How do I get my house to smell lovely?

[Buildabetterworld]

We have some well off, middle class relatives on DH's side whose houses always smell lovely when we visit them - no obvious air freshener/cleaning product smell, just a heavenly understated subtle sandalwood/lavender/spice smell, I could sniff it for hours... How do they manage it? My house never smells like that despite being clean(ish), no pets, no smoking, no stinky cooking etc. Do I need to burn £££s in posh smelly candles or can I do it with a budget? Does anyone know how to get my house smell posh?

Quite often on here, people suggest putting some drops of essential oil on a tissue and stuffing it down the back of a radiator so the heat diffuses the scent. I've tried it and it does work.

I'm sure some others will be along with (better) suggestions soon!

Essential oils. There are a number of ways to get the smells wafting around

• drop some on light bulbs or radiators
• get a ceramic oil incense doodah
• a few drops on cushions our other soft furnishings that won't stain
• make furniture polish from bees wax and add in some essential oils then polish your wooden furniture
• Make pot pourri and scent it with oils

just go somewhere that sells them and sniff a few bottles till you find the smell you want.

The tissue thing would work too

i put tumble dryer sheets behind the radiators

also open your windows as MUCH as you possibly can - i know its hard when its this cold!

Make pot pourri? How do I do that?

I have lots of smelly candles and oil burner thingys but they only seem to scent my house when they're actually burning and then the smell just disappears. Our posh relatives' houses all seem to have this sort of underlying smell, without any obvious effort (never seen an oil burner/air freshener there).

I am a bit addicted to febreeze lenor. I wash things in it and dry them on the radiators and the smell is just delicious.

Do they have a lot of wwodwork (eg panelling, parquet, floors etc)?
It could well be the polish...

Polish - could well be it, lots of antique furniture in the houses. Beeswax mixed with something? We have never polished any of our wooden furniture (as we are slovenly slobs), maybe need to do that...

Watching with interest as my house stinks never quite gets that lovely 'posh' smell that other people's seem to have.

I do the essential oil radiator thing but I find they dry up after a few days and I forget the replace them.

Also, shake and vac stuff is great. Our local £1 shop do Glade Vanilla ones for, obviously £1, and they make the carpet and the hoover smell lovely for days.

I reckon it's polish personally. It has a lovely tangy subtlety from the turps

Ps, pot pourri - pine cones, dried flowers, seed heads

Another essential oil user here - I have a small spray bottle (used to have hair stuff in it) which i fill with water and add a few drops of oil to it - I'm currently mixing orange and frankinsense.

Have you tried something like this?

Don't buy the M&S plug in diffusers they have in for Xmas. Thought they smelt great in the shop but they are shite and cost twice the price of a standard plug in - I wrote to complain - said take them back for a refund - at that price I will!

I have made my own air freshener and it smells lush, 1 oz of fabric conditioner,2 tbs of baking soda and water mixed together in a spray bottle.

I just spray the soft furnishings,rugs etc and I can still smell it hrs later.

Firstly everything needs to be clean so there are no whiffs at all. That means no damp towels, no ingrained cooking smells on coats or soft furnishings. All dogs bathed and clipped, small pets cages cleaned and car litter outside. Then no artificial scents, use mild smelling products then fresh flowers, open windows and if you need something extra essential oils. Things like glade and febreeze just smell cheap IMO. Sorry.

I use a spray with water,lavender oil and tea tree oil in it.

I reckon it is proper polish you can smell though in their houses.
Just polish a little bit of something in each room before people come.
And leave the polishy duster around somewhere out of sight.

Simmer some cloves, cinnamon sticks and peppercorns on the stove for a bit with a drop or two of vanilla extract and water, for a lovely wintery smell. You can drain the water off and reuse the spices.

ambi pure 3volution plugs ins are Fab. Personally I go for vanilla/sandlewood type fragrance and people always say how lovely the house smells. I have it in the hallway. I often burn incense sticks in the evening and love scented candles. Bit of a smell addict!

It's wood polish, trust me.

Growing up, our house was actually not clean and we always had dogs, but it "smelled expensive" as my friend put it. We had antique furniture that my dad was v proud of.

You get the same smell in antique shops. It's beeswax wood polish.