The so-called air fresheners really don’t improve your home indoor air quality; instead, they release chemicals that numb your olfactory nerves or coat your nasal passages with oils.
Here are Seven Better Solutions:
- Invest in a HEPA air filter.
- Put a few drops of natural essential oils on some cotton balls and place them in a pretty bowl or hidden in a corner.
- Add a few house plants to literally clean your indoor air. You may recall that plants produce refreshing oxygen in exchange for carbon dioxide.
- Fill a plastic spray bottle 3/4′s full with distilled water, add some drops of your favorite essential oil and shake.
- Make an herbal sachet: take an odd sock or piece of pretty thin fabric and fill with dried herbs like lavender and sage and tuck it in a corner. When the herbs start to lose their power, compost them.
- Temporarily open your windows for a cross-breeze.
- Adapted from Real Estate Agent’s bag of tricks: Microwave an apple filled with cinnamon. The house will smell like apple pie and besides, you’ll have a healthy snack for later!
Among the chemicals in commercial air fresheners: formaldehyde, 1,4 dichlorobenzene, and petroleum distillates.
Now, what’s that you smell?
