Following the success of my first lavender oil distillation, I had a luxury problem. How to store bottles of essential oil so they stay good without falling over? Properly sealed and in the dark, essential oils keep for a long time. I thought I had stored my essential oil well, but it turned out that some bottles had fallen over and where slowly emptying. So I needed a essential oil storage system.
There are beautiful wooden boxes for sale or fabric cases with compartments. But stuff is high on the list of environmental pollution. This weekend, I thought I would make something myself from materials I already have.
How to keep the bottles upright?
The tricky thing was how to keep the bottles upright. Until my husband came up with this idea, elastic. It is used in ICT to separate small materials and it works. Incredibly well, in fact. Any sealable container or pouch is suddenly good enough to hold your essential oil upright.

I had a piece of about 1.5 metres of white elastic that was 2 cm wide. I folded the elastic in two and sewed it shut every 2.5 cm. In it fits exactly a bottle of essential oil of 3 mm. You can make the seam at different distances so that you can store different sizes of bottles.
The bottles go in and out easily, but stay in place. You get a train of bottles that will not fall over and can be stored in any container or box. Use black elastic and the tray itself does not even have to be dark.

Essential oil storage system you can change whenever you want
You can extend the essential oil storage system with a new piece of elastic or take several separate pieces to store different types of oil or different sizes. If the tray becomes too small, just take out the essential oil storage system and put it in another tray. You can also put them on top of each other. In short: a sustainable solution that I am very happy with.
See how to make your own essential oils and soap
What do you think of this storage system? Or do you have a better idea? Let me know. You can give your response below.