How do you make your house/flat smell good?

my house smells nice at the moment because i have a box of mangoes on the bench

cleaning it regularly (spesh toilets) and lots of plants and fruit.

Contract toxoplasma gondii.

height of sophistication previously in the UK:

Shake'n'Vac

I sometimes wonder why chemists shops** always smell so nice. I suppose there's a certain amount of perfume-tester-spraying which goes on, but they never smell like a tart's boudoir. I wonder if they have a special "Chemist Shop Ambi Pur" plug-in fragrance which they use.

** excluding Boots.

I've never been fond of chemical air fresheners and tend to keep Castle C J smelling sweet with lots of flowers and fresh fruit around the place + cleaning with a few drops of essential oils in the water etc etc. I do use this, though :

http://www.waysidecountrystore.com/images/yan_sagecitrus.jpg

i use incense and an essential oil burner. it's about the only habit remaining from my hippy phase.

although I should say I would love a sage and citrus candle, that sounds great!

do women have a hidden system for ensuring a fragrant ambience in their domestic areas at all times?

It's definitely not a female thing - everything I touch smells of cigarettes and stale beer. And sometimes old books, if you're really lucky.

Ah, the old book smell. I love that smell.

only time it smells really good is when I bake sugar cookies

cat poop, mostly

airflow!

CJ otm

We use a room spray procured from Shanghai Tang, and it's lovely.

The GF buys a regular supply of essential oils pretty much every time we go shopping. We will never, ever run out of "Autumn Almond."

How do you get cancer?

open your windows every once in a while!

Scented candles and air fresheners, disgusting and unnecessary snake oil to boot.

How do you get cancer?

-- gabbneb, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:41 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

open your windows every once in a while!

-- gff, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:42 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

This reads like some kind of surreal 'I say, I say, I say' joke.

agree very strongly with Ed.

A nice thing if you have a spare orange or one that is overripe is to cut it up and boil it in a pot. After about 5 mins it makes a really nice smell. Even better if you add a bit of cinnamon.

I use pure essential oils with a burner too.

Scented candles and air fresheners, disgusting and unnecessary snake oil to boot.

How are they snake oil? They do exactly what they promise. I agree they they are overkill, but if that's all that works in one's house, please and use it.

and

Ed is very much otm. It's very unnecessary. Reminds me of twats using an insane amount of cheap cologne. Urgh.

most of the yankee candles aren't that bad. a few can be pretty terrible though

Do the opposite of leaving a bunch of shrimp shells and in your garbage can (which has a heating vent blowing on it) for three days.

Unfortunately, at its best my house smells like stir fries, curries, or Mexican food.

We have an incontinent 17-year-old dog, so I've given up trying until the inevitable happens.

Last week someone on my floor had liver for dinner. My place reeked for 3 days.

My place has a permanent patina of cig smell and cat wee smell, but I can usually get it nice with apple/citrus scented room scent things (the liquid ones that just evaporate slowly) - apple doesnt have that horrible ait freshener smell, it just smells fresh and clean. Also, nag champa incense does a nice trick.

My downstairs neighbor has been baking brownies and sugar cookies almost daily for over a week. It's lovely, but torture.

I used to hate scented candles but I think I was just smelling revolting ones, there are some lovely ones. Di Palomo Olive Oil and Orange Blossom is gorgeous for instance.

I'm not a fan of scents in general, a lot make me sneeze. Even pure essential oils are pretty bad in my book.

However I would happily have christmas baking and mulled wine prep all the time. The smell of an orange studded with cloves roasting in the oven is divine.

I know what you mean, and most candles (and related scents) are revoltingly...er...chemical-y. Or something. The difference between mulled wine actually mulling and a "mulled wine" candle is usually startling.

Subtlety is the key to this I think. Like with perfume.

Do not EVER buy mulled wine air fresheners. I wanted to puke every time I went into my living room for about a week after I'd removed the damn thing. Ugh.

I go with fresh flowers downstairs and not-overpowering plug-in air fresheners up the stairs. A good extractor fan in the kitchen is the best thing for not having the house smell of your dinner for the rest of the evening.

The extractor hood thing is very much OTM.

Also even in the depths of winter it is worth turning off the heating once in a chile and throwing open the windows.

A roasting chicken in the oven at all times.

this is really such a good question.

i do: tasteful incense, fresh air, candles, room spray SOMETIMES and very little (get off my back!), andddd i think that's it.

vacuuming
baking soda
boiling coffee grounds in a pot and wafting it around the place
yeah the airflow if possible
plants
pets that excrete only dew-scented rainbows
being an enchanted flower faerie

this was an issue with this new flat I'm in.
If you live in it long enough the smell goes to your smell, but if it isn't your smell, good quality scented candle and if not a spider plant. I got said plant yesterday, already the place has cleaner air. Don't know how they do it.

Scented candles: how I learned to stop worrying and smell the bluebells by Eva Wiseman (and her amazing geometric hairstyle)
http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2014/mar/08/scented-candles-stop-worrying-smell-roses

Nothing beats old fashioned plants and leaving the window open a lot, even in inclement weather. Open your windows on rainy days, if the rain is not going into the window.

Fire.

I accidentally let oil get too hot on my cast iron skillet and the odor filled the house. Bad odor. I was making biscuits, so, eventually, the odor was consumed by the yummy scent of baking bread. The smell of bread lasted into the next day.

old pasta is the worst smell in the world I learned

ok where can i get a plant, do they have any like the outside ones, but for inside

i got some salt&neroli caldrea linen spray and it's really nice, when used sparingly. my beautiful pup doesn't smell, since she's a husky, but her blankets get pretty bad, esp in our bedroom. this spray totally masks it.

I visited a friend last night whos moved into his gfs rather posh terrace house, and the whole house smelled of clean, hippy insence and curries, in this sort of professional hipsters with their shit together way. It made me feel like a slob :/

Open the window and hope downstairs isn't smoking or burning incenses. I can't stand the scent of scented things, air fresheners and the like, most make me sneeze. Regular cleaning of the kitchen bin seems to deal with 75% of other odours, if I were a little more diligent cleaning the fridge I think that would get most of the others. I think it helps having a decent cooker hood that actually extracts rather than recirculates.

long term: this has worked for me, even removes cigarette smells

http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach-04383-Allergen-Reducing-Cleaner/dp/B000R2WEJQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394334166&sr=8-1&keywords=air+cleaner

made beef Pho in the slow cooker , reinvigorating smell!