Best Essential Oil Diffuser – Waterless or Traditional?

It is SO nice to finally have a house that smells good! With two cats and a dirty dog, it feels like there’s always something stinky in the air. Everything is better now that I have an essential oil diffuser in my life. I got an Aennon waterless essential oil diffuser as a gift about a year ago, and it’s amazing, BUT it was very expensive (around $80) and it has broken a couple of times. The company has been great and shipped me new ones (TWICE)!  I recently got a press sample of the Everyone diffuser and the cruelty free Everyone Aromatherapy Blends Essential Oils. So I can compare them and give you an idea of what to expect when you buy either one.

Let’s start with the Aennon waterless essential oil diffuser. It doesn’t use water or heat. Instead it uses a nebulizer to disperse the essential oils into the air. It’s nice because you don’t have a water tank to refill (and you don’t have to worry about mold or mildew), and no heat (so it’s not dangerous around kids or pets) – you just screw the essential oil bottle into the device and it does the rest. However, only one size bottle will fit, so you either need to decant your essential oils into the bottle it comes with OR you can buy these Calily essential oils, which fit perfectly. They are a bit limited on types of scents though. Aennon also says that by not using water or heat, you maintain the “holistic and therapeutic properties of the essential oils.” That’s above my pay grade, so I can’t tell you if that’s legit or just marketing hype.

The Aennon diffuser is rechargeable so you can charge it up and then put it in any room of your house. Or you can leave it plugged in to the wall. One thing that I find kind of annoying is that you have to turn it off and back on to use it again after the automatic shut off happens. It wouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s hidden and it’s kind of hard to stick your fingernail in there. It took me a long time to figure out the controls. Basically there are three speeds – 30, 60 or 90 seconds on and 120 seconds off in-between. I always use the highest setting (90 seconds). The timer always confused me, but I finally figured out that you can choose from one to four hours of time. And if you keep pressing until NO TIME is highlighted, it keeps on going indefinitely.

As I mentioned, the machine did die on me twice in a little over a year, but the company was great and sent me new models each time at no cost (not even shipping). Overall, I love the diffuser, but it took some time to figure out (and it’s not cheap).

The Everyone Essential Oil Diffuser is a standard water-based diffuser. It’s considerably cheaper than the waterless option (currently $22.58 on Amazon) and the plastic parts do actually FEEL cheaper. It took me a few tries to get the water/oil reservoir to close properly and I did end up spilling water everywhere once. Once I figured out how it locked, it didn’t happen again. It looks nice though, and it has a really cool color option. The diffuser can be either a warm white, it can rotate through a spectrum of colors, or you can pause it at your favorite color. Not a feature I NEED, but it’s pretty cool, and gives off a really nice calming vibe. Or if you’re not into that (or you’re using it at night), you can turn the light off completely. It’s super quiet, and there are two scent options: a continuous stream of vapor or short 30 second bursts.

It’s not a chargeable device, so you do need to keep it plugged in to the wall (or to your computer via USB). I found that the plug is pretty hard to get in and out of the base (it plugs into the bottom of the unit), so when I need to add more water, I unplug the entire thing and bring the device and its plug to the sink to refill. It would be nice if the water reservoir was detachable. I guess the other option would be to bring a cup of water to the device and leave it plugged in – hopefully without getting water everywhere!

The Everyone Aromatherapy Blends are to die for! I’m seriously obsessed with these essential oil blends. They sent me Calm, Focus, Uplift, Balance and good ‘ole Lavender (one of my faves). They are really nice blends that everyone in the house will love. No matter what type of diffuser you have, you can use these babies. You can also use them to make your own DIY bath and beauty products. I put the Lavender oil in a glass sprayer bottle, and now when my dog, Riley, gets punished for being bad, he also smells amazing! (I’m very careful not to spray him in the face and careful not to use high concentrations of oils that could be dangerous to pets.) I also started using my lavender spray as a cruelty free, DIY Febreeze! I’ve been spraying it on my couch, the rugs, the drapes, the furniture – pretty much everywhere. I also read that spiders hate lavender, so I’ve been spraying it all around my bed like crazy. They’re probably just laughing at me, but it makes me feel safer and more spider-free anyway. 😀

Also – one more thing (this is an important one): I did notice that the Everyone diffuser called for a few drops of essential oils, but I needed to use A LOT more than that to get the same scent level as the waterless diffuser. I think that is one of the main differences between a water and waterless diffuser (nebulizer).

So, according to you, which is the best essential oil diffuser? Let me know in the comments below!

UPDATE: Many people have mentioned that you need to be very careful with essential oils if you have pets/kids. The diffusers will put the oils into the air and on furniture, skin, fur, etc. Tea tree oil, for example, can be harmful to some pets depending on the amount. So please do your research before deciding on which oils to use in your home.