Save Money On Air Fresheners By Making Your Own Room Spray On The Stove

Contrary to popular belief, the kitchen may just be the smelliest room in your home. For example, that fried fish breaded in crushed potato chips may smell amazing while it's cooking, but the lingering odor of fish and frying oil can quickly go from mouthwatering to downright unpleasant. Additionally, fabrics on upholstered chair seats and curtains can easily absorb odors and make this space smell less than fresh. While keeping your kitchen clean and tidy can help mitigate strong smells, the best way to eliminate them completely is with a natural, homemade air freshener.

While it's tempting to just grab a bottle of Febreze at the grocery store, homemade air fresheners are much cheaper, especially since the ingredients are usually household items. Plus, DIY versions let you use all natural ingredients and avoid the concentrated chemicals and preservatives in artificial fragrances. If you're not sure where to start, one of the best natural scents to eliminate kitchen odors is rosemary. Its sharp, floral astringence quickly eradicates the fog of stale garlic and day-old coffee grounds, replacing it with an enervating freshness. The best part is all you have to do to unlock rosemary's energizing, uplifting aromatherapy is to add it to some boiling water on your stove. The hot water extracts and activates the oils inside the rosemary, turning the water into a heavily scented, amber-green liquid you can strain into a clean glass spray bottle to spritz into the air and onto upholstered surfaces for a fresher scent.

The toughest part of making this simple air freshener is obtaining the rosemary. Though you can find sprigs of the fresh herb in the grocery store, you can also easily grow this perennial in your garden to reap its benefits and always have some on hand. You can also use dried rosemary, though you should use less since rosemary's flavor and scent concentrate when it's dried. You may also want to dilute the final product with some white vinegar since acetic acid is a mild anti-microbial (in addition to vinegar also being an odor-killer). 

Though rosemary alone covers the sharp vinegar scent fairly well, you can add other ingredients to the pot that also help curb bad odors while softening the vinegar scent. Even if you don't use vinegar at all, combining scents can improve the air faster than using rosemary alone. Lemon is, of course, a powerhouse when it comes to odor elimination — and it smells great when mixed with rosemary. Lavender is another common natural air freshener for its almost spicy, floral richness, and vanilla and lime with rosemary offers a beautiful tropical scent that's sweet without being too heavy or overwhelming. In fact, vanilla is a great choice with many scent combinations since it helps soften the sharp edges of herbaceous aromas.