apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We used to have the Henri Bendel Eucalyptus candle and we LOVED it. It was such a subtle smell, but delicious nonetheless. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find that scent in stores for a few months now :(

I use these soy candles on occasion (when I can afford it) because I love the smell, especially of the Birch-scented one - and when they burn off (very cleanly) I clean the glasses and use them for drinking. (Not sure if it's safe but hey.)

I use the Method Aroma pill in Eucalyptus & Mint in the kitchen, and then the Henri Bendel candles in Quince & Firewood (depending on mood). Yeah, they've been hard to find, I'm worried that they're discontinuing them :(

Eucalyptus is a favorite of mine - it smells clean, but also fresh, earthy and not at all flowery, which I personally can't stand.

You can find all sorts of home fragrances - oils, candles, etc. at the Bath & Body Works website - almost everything is on sale right now, including the Henri Bendel candles - buy one get one free!

we discovered L'Artisan Parfumeur's Boulle D'Ambre... solid amber "crystals" in a pottery diffuser (no liquid that might spill, no flame to keep an eye on)... very subtle fragrance that you justget a whiff of once in a while... NOT cheap but it lasts about 18 months before needing fresh amber.... for the bathroom, we got the Hotel Costes Candle; again, not cheap but it's SO nice and sexy, even more so when taking a long bubble bath! For the kitchen we just get fresh cut flowers...

I don't use anything fancy. When I'm not home, with two cats I really can't keep candles lit or have any open jars with liquid (they are super curious!). Typically, my husband and I use the air fresheners you can plug in to your outlet. The worst part about them is they aren't the greatest things to look at but they are friendly to my wallet. I guess the best part is that, once a scent has been used, I can swap it for a new one. I usually like to change scents around holidays. After reading the previous posts, I would love to be a bit fancier but this is all I can do at the moment.

We have a few candles around the house, which I really only light when people are over, I agree that usually fresh flowers, open windows are enough. But my favorite is a tuberose scented Dyptique candle in the main bathroom. We also have a few I got at Urban Outiftters near the checkout, (sale-2 for $8!) the little travel tins, I put one in the guest room and one by the front door-Ruby Parsimmon, smells lovely. Then we have a reed diffuser from Restoration Hardware in the other bathroom, magnolia scent, its subtle, which I like. I hate those overpowering scents, like the plug-ins (sorry!) or something that is clearly a "fragrance", like a car air-freshener... makes me nauseous.

Thanks for the tip about the Hendri Bendel at Bath & Body, I had no idea! I'm going to their website now:)

we have a vanilla reed & glass diffuser from target in the bathroom. it's very simple and pretty. they have a few other fragrances other than vanilla but i cannot think of them offhand.

otherwise, open all the windows, especially right after it rains.

We're pretty utilitarian. We keep a very clean house because that's the best smell ever. We also like to open our windows and let the green leafiness aroma of outside come in sometimes, it mixes with good cooking smells so well.

There's a box of matches on the toilet tank, and that's about the extent of our "home fragrance" investment.

The only time we ever used those kinds of products is when we were selling our old house, the realtor said the way a house smells makes a huge difference on the first impression.

I use a lot of home fragrance in the form of candles, Bath and Body Works Wallflowers, and oil warmers, which are the most effective method of dispersing a fragrance quickly. My favorite thing to do is switch scents seasonally -- gardenia and lily in spring, mango and pineapple in the summer, apples and cinnamon in the fall, vanilla, gingerbread, or piney fragrances in the winter. It really hammers home the change of seasons here in the midwest.

Well, we have cats, so no matter how much I clean the litterbox, that room needs to have something in it. I don't have any free outlets in that room, and can't use candles (one of the cats decided it was a good idea to walk over one once...), so we use the method diffuser thing in the clean scent.

Although, when fall rolls around, I can't help but getting the fall scented candles from yankee candle company. I really like the autumn leaves and the peppermint hot chocolate. It really makes everything smell cozy.

Most synthetic scents irritate my lungs and eyes - maybe I have some kind of allergy. It's funny to me that, with all the recent studies coming out showing how vastly important scent is to everything, stores have decided to up their irritating, synthetic, smells. Definitely turns me off, and I actually have to walk out rather than purchase things I might have liked to get. Like Tiffany in her comment above, car air-fresheners make me feel ill - have to keep the windows wide open and hope that there's not much traffic to slow us down. In fact, those air-fresheners do have toxic chemicals in them, and I've often wanted to tell the cab drivers that they may be jeopardizing their health by breathing those in in such concentrated amounts... but I've never had the guts.

Oh, so anyway: I keep my windows cracked open a least a bit every single day, keep a clean house with no commercial cleaners (and Mrs. Meyer's products smell really noxious to me - too strong and artificial). If I want something more, I consider bringing in a rosemary or basil plant.

While I can't stand any synthetic citrus smells, if I'm having a party, I buy real oranges, and peel them to get their fresh citrus smell into the air. Such a wonderful smell!

