This trend has been all over my Instagram feed for months before I decided to give it a try. First off, this is strictly my experience on hanging eucalyptus vs. lavender. There are benefits to having plants in your bathroom in general, which is the next topic I am going to be looking into.

Eucalyptus was the first of the two I decided to try. It is known for its soothing properties and helps with congestion and inflammation. For $2.99 at Trader Joe’s, I decided to give it a chance. It was pretty easy to hang up all you need is a rubber band. Now I had this up for about a week and a half, and I can say that I feel like this does work pretty well. In the first 1-2 days, I could smell it pretty well in my bathroom. The rest of the week, I could see only when the shower was on, and I was standing close to it. I read online that to help release the scent; you can hammer out the leaves on the plant. Personally, I didn’t try to so that I can’t comment there. My younger brother and I do share a bathroom and he told me he did feel less congested which I think is huge for a guy to notice something like that.

In the case of the lavender, I found some fresh lavender at my local Fresh Market. It was excited to try this version out because I am a huge fan of the scent. This was an epic fail. First of all, After the first day, I couldn’t smell anything unless I was right under the plant. Secondly, the petals of the flower would fall off into the shower with the Eucalyptus plant that did not happen once.

Overall I would recommend the eucalyptus over the lavender, but if you expect this to be some magical way to clear serious congestion or something like that, then don’t try it. If you want to try to relax more and are looking for a lesser alternative then using essential oils, I would give this a try.