How to keep your home smelling fabulous — even when you share it with pets
Jen Sheahan with her rescue dog Perry outside her house in Rathmines.
WHEN browsing property and interior photos it can be easy to focus on how something looks. In the real world however, all of our other senses come into play and contribute substantially to the enjoyment of a space.
Granted, taste is unlikely to have a dramatic impact in this context — unless you’ve gone and installed some kind of lickable wallpaper — but smell, touch, and sound all have an important influence on how you experience your home.
Smell has an enormous influence on our mood, and so making sure your house smells good is a subtle but powerful way to enhance your wellbeing.
Smell is intensely personal and deeply evocative, so I am not here to tell you what smells you should have in your home. There are some generalities to help guide you — for instance, citrus and peppermint are generally invigorating and so are useful in spaces where you need to be energetic or get work done.
Lavender is traditionally calming and is often used in bedrooms (although I personally hate it — I have no idea why — I use eucalyptus instead for this purpose). I personally love verbena, jasmine, and bergamot. Why? Who knows.
Our preferences are inextricably linked to our own past experiences, and you should take time to explore how different smells make you feel.
Nose blindness is real — we get used to smells and eventually stop noticing them, so it is a good idea to have a range of varying smells around your home. There are endless options of aroma-releasing items available, so for the purpose of concision I’m going to go through what I find most effective in my own home.
I primarily love reed diffusers — good ones last for ages, they release a consistent subtle smell, and they are refillable.
I have one in my hallway — Lemon, Verbena, and Bergamot by Brooke and Shoals; I have another one beside my dining nook — the cherry-blossom scented Ritual of Sakura by Rituals; and I have one in each bathroom — Sage and Bitter Orange by La Bougie downstairs (my absolute favourite), and Pomegranate by Newbridge Home upstairs.
This ensures a blast of new aromas as I move around my home. I also love candles — I have approximately one million of these in each room so I won’t go through them all, but again La Bougie reigns supreme favourite here, with Diptyque coming second, as the longest lasting and strongest smelling ones I have found.
Steam diffusers are another great way to mitigate nose blindness — they release puffs of steam infused with your favourite aromatic oil at regular intervals, and on top of being reusable they have the added flexibility of allowing you to use any aromatic oil you wish. They are available in a range of beautiful designs — I adore the Perfume Genie by Rituals, and also check out Irish company Kotanical.
Much like spraying on deodorant does not negate the need for showering, adding scented candles and fragrance sticks to your home will not be enough to mask unpleasant smells. Thus the first step to fragrant bliss is to maintain cleanliness.
It’s also a good idea to regularly clean or replace any filters to prevent the accumulation of bad smells — particularly in your extractor fan and in your vacuum cleaner. In between deep cleans, you can use some easy cheats to prevent smells from building up.
If you drink coffee, I have good news for you — coffee grounds are wonderful at absorbing bad smells. Simply putting your coffee grounds in the bin will effectively neutralise bad smells until the bin is ready to be thrown out.
If you don’t like the smell of coffee, bicarbonate of soda is even more effective — I keep a small open container of this in my fridge, which is super at keeping any smells from spilled food or stinky cheeses at bay.
This is also a great trick for when you are using strong ingredients — as someone who doesn’t believe in the concept of “too much garlic”, I often put an open container of bicarb beside my hob when cooking, or in my oven after grilling fish.
Carpets, couches and curtains should all go through some level of deep cleaning every now and then, but between washes you can once again use the magic ingredient — bicarbonate of soda.
Use it on its own or mix in a few drops of your favourite aromatic oils, then sprinkle over your fabrics. Leave for around 15 minutes and then vacuum it all up to reveal refreshed and pleasantly scented fabrics. This is also super for refreshing your mattresses.
: while bicarb is safe on most fabrics, don’t leave it too long on wool, silk, or cashmere — it has a high pH which can affect delicate fabrics if left for too long in concentrated quantities.
I love having something scented hanging in my wardrobe to keep my clothes fresh between washes. There are sachets made just for this purpose — I love the French Linen Water scented card by Max Benjamin.
More often, however, I use bars of soap — I love natural scented soaps and always buy them in favour of shower gels. I hang bars of soap inside sheer cloth pouches which release a fresh smell throughout my clothes for a month or two, after which I use them for their originally intended purpose and replace them with the next bars.
Another DIY option is to once again embrace the magic smell absorber — bicarbonate of soda. Pour a few tablespoons into a cloth pouch (you can reuse some old, cleaned nylon stockings for this) and either use as it is to absorb smells, or mix in some drops of your favourite aromatic oil to add a gentle scent throughout your wardrobe.
You may prefer to use your own ingredients to create natural air fresheners rather than buying manufactured products.
An excellent way to do this is to simply place aromatic food such as citrus peels, herbs (including stalks), and spices into boiling water. To conserve energy, you can do this when you have a hot stove after cooking dinner, or leftover water in your kettle from making tea. This will release a lovely burst of aroma while sustainably re-using food waste.
Plants and flowers are also excellent natural room fresheners — although on this topic you should be guided by personal preference, and certainly do not take advice from me, a serial plant killer.
- Got a question for Jennifer Sheahan? Email home@examiner.ie
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