I use the Method "frangrance pill" in lavender in the bedroom and living room, and the method cleaning products in lavender for moth of my house....i love the smell of lavender (it's also planted all around my yard) and the oil has natural insect repellant properties. We have a dog and a cat and live in an old house that has 'funk' in the floorboards - this helps keep it a bit nicer.

After seeing the amount of soot that my paraffin candle gave off, I swore off the synthetic scented candles. Now, I hand-make soy candles, with essential oil blends from my local aromatherapy shop (escents) - my faves are the bergamot and grapefruit blend and the cedar and chamomile blend.

Soy wax is microwavable, so these are easy and cheap to make - just melt and pour.

Purpose? I'm not really sure I buy into most of the aromatherapy claims, but it's just nice and calming to smell nice things. I also found an article a while ago about the antibacterial effects of essential oil candles:
http://men.webmd.com/news/20041119/candles-with-essential-oils-kill-bacteria

Muji tuberose candle

I'm obsessed with the Clean Linen scent from Glade. I have the plugin fan, glass scents, candles throughout my apt. :)

All those Glade products (and Febreze), or any of the synthetic ones, are very bad for breathing. My asthma shoots through the roof!

We just air out our place often to get the natural tree scents from outdoors (we're lucky in Toronto), and occasionally burn some Tibetan incense when there is a special occasion. But the chemically stuff is hazardous to one's lungs. Not good when children are around...

I'm obsessed with the Clean Linen scent, too...and I know it's not healthy. I know it's actually a really potent overwhelming burst of chemicals, but it makes me happy!

We keep our windows open - always, sometimes even *while* it's raining. But it's not enough for an apartment with two smokers and two cats and two litter boxes.

I like burning incense and Ergo's MonkeyGrass soy candle, and I prefer to use one scent throughout the house as a signature scent.

I would, however, like to find a scent that could freshen the air all the time. Candles are a bit too high maintenance, but Glade Plug-ins tend to be cloying. Plug-ins remind me of college dorm rooms.

I too am big into Method products. I use the plug-in pills in lavender throughout the house, two in the living room, one in the bathroom, one in the bedroom; as the signature house scent. I have used their diffusers and aroma rings as well. I also have a Method lavender candle I'll burn alot; I'm a candle-aholic! Unfortunately... so I have lots and lots of candles. Target has this great line out now, which includes lavender mint, and ecalyptus (both extremely clean smelling, almost like soap.) and ginger saffron, etc. Love them! Banana Republic also has their summer candle collection out now, including summer edition (a sort of fig/coconut scent), and Beach House, which is a fav. of mine. Lightly citrus and fresh!

I also use that Mrs. Meyers Geranium, and I really didn't think I would like the scent. I don't like very many scents, though I have always wanted to cultivate some sort of disctinctive homey scent that I always smelled in my relatives' houses when I was growing up. You could never put your finger on it--probably because it was just everything, plus some secret scent ingredient--but I would have been able to tell you whose home I was walking into with a blindfold on.

Honestly, I can't commit to a scent, though I will say my desire for scent is really strong from Fall to Winter--but I think I am just going to have to do what I think was my Aunt Carol's method: year-round cookie baking.

I use a different scent each season and do as many products as possible in that one scent. I used to do this with commercial products, but it got so expensive that I started making my own candles and room spray, and scenting my own shower gel, laundry detergent, hand soap, and cleaning products. I reuse some of my favorite candle pots from the expensive commercial candles (love those matte black Catherine Memmi containers...) and end up with candles that look the way I want, smell the way I want, and cost only a few dollars (instead of the $54 a pop for the Catherine Memmi). It took me a few months to get the formula down, but now it takes about as long to whip up a season's worth of candles as it does to make a couple of batches of brownies. Right now I am using a white flower and neroli combination for summer.

I LOOOOOVE the origins lavender linen spray. I use it at home and now I've started to use it in my office at work. It just makes me take a lovely deep breath and relax. Makes my brain feel as if I am in a spa, getting a massage.

When I need something more energizing and happy I have a orange hand moisturizer I put on that people love to smell as well!I think it's from bath and bodyworks.

I also like the febreeze air effects scent sterilizers, which works well.

Happy end of day tip: making your room smell nice as you drift off to sleep - just a nice and surprisingly easy thing to do for yourself - even for the super lazy!

I diffuse high-quality essential oils in my home. In winter, I tend toward eucalyptus and pines, and citruses like grapefruit & tangerine in the summer. Both are clean, and not too sweet.

One of the reasons that the synthetics make people feel sick is that they have a large molecular size that sticks to the inside of your nose. Some people notice this as a stuffy-nose feeling.

The other reason is that they don't evaporate cleanly. Real essential oils are highly volatile, meaning the disappear quickly. Synthetic perfumes are designed to last a long time, but if it's irritating to you then that's actually a drawback.

I haven't tried the other Method products, but I tried their wood floor cleaner, and it was the cheapest most low-grade fragrance oil I've smelled in a long time. (I've been in the aromatherapy biz before.) It ticked me off that they call their products 'natural,' because it clearly isn't. Deceptive, imho.