Make Your Own Air Freshener
Air fresheners are often made with critical chemical substances, which is why you should better avoid them.
Air fresheners provide a pleasant scent in rooms that can easily smell unpleasant.
Classic application examples are toilet rooms or the inside of shoe cabinets.
To avoid handling chemical substances there, especially if you have small children or pets, you can make air fresheners yourself.
Do you need air fresheners?
There are many different air fresheners and other products on the market to change or “improve” the air in your household.
Some products are supposed to “cleanse the air of bad smells”, others “to relax”, and still others to “fresh air in the toilet”.
Such products are not always uncritical for your health.
There are so many good alternatives from nature that work just as well as chemicals from the spray bottle – and do not harm your health!
It may sound mundane, but it’s still the best way to prevent bad smells from developing in your home : ventilate!
For example, if you do not have an extractor hood in the kitchen or only one that works on the principle of circulating air, opening the kitchen window while cooking is a great help to prevent grease and other food odors in the household.
Muff and stale air will disappear if you ventilate briefly and vigorously several times a day. Preferably with opposite doors or windows.
Instructions for making your own air freshener
As already mentioned, there are areas in the house that are difficult to ventilate to remove unpleasant odors.
Or maybe you would like to enrich your bedroom with a scent that ensures relaxation and better sleep? Or do you just enjoy the fresh lemon aroma when you enter the kitchen?
For these cases you can make air fresheners yourself. They are also very suitable as a personal gift idea, souvenir or gift. You need the following ingredients:
- 1 sachet of gelatin
- 500ml water
- 1 heaping tablespoon of salt
- 1 tablespoon of vodka or medicinal alcohol
- 30 drops of essential oils of your choice
- Food coloring
- Small vessels
Jam jars, which you can close well to store the air freshener for longer or to interrupt the fragrance experience, are suitable as containers.
- In about 100ml water, let the gelatin soak for about 10 minutes.
- Gently heat the gelatin and water until it has dissolved.
- Then add the remaining 400ml of water and dissolve the salt while stirring.
- The water does not have to boil!
- Let the liquid cool down to lukewarm before mixing in the essential oil of your choice, vodka and food coloring.
- Then pour the mixture into the containers and let it cool down well before sealing the jars.
To use, simply unscrew the lid and place it where you would like the scent to be. Over time, your air freshener will shrink into a firm lump the consistency of a gummy bear.
Then you can dispose of the rest on the compost or organic waste.
Variations
Storing them in jam jars is particularly practical, but not particularly pretty. You can also use other containers that you fill with the air freshener.
One idea, for example, is to use the peel of citrus fruits, for example grapefruits, oranges or lemons, to make pretty air fresheners.
Make sure that the pulp is completely removed, otherwise mold could form! Essential oils obtained from these fruits also go well with orange or other citrus peel.
You can also choose the right food coloring.
You can adapt the scents to the season. In spring you may use light and fresh citrus scents, in summer you may use fruity aromas or floral scents, for example jasmine or lilac.
In the fall, you can choose woody scents, such as sandalwood. The scent of fir goes well with winter, while cinnamon, clove and cardamom go well with Christmas.
Pay attention to the quality!
Natural essential oils are used for fragrance lamps, aromatic oil massages, fragrance oils and room fragrances.
Often, however, they are confused with their “copies”, the “artificial essential oils” or “nature-identical essential oils”.
It is not easy to buy really pure essential oils because the name is not fundamentally protected by law. So you have to be really knowledgeable if you are looking for pure, essential oil from a particular plant.
Artificial essential oils are exactly what the name suggests: a fragrance that is artificially produced in the laboratory, but has nothing to do with nature.
Some of these substances are suspected of acting like hormones and storing themselves in our adipose tissue over the long term.
So keep your hands off those scented oils, otherwise the benefits of homemade air fresheners are zero and you can use the chemical product right away …
