Make Your Home Smell Wonderful

It’s a rare person indeed who isn’t interested in how to make a house smell good. Not only does it make life more pleasant on a superficial level, scientific studies show that smells affect our moods and emotions. One study found that, compared with a placebo, aromatherapy reduced stress levels in teens, a finding that suggests overall usefulness in stress management. The proper smells may even help cancer patients by affecting the brain’s emotional center and providing a level of sedation.

At the same time, though, in this age when we’re learning more and more about the potentially harmful effect of various chemicals, you’d probably like to learn how to make your Indianapolis, Noblesville, or Carmel home smell good without resorting to such products. Here, then, are all-natural fresh-smelling home tips.

Make Your Home Smell Wonderful: Let Nature Do It

Flowers and other plants do a terrific job of making your home smell great and purifying the air while beautifying it at the same time. Orchids, peace lilies, and various types of palm tree provide especially pleasing scents.

You can also create a pleasing scent with oranges and cinnamon in water. Simmer water in a pot on the stove, add orange slices and cinnamon sticks or a few tablespoons of cinnamon, and then turn off the heat. A pleasing aroma will rise from sitting pot to pervade your kitchen and soon other rooms as well.

Make Your Home Smell Wonderful with Essential Oils

Like flowers, essential oils on pinecones provide a refreshing smell and visual appeal at the same time. Put a few drops of essential oils (cinnamon and lavender are good ones) on an arrangement of pinecones in a basket, one or two drops per pinecone. One advantage of this particular method way of creating a pleasing smell is that you can readily shift the basket from room to room as desired.

Make an essential oil spritz by mixing three or four drops of essential oil with a cup of water. Put the mix in a spray bottle, shake before use, and you can release the oil spritz into the air or direct it at fabric items like pillows, a comforter, or a sofa.

You can freshen up a bathroom by dipping each end of a Q-tip in an essential oil and then sliding the Q-tip inside the toilet paper roll. Multiple Q-tips will yield a stronger scent if that is what you want.

Use a DIY gel air freshener instead of one full of harsh chemicals. Mix ten drops of essential oil with every two cups of water and add gelatin packets and salt. After the mixture is completely dissolved, put it in heat-safe containers like mason jars and let it harden. The result will fill any room with a pleasing scent, and food coloring and/or flower petals can make the air fresheners look appealing.

Or if you prefer, create air freshener jars using essential oil and baking soda. Put four to six drops of essential oil mixed with half a cup of baking soda in a mason jar with holes poked in the lid. Cloth secured with a rubber band will work if you don’t have a lid, and you should replenish the jar with four to six new drops of oil every few weeks.

You can also use essential oils to make natural room diffusers. Or, in this case, a fresh-smelling natural cleaner will work, too. Whichever you choose, fill a glass or jar halfway. Put eight to ten bamboo skewers sticking up out of the container and place it wherever you choose. (For best results, trim the points off the skewers and make sure they aren’t more than twice as tall as the glass or jar.)

Finally, you can create good smells in your house, but you may not achieve the results you want if the carpeting stinks, and unfortunately, it often does hold unpleasant smells. Essential oils can help you deodorize carpets without the use of harsh chemicals. Mix essential oils (or, if you prefer, spices), borax, and baking soda in a bowl and then shake the mix over carpeting. After it stands for fifteen to twenty minutes, simply vacuum it up.