Make an Artificial Tree Smell Real With Fir Oil

Scent the space around an artificial tree, not the tree. The common advice to dab oil on the branches puts a concentrated liquid on plastic needles and next to lit wiring, and the care guidance we could find from tree sellers points the other way. A fir needle oil can give a plastic tree the smell it lacks, but only if you give the oil somewhere else to sit. This article gives three placements, the arithmetic for how much oil you will use, and the honest limit: a light fir note fades fast, so refreshing it is part of the plan. We have not tried these placements; they are reasoned from the sources below.

Fir Needle Essential Oil bottle

Fir Needle Essential Oil

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What goes wrong when oil meets the tree

We looked for a tree manufacturer's statement on essential oils and found none. What we found is general. King of Christmas, a tree seller, says to avoid aerosol sprays or furniture polish on any part of an artificial tree because they can degrade branch materials over time, and to keep water, sprays and damp cloths off flocked branches, where water or cleaning chemicals can make the flocking clump, dissolve or lose adhesion (King of Christmas, tree care guide). That page says nothing about essential oils. Applying it to neat oil is our inference, and the inference is modest: if a polish or a spray can degrade the branch material, a concentrated terpene oil, is a worse bet on it, though that is reasoning and not a test. We have not tested what fir oil does to any plastic, and we will not claim a specific stain or crack. The cost of being wrong is a tree you paid for, so the advice stands on the downside alone.

The warranty angle is separate. A tree seller may decline a claim for damage from a substance its care guide tells you to avoid; we have not read your warranty. Read your tree's care page before you decide; if it names sprays or chemicals, treat a fir oil as one.

Lights, heat and a flammable liquid

The US Fire Administration cites NFPA for the statement that almost one-third of home Christmas tree fires are caused by electrical problems. Its tips: inspect lights every year before putting them up, discard strands with frayed or pinched wires, follow the maker's instructions on how many strands to connect, keep a tree at least 3 feet from heat sources such as fireplaces, radiators, space heaters, candles and heat vents, and keep candles at least 12 inches from anything that burns (US Fire Administration, holiday fire safety). King of Christmas adds that pre-lit trees should be checked for fraying, cracked insulation and exposed wire, and that lights should not be left on overnight or when the house is empty.

Put oil into that picture. Alpha-pinene, a monoterpene found in conifer oils, has a closed-cup flash point of 91 F (33 C), as recorded by the Hazardous Substances Data Bank citing the NFPA Fire Protection Guide and compiled by PubChem (compound 6654). Our published certificate of analysis has no flash point, so we cannot state one for our oil. We found no incident report linking fragrance oil to a tree light fire, so we are not claiming one. The reasoning is simple: a flammable liquid has no business on a branch that carries a warm bulb and a cord. Keep oil off the needles, off the light strand and off the plug end, and never on a tree that is plugged in and has just been dosed.

Three placements that keep the oil off the tree

Our fir needle oil is sold undiluted, so the amounts below are yours to adjust. They are our recommendations, not tested ratios.

  1. A dish at the base. Put 3 drops on a cotton ball or a few cotton pads in a small glass or ceramic dish. Place the dish on the floor or a side table beside the tree, at least 3 feet from any heater, and away from the light cords. The dish catches any drip and the oil never touches plastic. Keep it out of reach of pets and children.
  2. Pinecones or wood blocks in a bowl. Reasoning from the fact that oil is soaked up by a porous surface, unfinished pinecones or untreated wood blocks hold oil and release it slowly. Put 2 or 3 drops on each, in a bowl on a table beside the tree. We have no throw data. Put the bowl on a coaster, since oil can mark varnished wood.
  3. A felt ornament, loaded off the tree. Put 2 drops on a felt or unglazed clay ornament while it lies on a saucer, wait until no wet spot shows, then hang it near the tip of a branch away from the light wiring. This is the placement closest to the tree, and the one we like least, because a saturated ornament can drip. Load it lightly, hang it dry, and skip it if your tree is flocked or pre-lit.

What does not belong on this list: oil on the needles themselves, oil on the lights or cords, oil in a spray bottle used on the tree, and an essential oil diffuser pushed into the branches so that the nozzle touches the plastic. Each puts a concentrated liquid on a surface where the one tree seller we read says to avoid aerosols and polish.

How often, and how much oil that is

Our product description puts fir needle oil in the top-to-middle part of a fragrance, and our own copy says shelf life for conifer oils is typically one to two years. Reasoning from the volatility of its components (alpha-pinene boils at 156 C according to the Merck Index, 2006, as compiled by the same PubChem record), the scent is the kind that fades in days. We have no timing data, so the plan is to refresh and to let your nose decide. Say you refresh every three days over a five-week season:

ItemNumber
Refreshes in 35 days (every 3 days, rounded down)11
Placements (dish, bowl of pinecones, felt ornament, a second dish)4
Drops per placement per refresh3
Total dropsabout 132
Volume, at about 20 drops per mlabout 6.6 ml
Weight, at the certificate's relative density of 0.924about 6.1 g

The 20 drops per ml is derived from our skin-dilution copy (3 drops per ounce of carrier at 0.5%), not measured, and the density is from our published certificate (0.924 at 20 C). A 0.5 oz bottle holds about 14.8 ml, so one small bottle covers the whole season twice over with this plan. Reasoning from that, more drops at once is a worse answer than the same number of drops spread across more refreshes: the volatile fraction leaves quickly either way.

Pets, chewing and children

The ASPCA, in a June 2022 article, says concentrated (100%) essential oils can be a danger to dogs and cats that walk through them or have them put on them, lists unsteadiness, depression and low body temperature among signs in severe cases, and says exposures that are swallowed can cause vomiting and diarrhoea. It advises placing diffusers where pets cannot knock them over and avoiding essential oil diffusers in homes with birds (ASPCA, 2022). It does not mention Christmas trees; applying it here is our inference. A pet that chews an oil-loaded ornament or licks a dish is eating the concentrated oil, which is the case the ASPCA warns about. Our product pages say to keep the oil away from children and pets. If you have a cat or bird that goes for the tree, the right answer may be no oil near it at all; talk to a veterinarian. If an animal or child swallows oil, call a poison line, a veterinarian or a physician at once.

What the oil will not do

For other ways to scent the room without the tree, the Christmas tree scent article and the simmer pot article carry their own cautions.

A cotton ball in a dish beside the tree will do more for the room than anything on the branches, and it costs you three drops. Our fir needle oil starts at 0.5 oz, which is more than a season of refreshes needs.

Fir Needle Essential Oil bottle

Fir Needle Essential Oil

Fir Needle Essential Oil from our own shop, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.

From $10.99

Shop Now →

Sources & Further Reading