How to Dilute Essential Oils for Hair Growth: A Complete Guide

If you’ve been searching for natural ways to regrow your hair, you’ve probably also come across these two words over and over – essential oils.

As many of you already know, essential oils are extremely popular for various uses from healing certain symptoms to enhancing relaxation.

Here, we will focus on how to use essential oils properly for stimulating hair growth.

We will provide a comprehensive guide on everything you need to know in order to make your own DIY hair growth oil mixture safely and effectively.

First, let’s talk about why you will want to dilute essential oils.

Why do I need to dilute essential oils?

One word: Safety.

According to Robert Tisserand, the industry expert of essential oils for decades, there are several reasons of why diluting essential oils is THE crucial step.

It helps prevent adverse skin reactions

Essential oils are very potent / condensed versions, so they can cause various inflammatory reactions to your skin, including everything from irritation to long-term sensitization when applied directly without any dilution.

It helps from systemic toxicity

Tisserand also notes that the direct application of an essential oil can also lead to systemic toxicities including fetotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, carcinogenicity and neurotoxicity. To make matters worse, unlike skin reactions which you can easily see, systemic toxicity responses are often internal, thus hard to observe such negative effects for a long period of time.

It helps with better absorption

While you may think that the direct application of essential oil increases potency of that natural compound, Tisserand notes that your skin actually does not need more than ~5% of an essential oil. Also, the oil can quickly evaporate and dry the skin, which may then be followed by undesirable skin reactions.

How to dilute essential oils for hair loss

In order to dilute essential oils, carrier oils are almost always used as base oils for topical application onto the scalp.

There are various essential oil dilution charts out there.

Here, we used a combination of reliable sources (Robert Tisserand and a variety of books) to come up with an average measure and to ensure the dilution safety.

An example: Diluting tea tree oil at 3% concentration

Let’s say you want to know how to dilute tea tree oil to a 3% concentration.

First, you will need to pick a carrier oil (aka base oil), which will be used to dilute the tea tree oil.

Here, we will pick olive oil. So, now you have

• Essential oil: Tea tree oil
• Carrier oil: Olive oil

Before you start mixing them together, you will then need to decide how much you will make. Here, we will make 30ml (= 1 oz).

Now, looking at the table above, creating a dilution of 30ml of carrier oil and 3% essential oil requires 18 drops of essential oil.

• Essential oil: Tea tree oil → 18 drops
• Carrier oil: Olive oil → 30 ml

Add each of them into an empty glass bottle (preferably with a dropper like this one for easy application onto the scalp) and gently shake it to blend the oils together.

Important note on essential oil dilution for hair growth

Among research studies, 3-5% is the most common essential oil dilution ratio for the use of inducing hair regrowth.

However, as there is no official dilution guideline, a 3% essential oil mix used in one research may be slightly different than 3% in another study since it will depend on which chart the researchers were referring to (and as you may expect, most studies do not give out that much detail).

Also, keep in mind that a “drop” is not an exact measurement. It will slightly differ based on the oil viscosity and the size of the dropper in your bottle.

Then what should I do?

Well, unless a hair growth study you are looking at specifies an exact measurement of essential oil (ml, etc) used in the experiment, slight differentiation for making a small batch for personal use is inevitable and shouldn’t make much difference.

What are the best essential and carrier oils for reversing hair loss?

Here are some of our suggested essential oils and carrier oils to start with for the purpose of stopping thinning hair and stimulating regrowth.

These oils are based on research studies and you can read more about them by clicking each oil below.

Essential oils

• Rosemary oil
• Peppermint oil
• Lavender oil
• Tea tree oil (for dandruff and scalp dermatitis)

Carrier oils

• Grapeseed oil
• Olive oil
• Coconut oil
• Castor oil
• Pumpkin seed oil

If you are not sure where to start, check out our hair growth recipes here.

Do a quick skin patch test before applying onto the scalp

Once you make your own hair growth oil mixture, you can go one step further and perform a skin patch test to ensure the safety.

While a skin patch test is not always 100% accurate, it should still give you a good way to determine if you have any allergic skin reactions to certain essential oils.

1. Apply a couple of drops of the diluted mixture under your arm (inner forearm)
2. Put a bandage on top
3. Leave it for 24-48 hours (do not get it wet)
4. If you feel any reactions, wash the area
5. Otherwise, the oil is likely safe to be applied onto the scalp.

Which oils do you use in your hair growth mix? Share your recipe in the comments!