It is recommended that you store newly bought essential oils in a cool dry place. These products should not be exposed to direct, harsh sunlight and other heat and light sources. You may keep your essential oils in kitchen or bathroom cabinets. Yes. You may store your essential oils on a bookshelf, provided that it doesn’t get direct sunlight.
Chain Reaction
If you fail to remember this, your oils will begin to spoil much sooner than they should due to the action of them continually heating up and cooling down. Once the process of deterioration has begun it cannot be stopped, and like a chain-reaction, it gathers speed according to the intricate balance of the oils chemical constituents.
This is why dark colored glass bottles are used to package essential oils since they offer some protection to the oil from the sun’s harmful ultra-violet light. However, these simple house-keeping practices must still be observed if the bottles are to have any chance of doing their job properly. Leaving any oil, in any colored bottle, for any length of time in the sun is condemning it to an early death!
Here are some basic guidelines giving an indication as to the length of time a given oil should remain in good condition. Just remember these can only ever be basic guidelines and not firm, fixed periods after which the oil should be considered to have expired. There are simply too many variables for this to be considered an exact science.