Scents Add Life to Your Home

It has been scientifically proven that smells can change our moods for the better or worse! A quick and easy way to put your family in a good mood is to add pleasant scents to the environment.

A quick and inexpensive way to add scent to your home is by plugging in any one of a variety of scented oil products by Glade or Renuzit into your outlets – I especially like the Apples and Cinnamon scent. The oil is slowly heated, and releases its scent into the air over time, so you don’t have to keep renewing the scent.

If you enjoy incense, burning a stick before your family comes home will change the atmosphere of the entire house. Vanilla helps to stimulate appetites, while jasmine and lavender are calming. Incense sticks are available in a very wide variety of scents, so it is easy to have a wide variety of sweet smells. My favorite is ginger peach.

Potpourri is a more subtle way of adding fragrance, and can be warmed over your stove top. It can tend to lose its smell over time, but many potpourri packages come with refresher oils to be used when this happens.

Even more subtle is the fragrance of scented candles – but there is something magical about watching a candle burn. This is a good way to change the fragrance of a smaller area of your home, and add ambiance at the same time.

Smells that can create tension in the home and should be avoided are bad refrigerator smells (if you really aren’t ever going to eat those leftovers, pitch them), garbage smells (make sure it gets taken out regularly), animal smells, and musty smells common in older homes.

To eliminate refrigerator smells, I suggest placing an open box of baking soda in the refrigerator. Change it every two months to keep it effective. Garbage smells can be lessened by spraying your trash cans once a week with Lysol or other antibacterial aerosol sprays. Animal smells in the carpet are easily eliminated with Pet Fresh or other powdered carpet fresheners. Musty smells are best eliminated with room fresheners and sprays – a dehumidifier may help if you live in a humid area.