Those of you who know me also know that I wouldn’t go anywhere without my oils. I simply use them everyday, for their skin benefits, their odors and even for cleaning the house.

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The oils I will be talking about here are the ones that work the best for and are the most important to me. Of course I had to sort them out and chose which ones to bring, considering the soaps, flower waters and other vegetable oils I already wanted to fit in my backpack.

Here is my final selection:

Tea tree: it is a very versatile oil. It has great antiseptic and disinfectant properties and can be used on scratches or even to clean door knobs or toilet seats when travelling.

Lavender: in addition to being relaxing and helping some people with headaches, it is miraculous on bug bites and sun burns.

Wintergreen: this anti-inflammatory oil needs to be applied with some vegetable oil and works well on sore muscles (it does have a strong smell). It will probably come in very handy after long hikes.

The others

Bringing three oils seems good enough to me, especially when all these seemingly small items start to add up quickly in a backpack. However, here are two others that might be worth tossing in your bag.

Peppermint: is said to be a good insect repellent and should also help with bug bites. Some people also love it for digestion issues, allergies and headaches. Unfortunately, I don’t find it very effective on me, even if I would prefer using essential oils over medicine for a headache!

Citronella: it is a classical insect repellent, especially mosquitoes. No matter how much of a fan of natural solutions I am, I am far from being convinced of its ability to keep mosquitoes away, unless if you cover your body with it, which is far from being healthy (Essential Oils are usually better applied locally, plus some like citronella are photosensitive, meaning you can’t be in the sun after using them).

I already attracted pleanty of mosquitoes in France, so I won’t hesitate using just a bit much more chemical products when in Asia (see our guide on vaccinations for South East Asia for more info on mosquitoes).

As far as transportation, you can easily find cases or wooden boxes online, especially on Etsy (I love shopping on amazon, but I also like to know that I can help small businesses. The only downside is that most of the cases offered are for 5, 10 and 15 ml bottles when I wanted to bring 30 ml bottles, doubting of the possibility to find essential oils (EO) anywhere.

Even if they can take some room in my backpack (not that much actually..!), I am so accustomed to using them that I couldn’t see myself leaving without them!

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