apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I used to use the Method ones, but then I swore them off. The problem is that I really need something, and I don't like using candles for environmental and health reasons either. I just picked up a new plugin made by Aroma Naturals with essential oils. It smells lovely and has an on/off switch. Might be worth checking out if you're not ready to give up the plugins entirely.

Open a window. How's that for some fresh air.

Opening a window is great for many months of the year--too bad about that "paying to heat the neighbourhood" bit in the winter, am I right?

Does anyone have any green, effective, unobtrusive, actual answers to the question of scenting (or de-scenting) a small home? The sitch is that my bathroom, windowless, opens up into my kitchen right next to the fridge and, well, to paraphrase the old saw, "stuff happens" and one does not always want the waft to enter the kitchen.

Ideers?

I know it is supposed to be a hoax...but my cousin gave me a plug in air freshener from Yankee Candle and that thing burned SO HOT. And also, way too strong for my taste.

I've pretty much given up on air fresheners. They just make the air smell funny for a short time, in a small area. Even Febreeze doesn't help.

The Glade Scented Oil Candles are not bad. Some of the scents are quite strong/perfumy. But I like the clean linen/clean cotton one.

All it takes is two or three minutes of an open window to freshen your room right up, as long as you're keeping it clean.

What about heating an essential oil in a light bulb ring?

Those aroma sticks (the long incense looking sticks in a small vase) can be nice if you find one with a decent scent. No electricity and I believe most of them are just essential oils. As for the bathroom odors, well, nothing beats the old "light a match and drop it in" trick. ;)

The ancients dealt with the problem by burning incense. I've never looked into it, but I imagine that would be a greener method than a plugin airfreshener.

~Q

I vote bake more cookies!! :D

If you absolutely must have air freshener, I've sometimes seen non-aerosol essential oil sprays at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

You could also fill a spray bottle or atomizer with some nice-smelling non-toxic liquid to spray. Rosewater might work, or witch hazel, or some water infused with lots of peppermint or lavender. Maybe a little vanilla extract? Green tea?

I burn inscense occasionally -- get the good stuff, not the sort of thing teenage stoners light to get their parents off the trail.

The bottom line about essential oil based sprays, inscense, those aroma sticks, etc. is that it's no more or less allergenic than lighting a really good quality scented candle. If you're irritated by candles like diptyque or votivo, no scented coverup is going to work for you.

Honestly, unless you have either serious bowel problems or serious ventilation issues, your best bet is just to deal. The smell shouldn't last more than a few minutes, and shouldn't spread outside the bathroom. I understand if you're having a lot of people over, and my coworkers and I are hardcore air freshener devotees at work. But if it's just you, at home? Everybody poops.

@ opoponax: Yes, everybody poops, but not everybody poops in a spot literally two feet from the fridge door, six feet from the eat-in-kitchen table. I'm not hung up or weird, and my bowels are as shiny-nice and fucntional as the next fiber-eating vegetarian, but I would consider my no-window bathroom a "serious ventilation issue," as you say.

ATLcolleen: I've got a few matchbooks in reach currently--time tested, effective, but really obtrusive in my very small, badly located bathroom. Plus, it makes the towels smell like burnt matches--the room is so small that just having two towels hanging covers a great deal of wall surface area.

I am def. enamoured of those aroma sticks, with one end of the porous sticks in the oil and the other ends up in the air--seems to fit my need for passive home scent enhancement. I am also considering rigging up a radiator-top scent diffuser for winter, similar to the ring-on-the-lightbulb bit but more subtle for the winter.

Thanks for the feedback, all.

OK, well then, that's a ventilation issue.

Obvs if you're unlucky enough to have one of those kitchen bathroom = tenement apartments, you'll have to compromise and find a slightly less perfect solution than either opening a window or just letting it disperse.

I don't know if this helps at all, but I find that closing the lid of the toilet helps the smell factor.

Oh yeah, I'm a lid closer from waaaay back. A must!

What fantastic suggestions!

Thanks everyone to whom responded and thanks even more to the AT Green team for the research factor; Awesome.

I think I'll look for a healthy version of the scent sticks to place in an open window for the future - especially since the weather has been so pleasent as of late. I thought about incense, but aren't those just as bad as lighting candles for the smoke factor - couldn't that possibly harm the air quality as well?

Just to give my two cents: The rings around the bulb are awesome. I'm not sure where to buy them now, but I picked them up from a candle shop when I was younger. Its basically just a ceramic disk that rests on the lightbulb, and the heat put off warms the essential oils... it was really fun to mix and match oil fragrances to find a good scent for a room. The only problem, though, is that I'm not sure if they'd rest on CFLs. Then again, if you're not using them yet, or if you have the LED bulbs shaped the same as conventional bulbs, it should work.

I have a tiny apartment, and incense is overwhelming. So for people like Nora Rocket--I feel your pain. It just wont cut it.

Luckily, I can open my windows. I don't use heat. But I've also found (in instances when its raining, and so on) that soy candles work well. They aren't as heavily fragranced as conventional candles most of the time (but they still work at covering smells!), and they burn longer, they burn clean, and they have less of an environmental impact, because of the soy content. I love them. I make them at home with my boyfriend for fun, but you can find them very easily in stores.

