Making your home smell delicious isn’t something you have to spend a lot of money on. Especially if you’ll be showing your home to potential buyers, or having an open house, you’ll want a fresh, clean scent to permeate your entire home so that it smells as great as it looks!
Here are five all-natural home fresheners that you can create yourself for a fraction of the cost of store-bought room fresheners, and without all the potentially harmful chemicals, too.
1. Lemon and rosemary
All you’ll need to create this fresh, clean scent is: a small stockpot, water, a few sprigs of rosemary, a lemon, and about a ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract. Fill your pot a little over halfway with water, add a sliced lemon, the rosemary sprigs, and the vanilla extract, and let it simmer on the stove and fill your home with a lovely scent. You can also place the mixture in jars with holes in the lids around the house, but you’ll want to change the solution every other day or so.
2. DIY reed diffuser
You’ve probably seen expensive reed diffusers in home stores. You can make one (or several) yourself very easily! The supplies you’ll need include a small vase, baby oil or mineral oil, essential oil of the fragrance you desire, and a few bamboo skewers or rattan diffusing sticks.
Fill the bottom of the jar with a half-inch of baby oil or mineral oil. Add the scented essential oil you’ve chosen (lemon and orange always smells clean, and lavender is very relaxing). Add your skewers or reed, and tie a ribbon bow around the vase for decoration. The oil will diffuse up the skewers or reeds, and will fill your home with your amazing essential oil fragrances!
3. Scented wood blocks
To make these easy and long-lasting fragrance diffusers, you’ll simply need some wood blocks, a small paint brush, and your choice of essential oil fragrances (or perfume oil). Cover the outside of the blocks in scented oil using the paintbrush, and let them sit overnight to absorb the oil fully. Wipe off the excess oil, and place these in inconspicuous places around the house (but make sure you place them on a small plate, jar lid, or any other glass or plastic container as the oil will leach onto any porous surfaces.) If you find your blocks need refreshing, simply “paint” them with more essential oil!
4. Au naturale orange candles
When we say natural – we mean natural! For these easy to make candles, you’ll need an orange (or oranges), a knife, any type of vegetable oil, and a candle lighter (not matches or a cigarette lighter). Cut the orange in half, and carefully run the knife around the edges of the orange to loosen the fruit. Remove the fruit, but be careful not to remove the inside stem – the white stem that sticks up from the orange’s center.
Once the inside of the orange is cleaned out, add oil to fill it just over halfway full. The stem will absorb the oil in about 45 minutes. Now you can “light” your orange.
The reason you’ll need a candle lighter is because it’s going to take a few minutes to dry the orange stem out enough for it to catch a flame. So hold the flame from the candle lighter to the stem, and just keep it there. Once it turns brown or black, it is ready to light. Keep trying to light it until it “catches”, and there you have it – an entirely homemade orange candle!
5. Easy refreshing room spray
Instead of buying bottles filled with chemicals you can’t even pronounce to refresh your rooms, why not make your own room spray out of completely natural ingredients? It’s easy, and you can create any scent you can imagine. We’re going to make lemon basil spray.
You’ll need: a 16 ounce spray bottle (you can use an old hairspray pump bottle, just make sure you rinse it out really well), ¾ cup of water, ½ cup of water, a tablespoon of vodka, 4 tablespoons of dried basil, a coffee filter and 5 drops of lemon essential oil.
In a small pot, bring the ½ cup of water to a boil and add the basil. Let that steep for four minutes. In a separate pot, bring the ¾ cup water to a boil. Line your funnel with the coffee filter, and place the funnel in the opened spray bottle. Pour the steeped basil water into the funnel, letting the coffee filter catch the basil. Now pour in the ¾ boiling water, vodka, and essential oil. Shake it up to mix, and then spray!
You can refresh this on a weekly basis using any essential oil and herbs you want, and you can also add extracts such as almond or vanilla – you’ll only need a few drops. Get creative and come up with deliciously scented room sprays of your own!
