Fragrancing Your Home

Scented candles, plugin air fresheners, reed diffusers – the options for home fragrancing are now plentiful. The opportunity at Christmas seems to kick it up a notch though, no doubt thanks to the likes of potpouri dominating households, and subsequent housewife jokes for the last few decades.

The Smell Of Success

What smell to go for should be your first consideration / deliberation. Advice varies, however the worst thing you can face (or sniff) is an overbearing smell. Subtlety is probably a good rule of thumb, so natural smells are often a good tip here. That may mean fruity scents, spiced Christmas tones such as cinnamon, or calming (and somewhat tasty!) vanilla notes.

Positioning of Power

One of the first questions is where’s the best place to put them? While designers have clearly been working to make air fresheners as kind on the eye as possible (some blending in using natural materials as inspiration, others using attractive colours and patterns) it’s admittedly not the sort of thing you’re going to be putting front and centre on your dining table or entrance hall table.

With that in mind, you might want to position your air freshener discreetly so to still enjoy the smell it provides. Examples for this include a book shelf, next to the fish tank, or on the corner of an office desk.

A bathroom would also be a good home for this room diffuser thanks to the fruity scent being able to disguise a multitude of sins! The definite plus of a reed diffuser is that they don’t require power or need to be in the proximity of people to work. They simply permeate the air without any trouble.

Let There Be Light

To achieve that nice Christmassy glow though, candles undoubtedly remain a good go to, for home fragrancing. Obviously be safe where lit flames are concerned. But you might also want to diversify away from the usual candle stick, with new innovations in candle design.

These scented candles release a fresh wave of fragrance once the wick burns down to the fragranced bubble. That also helps get around the fact that your nose tends to acclimatise to a smell after a while. It’s certainly different, and if not a conversation starter for a party, it’ll be enough to capture your attention as you stand in the supermarket aisle deciding.

Home fragrances are one of those things that once you take it away, you notice it as being lacking. You’ll also quickly learn what smells you do and don’t like yourself. With continued improvements in the technology used, it’ll certainly be interesting to see what they come up with next…