Cilantro Oil Around Children: Storage Rules That Work

If there is one habit worth building around any essential oil, it is this: the bottle lives where a curious three-year-old cannot reach it. That is what the data from poison centers keeps pointing to, and it is why our shop guidance says to keep our oil away from children and pets.

Cilantro Essential Oil bottle

Cilantro Essential Oil

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The good news is that the fix is dull and easy. You do not need special gear, only a habit and a place.

What the poison-center numbers say

The biggest set of figures we found comes from a 2020 Medical Journal of Australia study of essential oil calls to the New South Wales Poisons Information Centre between 2014 and 2018. There were 4,412 exposures. Of those, 2,790 (63%) involved someone under 15, and 31% of callers already had symptoms when they phoned. The oils named most were eucalyptus, tea tree and lavender. Cilantro was not on the list, so this shows a pattern rather than a limit for our oil, but the pattern is clear enough: it is mostly small children and open bottles.

Poison Control adds a physiological reason for extra care: children have thin skin and immature livers, which might make them more susceptible than adults. Its advice for a home with young children is to consider discarding oils you do not need, and otherwise to keep them locked up, out of sight and reach of children and pets.

Babies and toddlers

We do not offer our oil for babies, and we have no dilution or diffusing figure for infants to give. The NHS Lanarkshire aromatherapy guideline, written for trained midwives, lists neonates among those for whom essential oils are not to be used. For anything involving a baby's skin or air, the person to ask is your pediatrician.

Toddlers are the group the poison-center figures are mostly about, because of what toddlers do: open things, taste things, carry things. A decanted blend in an unmarked roller bottle can look like a toy or a lip balm, so anything you pour off gets its own label and the same lock. We sell the oil by itself, so any roller, dropper or carrier comes from your own supplier and the labeling is yours to do.

Think about the little moments around a bottle: the unpacking day, the afternoon you leave it on the counter while you answer the door, the visitor who wanders into the craft room. Those moments are when bottles get picked up. Put it away the moment you are done, every time, and it becomes automatic.

School-age children and diffusers

For inhaled aromatherapy, Nationwide Children's Hospital says children under 10 should be helped by an adult, and that essential oils should not be taken by mouth. Poison Control notes that vaporizer products used as directed are usually fine because only a little oil goes into a large amount of water, while reed diffuser liquid, which is oil in rubbing alcohol, must stay out of children's reach.

In practice that points to the adult handling the bottle and the diffuser, every time. We have not found a time limit for any oil in children, and nothing speaks to cilantro leaf oil in particular, so we would keep sessions short and ask your child's physician first if anyone in the house has asthma. Our diffusing guide is written with adults in mind.

Teenagers and skin

Our own dilution guidance, 0.5% to 2% in a carrier oil, is an adult skin range, and we do not give a figure for young children. A teenager is closer to adult rules, which means a diluted oil, a patch test first (see our patch test guide), and the arithmetic in how to dilute cilantro essential oil. Because we sell the oil undiluted, someone has to do that dilution, and we would make that an adult's job.

If a teenager in your house is curious about scents, a nice compromise is to let them smell the oil on a paper strip with you, and talk through why it gets diluted. Curiosity about a bright, green scent is natural, and a shared sniff is a good time to show how the bottle is handled.

A storage routine that works without the child cooperating

  1. Keep the bottle in a locked box or a high cabinet with a latch, not on a bathroom shelf or nightstand.
  2. Label and lock any diluted blends, as above.
  3. Store the capped bottle somewhere cool and shaded, as we recommend, rather than by a window, a stove or in a car.
  4. Save the Poison Control number, 1-800-222-1222, in your phone before you need it.

A short note taped inside the cabinet door can help: the oil's name, the Poison Control number, and where the bottle goes. Anyone in the house who opens it will know the rules without asking.

If oil gets on a child's skin and a rash follows, Poison Control says to wash it off with soap and water, and that an allergic reaction with difficulty breathing is a medical emergency. For a swallow, call them straight away; our post on swallowing cilantro oil has the details. Homes with animals should also read our pets guide, and the general picture is in cilantro essential oil safety.

None of this is complicated, and all of it is easier before the first bottle arrives than after. Pick the spot first, then enjoy the oil.

Cilantro Essential Oil bottle

Cilantro Essential Oil

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

From $13.99

Shop Now →

Sources & Further Reading