Essential oils are all the rage, and CBD oil is another natural product that’s also receiving acclaim for its many benefits. It’s reasonable to entertain the idea of combining CBD oil with other plant extracts in a diffuser, but in practice, is a CBD oil diffuser a pipe dream or a legitimate holistic health tool?
In the end, we think you’ll find it’s best to enjoy aromatherapy and cannabinoids separately. Learn everything you need to know about evaporative diffusers and industrial hemp to discover if CBD oil diffusers are worth your time.
What Is Oil Diffusion?
Oil diffusion is the practice of dispersing aromatic oils into the air. In most cases, water infused with aromatic oils is vaporized using heat or sound, producing a mist that is then directed through a spout. Aromatherapeutic oil diffusion is believed to have various benefits, and scientific research has found that aromatherapy may reduce stress.
How Does Oil Diffusion Work?
Oil diffusers work by converting liquid essential oils into a mist or gas that is carried in the air. The most common type of essential oil diffuser on the market, the ultrasonic diffuser, uses electricity to stimulate a pair of ultrasonic plates, which excite oil-infused water molecules until they become mist. The mist then passes out of the diffuser and disperses throughout the environment.
What Are the Therapeutic Benefits of Diffused Essential Oils?
Many essential oils are believed to have therapeutic properties, and some of these natural substances may offer enhanced benefits when allowed to disperse as a fine mist throughout your room. Whether it’s bergamot, mint, or blood orange, various botanical extracts are believed to have aromatherapeutic properties, with prominent examples including:
- Peppermint: Believed to boost energy, improve respiratory health, and soothe the muscles
- Eucalyptus: May help with sore throat and coughing
- Citrus: Used for mood and relaxation
What Are the Best Essential Oils for Restful Sleep?
Whether you’ve been relying on cannabidiol isolate sleep gummies or chasing after a good night’s sleep any other way, it’s reasonable to wonder which essential oils people most commonly use to get to sleep at night. Some of the most acclaimed options include:
- Lavender Oil
- Chamomile Oil
- Bergamot Oil
- Sandalwood Oil
- Marjoram Oil
What Types of Oil Diffusers Are There?
There are four types of essential oil diffusers available on the market, but ultrasonic diffusers and nebulizers are the most popular.
- Ultrasonic Diffusers: These widespread diffusers use ultrasonic vibrations to evaporate essential oils in water
- Heat Diffusers: Heat diffusers raise the temperature of essential oils until they evaporate, but they don’t provide great results
- Evaporative Diffusers: Some diffusers cause liquid to evaporate into a mist that is then blown out by a fan
- Nebulizing Diffusers: Nebulizers condense liquid into a mist that is then forced out of the device using air pressure
Can I Diffuse CBD Oil?
Ultimately, diffusing CBD oil will just waste time and cannabinoids. Here’s why.
Aromatic oils, like cedarwood oil, still provide their primary effect — smelling good — even when they’re only present in the air in tiny concentrations. Bioactive substances like CBD, however, need to be ingested in higher concentrations to be effective.
Combined with an essential oil blend or poured into a diffuser on its own, CBD will be wasted as tiny concentrations of this cannabinoid spread into every corner of your home. Whether you’re using CBD isolate for sleep or full-spectrum CBD for pain, aromatherapy isn’t the way to get it done.
Can You Put CBD Oil in a Diffuser?
Is there such a thing as CBD diffuser oil? No, diffusing is not a viable way to use cannabis of any type, regardless of whether it’s third-party tested or grown in a GMP-compliant facility. Diffusing essential oils may have health benefits, but putting CBD oil in a diffuser would almost always be useless or dangerous.
Can You Use Nebulizing Diffusers to Vape CBD?
Yes, it’s technically possible to use a nebulizer to vape cannabinoid extracts. However, the type of CBD oil commonly sold online is not safe to vape. CBD does not have psychoactive effects even if you vape it, but the carrier oils present in oil-based tinctures can cause lipoid pneumonia, a potentially fatal lung condition.
Nebulizing forces high-enough concentrations of CBD oil into your lungs to be potentially dangerous. It is vital to only vape cannabis products specifically labeled as being designed for vaping, and it may simply be best to avoid vaping cannabinoids.
Are There Benefits to Diffusing CBD Oil?
If you were able to set up a hemp oil diffuser, would this even be a good way to experience the benefits of CBD? Unfortunately, diffusing CBD or any other type of cannabis extract appears to be completely devoid of significant benefits. While the energizing scents of essential oils might be able to help with mood, throwing CBD into the mix would be far from a harmonious combination.
Is There Any Way to Make a CBD Oil Diffuser Work?
If you can’t buy CBD oil for a diffuser, is there a way you could make your own? There are certainly ways to inhale both THC-free and intoxicating forms of cannabis extract, but diffusing just isn’t one of them.
Cannabinoids simply aren’t substances that should be diffused. They work best when they are applied in concentrated forms. Think about how CBD oil and lavender essential oil each rose to national prominence; for instance — cannabinoids have always been promoted in concentrated products, while essential oils are primarily used for the aromatic benefits they offer when dispersed through an indoor space.
As long as you avoid obvious mistakes, you could probably come up with a dozen different CBD oil diffusers that would get cannabinoids into the air to mingle with ambient essential oils. There’s no reason to do so, however, and following through with such a plan could endanger your health.
Can You Diffuse Cannabis for the Smell?
If you’re doing it for the aroma and don’t care about any other potential therapeutic benefits, there’s no reason you shouldn’t diffuse cannabis extract just for the smell. High-quality cannabinoid extracts contain significant concentrations of terpenes, the same substances that make an essential oil blend smell great.
It’s important always to avoid vaporizing any form of CBD product that contains a carrier oil or any other non-hemp ingredients. You may want to purchase terpenes on their own to achieve the desired effect at a lower price and with less risk involved.
The Bottom Line: Is CBD Essential Oil Dangerous?
Can you diffuse CBD oil, or could doing so endanger your health? If you’re searching for the potential benefits that sweet citrus scents, peppermint, or eucalyptus might provide, give an ultrasonic or fan diffuser a shot. Regardless of its potential usefulness for chronic pain or other conditions, allowing CBD to disperse throughout your home as a vapor is not the way to go.
You can heat pure cannabinoid extracts into an inhalable vapor, but that’s very different from the type of steam produced by aromatherapy gadgets. Plus, there’s considerable concern that vaping of all types could be hazardous to public health without offering benefits that other ingestion methods don’t.
If you’re looking for a way to stay invigorated or fall asleep, there are many different natural scent molecules you can release into your environment to help. When it’s time to relax with the benefits of CBD, however, stick to conventional approaches like tinctures, gummies, or capsules.
