A two minute DIY that anyone can do and even the kids enjoy for some craft time fun.
After arriving home from 2 months travelling abroad, our cabinets and crevices needed some freshening!
I use these nifty little DIY air fresheners in our fridge, cupboards, shoe cabinets, under the bed and basically anywhere around my home that needs it. Baking soda is known to absorb moisture and odors, while the essential oils are known to do their amazing work in freshening the air of odors, purifying the air of nasties, creating an unfriendly environment for unwanted pests etc… Take two minutes and a few materials you most likely already have laying around so that you don’t have to buy toxin-laden synthetic air fresheners.
What you’ll need:
A mason style jar + baking soda/bi-carb soda (USA calls it baking, Australia calls it bi-carb, same-same) + Essential Oils of Choice + optional paper + scissors for creating a cover.
I’m all about reusing and recycling, so the card stock I used was just from an old thank you card cover and the the mason jar is one I’ve reused so many times it’s lid is slightly rusted, but that doesn’t matter. A cover is not necessary, but they help prevent spills and look cute, so you decide. If using a cover, just trace the top of the jar, cut it out and poke some decent size holes in it. Fill the jar half way with baking soda, add 4-10 drops essential oil and Voila. I replace with new baking soda or just refresh with new drops of oil about 1x per month.
In terms of essential oils, you really can’t go wrong! Just choose what you like to freshen the air. As always, keep in mind that choosing an essential oil of Seed to Seal quality DOES matter. The majority of oils on the market are indeed adulturated with toxins, mass produced so they don’t actually have any of these benefits and are depleting our soils + taking advantage of farmers for cheaper products. If you’re going to use essential oils at all, please choose quality over price tag.
“When the cost of our essential oils is seen as a challenge by our customers, I like to describe for them the work required to run farms around the world without using herbicides or other toxic chemicals.
It costs us around $12,000 per acre to weed our Mona, Utah lavender fields by hand, using manual labor. Do you know how much “weeding” costs other companies? $60.00 per acre. Spraying cheap (and toxic) herbicides is faster and much cheaper.” – Jason Barnum, Mona Utah, Young Living farm manager
Here are some of my top pick oils for this DIY recipe:
- For the Fridge: Purification or any Combination of Citrus + Pine or Spruce.
- For the shoe closets: Purification, Citronella, Lemon Myrtle, Thieves or RC
- For around the house where unwanted pests might hang: Peppermint, Cinnamon, Thieves, Cedarwood, Purification
- For General Air Freshening around the home: Whatever Oils you Love Most. I change mine up, but often it’s lemongrass or lemon myrtle, citrus fresh, cypress or northern lights black spruce.
- For under the beds:
- Thieves or Purification for damp houses that are prone to mildew (I change our bicarb soda out at least once a month and use 5 drops of thieves because we do live in a damp house)
- Peace & Calming, Sensation, Joy, Citrus Fresh or Lavender for just general air freshening
Since waking up to toxin-free living during my experience with infertility commencing 10 years ago, I’ve not used scented candles or air fresheners in my home or office. In fact, I get a headache when I pass them in the shops, which is good enough evidence in my book that once you fully detox from these fake scents, your body knows not to go near them!
“According to Anne Steinemann, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Melbourne who has extensively studied the health impacts of fragrance household products, one-quarter of the ingredients in air fresheners are classified as toxic or hazardous”. When you consider the amount of us who are dealing with chronic health conditions and normalising them, perhaps it’s worth trying an alternative. Headaches, eczema, allergies, asthma, infertility, inflammation etc… often ARE NOT normal and are avoidable. Reduce your toxin-overload and both your health and our planet will thank you immensely!
As most of you know by now, I personally believe the science & research behind what is and isn’t good for our health or our environment is convoluted and contradicting. There are so many variables and so many agendas at hand to really make sense of even the best of scholarly articles. But because my families health and the environment matter to me, because I can’t control all our risks and because I AM the gatekeeper of my own home, I simply WILL NOT take the gamble when I can easily make a choice that I am 100% certain is a good one.
Happy Home Freshening!
