Making Your Home Smell Nice: Some Options & Opinions

Original post by Sarah @ Renewed Upon a Dream, please visit her website for more great ideas!”

Back in December, my husband & I went to visit my little brother in Arizona.  The moment we walked in his house, we noticed something… it. smelled. amazing!  I was totally blown away by my “little” brother’s great smelling house. If you have a little brother, you know that little brothers typically smell… different.  So I was not expecting this at all.  I had to investigate his methods.

Upon questioning, I discovered that most of the good smells coming from various rooms were from Scentsy warmers & waxes.  He also had some waxes from Good Housekeeping (which are available at Walmart) mixed in there.  Then in the bedroom, he had a humidifier, in which he would put a few drops of oil every once in a while to make it smell great as well.  So the good smelling home was that way because of a combination of things.  I resolved to make my house smell just as wonderful.

I think that the way a space smells can have a real effect on your comfort in a place.  Smells can make you feel energized or relaxed or sleepy or they can get you in the mood… *wink wink*.  I also think that your taste in smells can change over the years.  At least mine have.  I used to be very into baking smells.  Cake and vanilla and cookies were the kinds of smells that attracted me.  Now I’m more into “clean” smells or more subtle floral smells.  I also really like to rotate my scents by season.  In December, I used mostly pine-type scents or cranberry.  Now, it’s still winter, but I’m itching for spring, so we’re going with lighter scents.

One of the things I’ve been using has been wax warmers.  I have two.  One is a table top warmer that is by Good Housekeeping from Walmart.  The other is a wall plug in warmer from Scentsy.  I got both of my warmers from my brother, one for Christmas & one for my birthday.  I have a few different kinds of scent blocks, from Scentsy & also from Good Housekeeping & from Yankee Candle as well.  I haven’t really discriminated because I’ve been trying to figure out what I like best.  There seems to be advantages & disadvantages to each.  Mostly, all of these three types of waxes are challenging to come by.  Scentsy I need to order from someone, I don’t often go to Walmart where the Good Housekeeping ones are, and the Yankee Candle ones are only sold as singles rather than as blocks.

I’ve also been using candles to make my house smell good. I love candles.  I love the little flame flicker & I love the lovely scent that they give off.  However, you can’t leave a candle burning all day while your gone, so you can’t walk into a great smelling home after a long day of work with a candle like you can with a warmer.

Another option is one that I talked about before in a sponsored post.  There are room sprays, as well as non-plug-in, oil dispensers.  I have used room sprays in the past, but the scent didn’t seem to last long, and I haven’t bought one of those in a while.  I did recently purchase an oil diffuser that is currently in our bedroom.  The scent is really nice & subtle.  Much more subtle that either the wax warmers or candles. The subtle scent is a plus in some ways, but also sometime I want to be able to smell it, but I feel like I can’t.  For a while I wasn’t sure if it was actually working or thought I might have set it up wrong.  I think these are best for smaller rooms, or maybe for those who are sensitive to smell.  It is nice though that they never turn off, and they don’t use electricity.  I do think these types of products have seen great improvements in recent years.  They always used to seem to get messy & sticky when I used to use them in years past, I haven’t had that problem with the products I’ve used recently.

I have been having a great time experimenting with these different products.  Right now, I’ve really been digging the warmers the most, but I still love a great candle for certain situations.  Scentsy is amazing & the Good Housekeeping warmer products I’ve used have been really great as well.  I haven’t been sponsored to write this post or talk about any of these, but I wanted to chat about products we use to make our homes smell nice.  What kind of products do you use most often for this purpose?  What do you think the benefits are of each?  Let’s discuss.

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