My family and I recently overcame a long bout with an irritating cough. It was miserable, but thankfully, we had some natural options to help us through.
We use honey onion syrup as well as a steam vaporizer to help calm our coughing every night.
As I mentioned in my article on using steam vaporizers for cough and congestion, you have several options to boost their effects, one of which is using essential oils.
This time around, we placed some essential oils straight into the medicine cup, and you could definitely smell them. However, my vaporizer also had a place to insert menthol pads, which also helped to get that smell into the air. This got me curious. Do these things actually work to help one breathe better, and what’s in the store-bought variety?
Like most store-bought things, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the ingredients in them, and I knew I could make them cheaper and healthier on my own. So today, I’m going to show you how to make your own DIY menthol pads for your steam vaporizers and let you in on how menthol works to help you breathe better.
How To Make DIY Menthol Pads For Steam Vaporizers
First, you’ll need the following:
- 100% wool felt
- Scissors
- Carrier oil – I used sunflower oil, but any will work
- Essential oils – I used eucalyptus oil and camphor oil, but rosemary and peppermint contain menthol too. Sniffle Stopper and Germ Destroyer are my favorite kid-friendly blends.
- Jar to hold menthol pads
Cut a 1-inch strip from the side of the felt. Next, cut each strip into 2-inch sections. You should get around 4 pads from each strip of felt you cut and they should each roughly measure 1×2 inches.
Find a small bowl and add 2 teaspoons of your carrier oil to it. I used sunflower oil in mine.
Next, add the essential oils of your choice to your carrier oil. The amount isn’t critical, just so long as it smells nice and strong. The amount of essential oil to carrier oil is much higher than you’d use if you were putting this on your skin. Its sole purpose is to be strong for aromatic purposes only. It’s not for topical use.
For adults, a nice blend is 10 drops of eucalyptus and 20 drops of camphor essential oils. Peppermint and rosemary are lovely, but you can do whatever you like. If using these for your children, remember their ages and use appropriate kid-safe oils. This one and this one are my favorites!
Lastly, put your pads into your oil mixture and allow them to absorb the oils. I got 4 pads loaded with the amount of oil I made, which was more than enough to get us through one night.
You could always make more and store them in your glass jar until you need them, but I wouldn’t recommend storing them in anything plastic as essential oils tend to react to plastics.
You can dispose of the pads after each use or reuse them if you’d like. It’s up to you. The great thing about this is that these pads are simple and easy to make, so you can make them whenever you need them.
How Does This Help?
I wondered this same thing because there’s a lot of speculation out there over whether or not menthol opens the sinuses and helps one breath better. It’s known to cool the skin and ease itching and pain, but does it open the sinuses when a person is congested?
Unfortunately, there’s no hard evidence to say it helps open the sinuses, but people report it works. Some medical professionals report that it makes you feel like you can breathe better because it cools the skin. I don’t know. All I know is that I want my vaporizer and some menthol when I’m congested. It can be a vapor rub, menthol in the medicine cup or water, or these handy little menthol pads. No matter, if I feel I can breathe better, I’m a happy camper!