We all face odor problems in our homes, but it can be hard to find a practical solution if you’re someone who finds heavily-scented products overwhelming. Here are some of my favorite tips for a fresh smelling home without using strong scents!
It’s no secret that I love home scent products. I always say that a home that smells clean, feels clean and I love that I can just light a scented candle or spray a little air freshener and completely change the atmosphere in my home in an instant. But what do you do if you don’t like the strong scents associated with most home scent products? Many people get headaches from these products, or just find them really overwhelming, distracting, and even annoying.
I have several friends who feel that way about strong scents and even Chris has been known to tell me to “turn that thing off” at times. If this sounds like something you can relate to, there’s hope! It doesn’t mean that you need to have a stinky or stale-smelling house!
Did you know that more than half of Americans say that they avoid using strong aerosol air freshener sprays because of a bad experience in the past, but over 90% say that being in a fresh smelling environment can give them a positive state of mind and even improve their mood and their performance? I totally believe it, which is why I often suggest improving the way your home smells as a key step in any cleaning routine. It really gets you moving and feeling better instantly!
Here are a few of my favorite ways to freshen up your home without having to use strong smelling perfumes, bringing you to something Febreze likes to call a ONE state of mind!
Fresh Smelling Crevices Tip: Baking Soda
It can’t get much simpler than baking soda! Although baking soda itself won’t actually make your home smell clean, it does have powerful deodorizing capabilities. You can use it sprinkled in the bottom of trash cans, in cat litter boxes, and other smelly crevices to help eliminate odors in these areas the way you use air fresheners to keep the air smelling fresh.
Fresh Feeling Home Tip: Open a Window
Of course this is an obvious way to freshen up the air in our homes, but it’s one we often forget about! A lot of us just don’t think to open our windows these days because we spend so much time trying to control the climate in our homes with furnaces in the winter and air conditioners in the summer. With the exception of the coldest parts of winter, there’s probably at least some point during the day when you could open up a window and enjoy the benefits of a feeling the fresh air come in without any extra effort at all!
Fresh Smelling Home Tip: Find a Better Product
It’s important to me that my home have a nice, fresh scent to it, but often home scent products can be ineffective at removing odors, while also having a scent that’s too strong and overwhelming to some guests. Life is busy and I want to be able to freshen up my home in an instant no matter what the circumstance, so I want something super convenient, but something that also works really well.
Febreze recognized the need for everyone to be able to enjoy a fresh home in a convenient way even if you are a “scent skeptic” (someone who runs away from heavy sprays, perfumes, and air fresheners) so they created a new line of products called Febreze ONE to offer odor control with no aerosols, no dyes, and no heavy perfumes.
I had the chance to test out Febreze ONE recently so I thought it would be fun to invite my friends Sarah and Tara over and see what they thought of this new line of air and fabric freshener. As I said, I love pretty much all home scent products, but I was interested to see what people who are sensitive to scents would think.
Febreze ONE has the same odor eliminating power of other Febreze products and comes in three nature inspired, light, simple scents:
Bamboo which can help you feel calm.
Citrus which can help you feel energized.
And Orchid which can help you feel relaxed and soothed.
The Test!
We were all actually surprised by how fresh and natural the scents were and how much we weren’t overwhelmed by these scents at all. We knew that was kind of the point of the product, but we were still surprised to find that Febreze ONE actually was as fresh and light as Febreze says it is. We found ourselves spraying it in the air and just staying and enjoying, rather than spraying the air freshener away and then backing up from it like you would normally be inclined to do with harsher aerosol sprays.
We decided that the bamboo scent was probably our favorite of the three, and we were chatting and trying to describe what it was that we liked about it. We kept coming back to words like “Watery, fresh, morning dew, grassy, watery freshness”… so that kind of gives you an idea what that scent is like. 🙂
It was pretty funny because since Febreze recognizes the positive power of a fresh smelling home and how it can really put you in a positive state of mind, they sent us this fun little soothing noise machine to help us get in a #ONEStateOfMind for our little product testing session. I had it turned to the babbling brook sound effect and at one point Sarah blurted out that “It smells like this brook that we’re listening too!” and that just about summed it up perfectly. 🙂
If you’re a scent skeptic yourself, or if you often have people who fit into that category in your home, Febreze ONE just may be the right choice for you!
If you’d like to try Febreze ONE in your home, just leave me a comment and let me know why you think this might be the right air freshening solution for you and I’ll randomly choose 2 readers to try a bottle for free!
Giveaway is open to US residents and is open until 12am March 23, 2018.
What scent-sensitive ways have you found to help you keep a fresh smelling home?
Thanks so much to Febreze ONE for sponsoring this post! I was compensated for my time spent putting this post together, but all opinions and suggestions are my own as always!
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.