Creating Fragrances - Scented Candles, Oils, Potpourri, Soaps

Information and advice how to make fragrant home air fresheners including scented candles, perfumed soaps, oils and potpourri to create a fresh smelling house.

Aromatherapy is the use of selected fragrant substances in lotions and inhalants in an effort to affect mood and promote health. The range of perfumes available today is vast, and your house can be infused with the scent of lavender, or fresh with the fragrance of rose, or even filled with the exotic aroma of cinnamon or sandalwood smells.

Creating your own fragrances can be an excellent pastime or hobby for your own use, as gifts to family and friends, or even to sell online, at flea markets, or you may manage to create your very own famous brand product that reaches the retail stores!

Scented Candles - Can be used to suit a particular room. You could place a scented candle in your bathroom, for you to enjoy during a warm, relaxing bath, perhaps with one or two floating candles in the bath itself. You can also burn scented candles with a scent of musk or sandalwood to suit your mood, in your bedroom, or any other room in the house.

Essential Oils - Are natural, aromatic volatile liquids found in shrubs, flowers, trees, roots, bushes, and seeds. Essential oils are extracted from aromatic plant sources via steam distillation, and are highly concentrated and a lot more potent than dry herbs. For those beginning their own essential oils experience you can buy oil kits or design your own fragrance. Well known fragrances in essential oils include; Lavender, Tea Tree, Peppermint, Chamomile, Eucalyptus, Geranium, Rosemary, Thyme, Lemon and Clove .

Perfumed Soaps - It's surprising how easy it is to make your own homemade perfume soap. These soaps can also be better for your skin than store bought soap. In addition you can increase the benefits by adding an essential oil to the soap that contains skin healing and health properties, such as lavender or calendula oil. Other oils you could include in your soap making hobby can include saponified oils of olive, coconut, palm, cocoa-butter, shea-butter, and various other exotic perfume oils.

Potpourri - Defined as a mixture of flowers, herbs, and spices that can contain essential oils and is usually kept in a jar and used for scent, or placed in bowls around the rooms of the house to create a great smelling atmosphere. There are many common household items you can use for making your own homemade potpourri at home including cinnamon, juniper bark and citrus fruit peels. These naturally fragrant concoctions mingle together creating scents that are woodsy, spicy and even exotic.

Home Air Freshener Recipes:

• An excellent method to quickly infuse the air with delectable scents is to add some spices to a pot of water, and allow it to boil it for awhile on the stove (An old slow cooker or crock pot is perfect), turn the burner to low and let simmer for awhile - replacing the liquid as needed. Use ingredients like cinnamon and cloves as well as allspice and fresh mint leaves.
• Simmer a sliced apple and a couple of cinnamon sticks in some water on your stove. The whole house will smell like apple pie.
• A few sticks of incense can be a great air freshener. Incense comes in a wide variety of scents and is easy and quick to use.
• Take a pot and place some water in it, add a few drops of vanilla and some ground ginger, then put it on the stove at the lowest setting and let it simmer.
• Combine 2 tablespoons baking soda; 2 teaspoons lemon juice; and 1 cup of water. Mix the ingredients in a clean mist spray bottle. Shake and spray away bad household odors leaving your rooms lemony fresh.