Keep it Fresh With Organic Home Fragrances: Create Delightfully Appealing Scents Naturally and Inexpensively

Have you ever suddenly felt happy or sad for no apparent reason? Has a long ago memory ever just popped into your head from nowhere? Either one of those events could have been triggered by a fragrance, perhaps a scent too subtle to even be noticed consciously. While more attention is paid to what we see and hear, what we smell can have a greater impact.

The sense of smell is a sense that is too often taken for granted, yet it is the sense that is most closely related to how we feel. Smell is the one sense we can’t turn off, it is working 24 / 7, even when we sleep, influencing our dreams. Located near the limbic system in the brain, smell is the sense that is most influential over our memories and emotions, often working unconsciously.

Organic Home Fragrances

Home fragrance can make your home feel safe and welcoming, as a home should be. It can signal relaxation or romance, energy and good times. Pleasing fragrances are important to feelings of well-being and inner peace with studies showing reduced stress and anxiety, and even lowered blood pressure, in pleasantly scented environments.

There are many home fragrance products available from candles and sprays to pot pourri and incense. Unfortunately, most of these are made with synthetic fragrance oils that contain toxins that are best not used in a healthy home. Many people have developed sensitivities to these products that result in allergic reactions or headaches. This doesn’t mean having to live without pleasing home fragrances! There are natural, organic alternatives that will keep your home smelling wonderful.

Simmer Pots

Our great grandmothers knew the old trick of simmering spices on the stove to create a lovely, welcoming fragrance in the home. It’s still a great trick! It’s made easier today with the availability of electric simmer pots and candle warmers that can be used in any room. Instead of using commercial scented oils or pot pourri, create your own fragrances with natural spices, flower petals, aromatic herbs, and citrus rinds.

For a delightfully energizing and odor-fighting fragrance for the kitchen, simmer grapefruit rind, adding some spices or a vanilla bean, if desired. Simmer cinnamon and allspice with orange zest and apple peel for a holiday Wassail fragrance. Combine rose petals and a vanilla bean for a romantic Victorian Rose scent. Choose aromatic herbs like peppermint, rosemary, chamomile, and lavender to add natural fragrance to any space.

When the fragrance has been exhausted, discard the liquid and contents into your compost for further use to naturally fertilize your plants and garden.

Essential Oil Scented Soy Wax

Another organic alternative to synthetic home fragrances is soy wax scented with essential oils. Unlike synthetic fragrance oils, essential oils are the pure oils distilled from botanicals. There is a vast variety of essential oils that can be purchased at some health food stores and reputable online sources. They can be used for scenting personal products like homemade lotions and bath salts, used on a cotton ball and placed in a drawer for fragrant lingerie, or used with a carrier for home fragrance.

Pure soy wax was developed in recent years for use in candle-making and it is also an excellent natural carrier for essential oil home fragrances. It is inexpensive and available in some hobby stores and a number of online soy wax candle supply companies. It comes in flakes, making it easy to scoop and use. An ounce or two of soy wax, placed in a simmer pot or in a small dish on a candle warmer, along with 10 to 15 drops of essential oil will fill a room with natural, therapeutic fragrance.

Many people deny themselves the pleasure of home fragrances believing that their fragrance sensitivities make it impossible for them. In fact, it isn’t fragrance that is the problem in the great majority of cases, but the chemicals used in synthetic fragrance products that cause negative reactions. Choose organic, natural alternatives and smell the difference!