Diffuser finder
We make three: a plug-in for one room, a system for a whole floor, and a stone for the places that have no socket. Two questions and we’ll point you at the right one — and the right size of oil to go in it.
Where will it live?
Think about the space you want to smell of something, not where the machine sits.
And how do you want it to feel?
Both machines run quietly on a schedule from your phone. The difference is reach.
All three are waterless. No water, no heat, no flame — the oil is atomised cold into a fine dry mist, so what you smell is the fragrance itself, not steam carrying a little of it. Coverage is quoted at a 3 m ceiling.
| The Wisp Mini | The Wisp Fragrance System | The Fragrance Stone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | One room | A whole floor, shop, salon, office or reception | Wardrobes, drawers, cars, desks |
| Coverage | 67–83 m² (200–250 m³) | 430–500 m² (1,300–1,500 m³) | A metre or two around it |
| Power | Plugs into a wall socket | Mains, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth | None |
| Control | Schedule and intensity from the Aroma-Link app (Bluetooth) | Schedule and intensity from the app over Wi-Fi, from anywhere | Add a few drops when it fades |
| Oil it holds | 130 ml bottle | 200 ml reservoir | 2–3 drops at a time |
| Oil use | About 1 ml per hour of active diffusion | 2.2–2.5 ml per hour of active diffusion | A 10 ml bottle is months of refills |
| Noise | 35 dB — quieter than a fridge | Quiet enough for a bedroom or a reception | Silent |
| Size | 118 × 69 × 152 mm | 180 × 70 × 200 mm | Palm-sized |
| Oil size to buy | 50 ml or 125 ml | 125 ml | 10 ml |
| Price | £30 | £160 | £12 |
| View the Mini | View the System | View the Stone |
Designed for a single room. It plugs into the wall, holds a 130 ml bottle, and will fill a bedroom, kitchen or living room up to around 80 m² — more than most rooms need, so you run it low and it lasts. If the door is open the scent drifts into the hall, but it isn’t built to carry a whole floor.
This is the hotel-lobby machine. The same cold-air technology scaled up: a 200 ml reservoir, Wi-Fi control and 430–500 m² of reach, which is a whole floor of a house with the doors open, a shop, a salon, a clinic, an office or a reception. If you want your home or your premises to smell the way a good hotel does when you walk in — the same strength, the same evenness, the same effect — this is the one that does it.
The Wisp Fragrance System · System + 125 ml oil as a set · For businesses · Wedding scent
A waterless diffuser atomises fragrance oil straight into the air without water, heat or a flame. A small pump pushes air through the oil and breaks it into a dry mist so fine it hangs in the room rather than falling out of it. Because nothing is diluted or heated, the scent is truer to the bottle, it reaches further, and there is no tank to empty or steam to leave on surfaces. Reed diffusers, ultrasonic “humidifier” diffusers, candles and wax melts all work differently; the Wisp Mini, the Fragrance System and the Fragrance Stone are all waterless.
No. A waterless diffuser needs a neat fragrance oil that has been formulated to atomise: thin enough to mist, with nothing in it that leaves a residue. Carrier oils such as coconut, almond or jojoba are far too thick and will clog the nozzle; reed-diffuser liquid is mostly solvent and is made to wick, not mist; candle and wax-melt fragrance oils are made to be bound in wax. Our 31 fragrance oils are made for cold-air atomisation and are what we test the machines with. Never add water to the oil, and never run anything flammable, corrosive or alcohol-based through the machine.
Oils sold specifically for waterless or cold-air diffusers, in plain refillable bottles. That is what ours are: hand-bottled in Nottingham, 10 ml, 50 ml and 125 ml, and sold as refills rather than sealed cartridges, so the running cost stays sensible. If you are choosing a scent rather than a machine, the fragrance finder narrows 31 oils down to three for the room you have in mind.
Some, but with care. Thin essential oils such as citrus, lavender and eucalyptus will usually atomise. Thick or resinous ones — vetiver, sandalwood, myrrh, benzoin, patchouli — are viscous enough to block a fine nozzle, and most essential oils are not designed to be inhaled at the concentration a cold-air machine delivers over hours. Our oils are blended for exactly that job and are the only ones we can promise will run cleanly in a Wisp. If you do try an essential oil in a waterless diffuser, use a thin one, run it short, and clean the nozzle with cleaning alcohol afterwards.
The best oil is one made for the machine and one you like living with. On the first point, use a neat fragrance oil for cold-air diffusion. On the second, think about where it will run: soft citrus and clean florals suit kitchens and daytime rooms; warm woods, amber and musk suit living rooms and evenings; something green and fresh suits a hallway or a bathroom. Every oil on our site says which rooms it is best in, and the fragrance finder will choose for you if you’d rather not.
Please don’t dilute anything. The usual recipes online — fragrance oil cut with water, alcohol, dipropylene glycol or a carrier oil — are for reed diffusers and sprays, and in a waterless machine they either refuse to atomise or coat the pump and nozzle. What you can safely do is blend: two of our oils poured into the same bottle will diffuse perfectly well, and it is how several customers arrive at a scent that is theirs. A drop of a woody oil in a citrus one is the classic.
It depends on the machine and how long it actually runs, because both of ours diffuse in short bursts rather than continuously. In the Wisp Mini a full 130 ml bottle gives roughly ninety days at about an hour and a half of active diffusion a day; a 50 ml refill lasts around a month, a 125 ml around three. The Fragrance System uses more oil to cover five times the space: its 200 ml reservoir is about ninety days at an hour a day, so a 50 ml bottle is around three weeks and a 125 ml about two months. On the Fragrance Stone, two or three drops last up to a week, and a 10 ml bottle is around two hundred drops.
They aren’t opposites. “Plug-in” describes the power, “waterless” describes the method, and the Wisp Mini is both: a plug-in waterless diffuser. What you are really choosing between is a plug-in for one room and a mains system with Wi-Fi for a whole floor — which is the question at the top of this page.
Tell us the space and we’ll tell you the machine, honestly — including when the cheaper one is the right one. Trade customers can ask for free scent samples for their premises.