Whole Foods was offering an odor-neutralizing candle with menthol and peppermint in it-- perhaps if you found a soy candle in those scents, it would have the same effect. Bonus points if it doesn't come in any sort of container.

I don't use air freshener or incense, and rarely use scented candles, but I've found that Smells BeGone (a spray I picked up from Bed Bath & Beyond) does a stellar job of eliminating bathroom odors without scenting the air. Not sure what's in it or whether it's green (anyone know?) but it sure does work wonders. I've also used a volcanic rock odor absorber to reduce the odors from the kitty-litter box in the basement to decent effect -- wonder if that would work in a bathroom?

I use vinegar and water in a spray bottle to clean in my bathroom and whenever it's a little "funky" I just spray a little vinegar water and wipe something down - hey the sink always needs cleaning anyway! And with myself, the husband, and two boys using the one windowless bathroom this is pretty much a daily occurance. I don't really mind the smell of vinegar...but sometimes I do put the vinegar in a jar with a bunch of lavendar leaves and set it in the sun for a few hours before diluting with water. This takes away most of the vinegar smell. Undiluted - I use that same lavendar vinegar for the laundry.

Chad, maybe there's something I don't know about burning candles, but unless you're heavily allergic to smoke, have severe asthma, or some other very special circumstance, I don't think lighting a high quality candle for a few minutes is going to thoroughly contaminate the air in your home. it's certainly lower-impact than the typical barrage of cleaning chemicals, let alone spraying air freshener, always having a plug-in going, etc.

And if it's the smell of scented candles that you're worried about, almost any scented product for the home would be just as bad.

If you can't deal with any scent, any smoke, or any anything, and you don't have a well-ventilated bathroom, your only recourse is to just deal with the smells your body produces. Sad but true.

@ JDog: "I've also used a volcanic rock odor absorber to reduce the odors from the kitty-litter box in the basement to decent effect -- wonder if that would work in a bathroom?"

I know you don't mean this, but here's what I would say if I were a shrill Internet poster who flames first and asks questions later: "I am NOT going to start using the cat box. What a disgusting suggestion!" Hee.

@ lostinprojection: I think I can combine your menthol/mint info with phillymama's vinegar/lavender thoughts to great effect. I will report back with the efficacy of my anti-waft potty-by-the-kitchen trials.

Another thanks to all!

Whatever you do, don't buy cheap incense, it tends to contain high quantities of led. led lungs=bad

Not long ago, I succumbed to my own small apartment and smells -- cooking and bodily -- and bought a Fabreze Plug In that alternates between two scents thingy. The smell it creates is ok (I chose fresh rain and green fields or something to that effect). But it is also sooooo strong. So I took it apart, removed the scented oil container, unscrewed the top and poured the oil into an old spray bottle full of water. I now spray that (after shaking well) on my shower curtain, bath mat and other fabrics in the house when it smells "not so fresh". Obviously, esential oil would do the trick too. I have found Eucalyptus very effective and fresh.

As a follow up...

How interesting to read through all of the comments and watch it move from one interesting topic to another all revolving around the scent of our homes and how it can affect our environment.

I found it interesting how it started to revolve around green ways to cover up smells in the bathroom most of all - that and bodily fumes in general.

I can tell you that for the past few days my windows have been open and the fresh air has been doing an amazing job of rejuvenating my surroundings - even more so after it rained, how fantastic.

My concern was more from a thought while perusing the grocery store - seeing so many air fresheners on the shelf with the latest trend being the ones that plug in and provide extra outlets / night lights / alternating scents / etc. I just thought that there was no way it could be good for energy consumption and why that would look like if most average households had those plugged in. At least one in every room of all these McMansions that become so popular - it was sort of terrifying.

While back at home, I did happen upon some lavender that had recently died due to my lack in providing sufficient water - lemons to lemonade, I placed it in the windows to dry out and as the wind blows through you get these magical moments of natural beauty that just can't be recreated with chemicals and electrical outlets - then again, without electricity - how could I be here reading and typing this...

Does anyone know if there's been a change in New York city policy on public spaces/transportation? I've been smelling a LOT of fake and strong chemically orange-scent in all the subways, in the subway cars, and in cabs. What's going on? It seems like someone has made a conscious decision about this. Is there any way to stop the trend. I have my head hanging out open windows whenever I can, but that's very hard to do in a subway car!

Sea, I would guess that there's a cheap bulk multipurpose disinfecting cleanser that happens to have that citrus scent that's been so popular over the past few years. The MTA probably has a list of standard products used by each station. Big cab companies probably do, too, though it's unlikely that the cab companies and subway are really working together to specifically choose that scent.

I know a lot of people who are really bothered by that fake citrus smell, strangely enough, more than other chemical product smells. I wonder why that is?

opoponax,
Yeah, for some reason, citrus smells can trigger chemical sensitivities more than other scents. Fake cherry or grape or coffee or apple, for example, are obnoxious - but not to the level of that fake orange scent! My personal choice, if a masking scent must be used, would be for PINE scent.