Essential oils are the perfect natural air freshener. They smell amazing – and they fight the cause of bad smells, namely bacteria & Co. In addition, the aroma of essential oils can have a lifting effect on your mood and invigorate.
Basic uses of essential Oils as air fresheners
It is very easy to get amazing aromatic air within your home using essential oils. The most common way would be an aroma lamp. These come in many different shapes and forms, some are pottery, others made out of glass, and there are also electric ones. Basic setup: Put some water in a bowl above a tealight and add 5-8 drops of your peferred essential oil. Done. Which essential oils you choose is entirely up to you, there are citrus aromas like bergamotte, orange, lemon, etc., intruiging aromas such as Ylang-Ylang or Patchouli, and also flowery aromas like lavender. There are fresh smells such as mint or rosemary, … Learn more about the different essential oils in our course.
You can also put essentials oils on little clay decorations, in baking soda (see below), soak reed sticks in them, …. and more.
Potpourris for a beautiful smell in your home
An old tradition to keep pests away and to freshen the air at the same time are potpourris. Potpourris are decorations made up of dried flowers, herbs, or leaves, such as dried rosebuds, lavender, etc. When you use freshly dried flowers and herbs with essential oil content, they will spread their aroma even when dry.
Other uses of dried flowers and herbs for sweet smelling air are sachets, herbs pillows, and other objects that can be filled with them.
Self Made Air Fresheners for the Bathroom or Toilet with Essential Oils
If you want to avoid bad smells in the bathroom, be it at home or when travelling or at work, there is a simple solution. Instead of spraying air fresheners after you “go”, or burn incence or use other “tricks” to mask bad smells, avoid it right away by using a “no poo” toilet spray. You have probably seen products you can spray into the water of the toilet bowl before you go on TV or in the supermarket. There are some great working products out there, pretty, too, in small spray bottles, but for one, they are a bit expensive, and it’s not always clear if they contain chemicals.
Either way, you can make a whole batch of “no poo” toilet sprays to prevent bad smells in the bathroom easily at home. For each bathroom, and for your purse, too.
Vegan, all natural and effective air freshener / smell preventer bathroom spray with essential oils for a great smelling toilet, powder room or rest rooms
Many recipes you find online, simply use rubbing alcohol, water and essential oils. The most important ingredient in toilet sprays are the essential oils, as they don’t only fight bacteria (responsible for bad smells in the first place) and have great fresh smells but they also build an oil barrier on the water surface in your toilet. (Yes, that makes them a little harder to work with old fashioned strange toilets, where it doesn’t go straight into the water …).
So, a basic recipe for No Poo Bathroom freshener spray would be
– Water, preferably destilled water
– Wodka or rubbing alcohol
– Essential oils of choice, such as Bergamotte Essential Oils, Lavender Oil, …
Additionally, it’s a good idea to add some drops of vegetable Glycerin or vegan dish soap (unscented or with essential oils, too).
Personally, I would also use white vinegar or apple cider vinegar. Vinegar works on bad smell on its own, but is also a good component in the mixture. The toilet essential oil perfume spray is not that different from a vinegar cleaner actually.
– Water, destilled
– Some drops alcohol
– 1/10 of whole amount vinegar (white vinegar or apple cider vinegar)
– Essential oils of choice
For cleaning purposes, you can even add some baking soda to a mixture like that …
Yes, it’s really that easy, just fill any spray bottles you wish to keep at the toilet for keeping the air fresh, or a perfume spray bottle to take with you whereever you go …
Other bathroom Air Fresheners
I use the almost identical mixture in my bathroom for cleaning and also just spray around for fresher air, too. I am living currently in a rented apartment which is driving me crazy … the bathroom has no window, just an old fashioned ventilator thing in the wall (not electric, no …) and there are several apartment around, on top and under my apartment.
Meaning what? I get up in the morning, not having done anything bad at all and could scream when entering my own bathroom, as moisture, steam, and BAD smells from my neighbours all have collected in my bathroom. The humidity after one-night good sleep, when I haven’t even used my bathroom, is incredible. And I am not getting rid of all kinds of weird smells from sewage. Nor am I a fan of my neighbours’ shower gel or whatever it is they are using.
Basically, it is like living in a communal shower/dresser room in a gym or public swimming pool or so. You know, where a lot of hot steam from several showers mixes with other bathroom smells in that special humid way …
Dehumidifiers & Air Freshers in the Home and Kitchen
1. Pink Himalayan Rock Salt (works best when a little heated, hence the pink Himalayan Rock Salt Lamps, but is in itself helpful, too) – but in bowl.
2. Rock Salt. Like you find in the home improvement store – but in bowl.
3. Baking Soda / Natron, but in bowl. You can add some dropf of essential oils
4. For kitchen, also bowls with ground coffee.
5. Reeds, self made, soaking in essential oils
6. Essential Oil lamps (add to humidity, great for good smells)
7. Burn incence, burn dried herbs such as Salvia / Sage. (Carefully, please). If you use real incence with antibacterial etc. properties, chances are that bad smells are really being attacked and not only masked. Same goes for essential oils, by the way.
8. Orange peels and similar
If you want to use salts in a more effective way, place them in any container that has holes in the bottom, and place another bowl, dish, whatever, underneath to capture moisture dropping from the salt.
Use real, organic, pure essential oils for air fresheners and room sprays, as low grade perfume or mixed oils won’t work well and you will be spraying around toxic mists you will breathe in. Not good.
Essential oils attack bacteria and other pathogens in the air, and eliminate bad odors directly.
For textiles, use vinegar spray, too.
Extra tip to remove permanent bad smells:
If you can’t get stenches, and year old smells like from nicotene or strong food smells out of your walls and furniture, use if possible a wash with essential oils such as lavender, mixed with real lemon juice and vinegar. Try spraying also vinegar with essential oils on textiles (white vinegar only, diluted with water, no oils, if you have delicate textiles, and light colors!).
Basically, you will almost never get really bad nicotine smells out of wallpapers and textiles, you need to replace as much as possible.
Then, your best bet is an ozone generator, industrial strength. They work wonders.
For “normal” odor elimination and better air in the house, by the way, you can use smaller household ozone generators.
