Fresh Smelling Home Guide

We all love coming into a home that smells fresh and clean. So much so that there are commercials for home air fresheners on television like crazy. One home air freshener depicts a woman opening a closing the front door of her home just sniffing the air, another an octopus who brags about a products that continually sends out bursts of fragrant scents in the home all throughout the day. The list of home air freshener commercials could go on.

So, how do we obtain a fresh and clean smelling home? There are several tips and tricks that one may find unique, helpful and yes - practical! Some are on the natural side, and others using good old commercial store bought items. When used in combination, one can save money, cut down on chemicals in the home and yet still enjoy the please home sweet home aroma of a fresh, clean home!

Vinegar: Okay when you think of vinegar - the last thing you say is "gee! that smells fresh!" I know, but vinegar naturally traps and destroys odors. My mother recently had a very stinky fridge and she just poured a bowl full of vinegar and left in the refrigerator over night - wallah! Odor gone! Nice and fresh! This is no secret, many people have found vinegar to to wonders in deodorizing garbage disposals, cutting boards and even furniture! You will smell that vinegar odor for about an hour or so, but as it disappears - so does all other yucky odors in the home leaving behind a crisp clean fresh scent!

Lemon: Or any other citrus fruit for that matter. Citrus fruits have fresh fragrant oils with in the actual skin of the fruit. That's why when you peel an Orange, your whole home can take on the fresh smell of an Orange for a few minutes. Try putting lemon peels, orange peels an other citrus fruit peels down your garbage disposal at home. It really freshens it up and the whole home smells really fresh for a while. The best thing is every time you use your garbage disposal - you will get a whiff of great smelling citrus; even if there was none just thrown in. The scent stay for a while! It is also great to use citrus peels in a fire place. You can rub citrus oils on stale potpourri too to give it a fresh scent!

Baking Soda: Yes this is another not so great smelling - yet odor attracting product. That is why you will most likely find Baking Soda in the refrigerators of many homes. Baking soda does a very similar thing to vinegar - it traps odor and leaves a fresh scent behind. As a matter of fact- a great toilet bowl cleaner is baking soda and vinegar. It will foam up but it does not produce any harsh chemicals in the air and it freshens a toilet bowl up in no time flat! You can also use baking soda in the laundry to eliminate odors on fabrics. So if you have a stinky kitchen towel at home- toss it in the wash with some baking soda!

The above methods are great - chemical free - all natural ways to make your home smell fresh and clean. You can actually find many household cleaners can be replaced by mixing the above three ingredients. Home made cleaners are easy, affordable and eco friendly ways to keep your home clean and smelling fresh. I strongly encourage you check out Eco-Friendly Green Cleaning Guide for your Home by Rosa Hayes for some great DIY home made cleaners.

Now, the rest of this list will be less eco friendly - but a perfect tie in to help keep your home smelling it's freshest!

Candles: You have to find one that really carries it's scent throughout the home. Those candles that lose their fragrance are no match for the power that other candles have. They don't need to be the expensive candles. There are many candles at WalMart that make my whole home smell great! The key is finding a brand and a scent and stocking up on it. I am all for scented candles! If you know company is coming, be sure to light a fragrant candle at least one half hour before their arrival time to be sure the aroma flows through the home.

Fabric Freshener: Okay, I have to admit, I am not the biggest fan of Febreeze, mainly because it claims to do something it doesn't. I claims to "clean" your fabric and destroy odor. But it more or less just covers it up, even though ":they say" it does much more. The good thing is we learned that vinegar does clean and destroy odor on fabrics! I use vinegar on my couch (mixed in a spray bottle and diluted 1:1 with water) but then I like to add fragrance too. That's where commercial fabric fresher comes in. The best thing is I only need a few squirts and I am done, since I let the vinegar do the dirty work!

Plug Ins: I admit, I have two plug ins in my home. One in each bathroom. The best thing is that for weeks my whole upstairs of my home stays smelling great by the upstairs plug in I have in the bathroom, and my down stairs of the home is filled with the fragrance of the plug in from that bathroom. I can always notice when they are running low, since I start to lose the smell of fresh vanilla, or fresh apple cinnamon running through the home. I soon come to realize how many odors those little things actually cover up and how fresh they make my home smell!

There are many other ways to freshen your home, but these are the less invasive ways to keeping your home fresh smelling. Spraying a can of air freshener makes me feels like I should be wearing a chemical mask, so that option is elimated for me. However, I do also use carpet freshener before vacuuming, spray my garbage pail with freshener every time the trash is taken out, and always let some fresh air into the house to rid the stale air. I have also found the running the wash also leaves a nice fresh scent in the home, and since it has to be done anyways - why not enjoy the added fragrance and fresh scent it gives your home?

Hopefully this article has been helpful to you. If you enjoyed it, you may also like 5 Rules for breaking the Clutter Cycle. Enjoy!