great essential oil shelf or organizer. But it’s important never to purchase an essential oil organizer—or really any product for your home, for that matter—without doing some planning first. Consider:
- Where you want to store your essential oils
- How many essential oils you want to store
- How much space you have to work with
- Whether pets or children can easily access the oils
- How often you need to access your essential oils (Note: The answer may be different depending on the oil.)
Pick a place near your diffuser or the place you plan to use your essential oils most often. Ideally, you want to pick a place that never gets direct sunlight and can be counted on to stay a steady (and low) temperature throughout the day.
Display vs. Storage
You’ll also want to consider what is more important to you: display or storage? Here’s what we mean by that.
Display-oriented solutions (like essential oil racks and essential oil shelves) come in a much wider variety of form factors so that they can fit more easily into the decor of your room.
Storage options in this category work best for people who:
- Want to display their essential oils to family and guests
- Have a place to present them that doesn’t expose the oils to sunlight or extreme temperatures
- Don’t have too many essential oil bottles to keep track of (1-2 dozen)
- Don’t need to travel with their essential oils
- Have only one or two brands of essential oils in their collection (too many different styles of bottle labels can appear cluttered)
Storage-oriented solutions (like essential oil cases and essential oil organizers) allow you to store any number of oils and provide the best protection against sunlight and extreme temperatures.
Storage options in this category work best for people who:
- Have a lot of essential oils bottles (i.e. more than 2 dozen)
- Mostly have standard 5 ml to 30 ml-sized essential oil bottles
- Don’t have space or desire to display their essential oils in their home
- Use many different kinds of essential oils on a regular basis (and therefore need quick organization access
- Don’t mind having to re-label bottles with cap stickers to denote their contents
- Need to travel with their essential oils and want to make sure they stay protected on the journey
How to Store Essential Oils
As you embark on your essential oil storage journey, it’s important to know a thing or two about how to store them in a way that is safe and protects the EOs from damage.
When properly kept and cared for, essential oils can last up to 3 years before their aromas and benefits begin to diminish. (This is shorter for citrus-based oils such as lemon, sweet orange, etc.)
But too much heat, sunlight, or oxygen could turn 3 years into 3 months or even 3 days, in extreme conditions.
Rule #1: Avoid Heat and Sunlight
Most issues with diminished oil quality can be solved by following this simple rule: Keep your oils somewhere dark, cool, and well-regulated.
Essential oils are made up of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), special chemicals that are highly sensitive temperature changes and ultraviolet radiation.
This means, excessive heat, changes in temperature, and sunlight will all result in the increasingly rapid degeneration of your essential oils.
We recommend keeping your essential oils in closed cases, drawers, or cupboards where they won’t have direct access to sunlight.
It’s also important to make sure this place is one that won’t experience dramatic changes in temperature. So avoid storing them in kitchens or rooms with lots of sun exposure that tend to get very hot or very cool throughout the day.
Rule #2: Minimize Exposure to Oxygen
Another property of VOCs is that they have a much higher than normal vapor pressure at room temperature. This causes them to evaporate much more quickly than your average household substance.
They are also more prone to releasing their essential elements into the air, a fact you probably already knew if you’ve ever opened an essential oil bottle and smelled its aroma from across the room.
Here are a few tips to help you reduce your essential oils’ exposure to oxygen during storage:
Tip #1: Close and tighten bottle lids as soon as you’re done with them. Never leave an essential oil bottle sitting with its cap off or loosely in place. Making sure your lids are tightened will not only preserve the properties of the oil inside, but it will also help prevent evaporation.
Tip #2: As you use your essential oils, try to be mindful of how much remains in the bottle. If it’s less than half, consider transferring the remaining oil to a smaller bottle that’s sized more appropriately for the amount of oil you have. While this won’t help reduce the risk of evaporation, it will aid in protecting the beneficial properties of your oils by reducing the amount of oxygen in the bottle with them.
Note that this tip is mainly to be considered when dealing with larger EO bottles in the 2+ ounce range (like Whole Foods’ fantastic 365-brand essential oils). Transferring oils out of bottles any smaller than 30 ml is probably overkill.
Rule #3: Never Use Clear or Plastic Bottles
There is a reason essential oils come (for the most part) in dark amber glass bottles. In fact, there are 2:
- the dark color of the glass helps protect the oil from sunlight (see Rule #1 above), and
- glass is a material strong enough to hold volatile substances like essential oils without eroding or mixing with its chemistry.
You may encounter essential oils packaged in plastic bottles, clear glass bottles, or (worst of all worlds) clear plastic bottles. Run from these bottles as fast as possible.
Plastics erode easily when exposed to volatile compounds like essential oils. Not only that, as the plastic breaks down, molecular compounds from the plastic can mix with the essential oil itself, making your oils less pure and potentially toxic when used topically.
The same goes for using screw on eye droppers as lids. Even if you’re using a glass dropper, the rubberized bulb will break down quickly if sitting atop a bottle of essential oils. And the last thing you want to sense is a hint of rubber in your lemon oil.
We also recommend never removing the reducer caps from your EO bottles. Reducer caps are the little inserts at the mouth of essential oil bottles that release the oil one drop at a time rather than all at once. These do a great job at sealing in the oil and sealing out the air and other contaminants.
Rule #4: Use Your Fridge for Long-Term Storage
You may have heard of people storing their essential oils in the refrigerator to help preserve and extend their lives.
Guess what: It’s true! It works! The fridge is a great place to keep your essential oils, as it is the one place in every home that is dark, cool, and steady with regard to temperature.
We recommend only using the fridge for oils that you don’t plan to use very often (e.g. a few times a year). That’s because at cooler temperatures essential oils tend to congeal and become gelatinous. This change in consistency doesn’t damage the chemical properties of your oils—to the contrary, it actually helps preserve their properties—but it does make them harder to work with right away.
When using an essential oil that’s been stored in the fridge, we recommend letting it sit at room temperature for about 12 hours to allow it to return to its natural consistency.
It should go without saying that you should never apply heat to essential oils to speed up the process.
Rule #5: Keep Away from Pets and Humans
Always keep your essential oils in a place where they can’t easily be accessed by pets, children, or uninitiated adults in your home who don’t understand the highly concentrated, volatile nature of essential oils.
Essential oils can be toxic if accidentally ingested and can cause major allergic skin reactions if applied without having been diluted in a carrier oil or some other substance.
Final Thoughts
It’s great that you’re thinking about essential oil storage at this point in your journey. Essential oils can have a powerfully positive impact on your life, but only if take the effort to care for them and store them properly.
No matter which solution you end up going with, I hope you found this guide to be helpful in your research and decision-making. As always, I’d love to hear in the comments what essential oil organizers, racks, cases, and shelves. Let me know what works for you!
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