Fragrancing my home

[sowhatusernameisnttaken]

Hi everyone, is love my house to smell lovely all the time! I don't really know how it smells because it's my smell if you know what I mean. Is used to use reed diffusers but found they just ended up dusty and covered in cobwebs

Baking bread. Grinding coffee beans. Cooking with herbs. Ironing cotton sheets.

Windows open as much as possible, Hoover/dust regularly. I try and keep my hallway/bathroom/bedroom doors open so that everything breezes through the house.

Plug in's and artificial scent make me sick tbh.

My general approach is to make sure my home is clean for a start. Regular hoovering makes a big difference as does opening windows for fresh air.

I and DS have eczema and lots of commercial cleaning items make it worse.

I'm a big fan of e-cloths that you can use with just water to get rid of dust.

I polish my wood furniture with olive oil.

Bicarbonate of soda on a scrub sponge to clean sinks/baths etc

All that said I love zoflora. I use it diluted on kitchen surfaces and in my steam mop. Not all the fragrances are nice - I love honeysuckle and jasmine though.

My steam mop has a carpet glider and filling it with very dilute zoflora makes the whole house smell fresh and lovely.

You have to be a bit careful with cats - some essential oils (quite a few as I recall!) can make them ill

More of a winter thing but simmering spices like cinnamon, cloves and cardamon pods on the hob fills the house with a wonderful smell.

Diy air fresheners with essential oils fixed with a splash of vodka are lovely too.

Keeping it clean and well aired and regular laundry is key, but I am a bit partial to reed diffusers (shock horror at admitting that on MN ). You get what you pay for with those though - the cheaper, artificial ones are pretty grim and I'd rather not bother. The higher end ones have some lovely subtle and natural fragrances.

Ripperofknitting - Lampe Berger purifies the air, rather than adding scent to it, although the stuff you use in the lampe does have an aroma. It's just a subtle, clean smell in the house.

You buy the lampe, which you've probably seen on the websites, and which holds the liquid. There's a cap with a wick that soaks that up, and you light the top of the cap, leave it to burn for a minute or two, then blow the flame out and leave the lampe to do its work. I've no idea how that does what it does, but like magic all the stale or whiffy smells disappear. After a couple of hours put the lid on top of the cap and it stops it.

The bottles of liquid do seem expensive, but quite a lot of online retailers have offers, and if you only use it for a few hours at a time, it helps.

I don't like plug-ins and other perfumed things like that, but I absolutely love my Lampe Berger.

Windows open every day with all internal doors open for movement of air. A big bunch of flowers on the side table of my hallway. Lily's are Fab but I do know that some people find them too strong, my best friend being one of them.
I also find that Lidl have a fab gel airfreshener, I just pop it behind a picture frame in my kitchen. Ugly plastic packaging but smells great and out of sight.
Keep meaning to get Zoflora, putting on my list now!

My Gran has those plug in things
They are horrible and I don't think it makes the house smell nice at all.

When we had our house rewired the electrician said that plug in air fresheners were the devil's work. They are a fire risk and should never be used.

I'm with most people on here - open windows, flowers, launder soft furnishing regularly.

Be careful of toxic perfumes if you have pets. Reed diffusers have been known to burn patches of fur off and damage the skin, as well as causing headaches and vomiting in humans. Zoflora is also not great headache-wise.

Spraying fabric conditioner in water on carpets - I once tried that to combat static and ended up with a sticky carpet that attracted dirt.

I use fresh and dried lavender around the house and in the drawers and cupboards for clothing and linens and an oil burner with (usually lavender) essential oil. We have a lot of unpainted wood which tends to smell 'stale' and soaks up any cooking smells so burning the oil over-rides it. You can also buy lavender (natural) cleaning sprays for surfaces which work well on paint and radiators.