A jar of water, a handful of orange peel and three cinnamon sticks will out-scent a twenty dollar candle, and that is really the whole argument for DIY home fragrance ideas. Everything on this list is built from groceries, pantry spices or a small bottle of essential oil, and most of it takes under ten minutes. There are simmer pots for every season, from a bright lime, rosemary and vanilla blend for spring to cranberry, clove and pine for December. There are room sprays and linen sprays with the exact drop counts, so nothing comes out smelling like a chemistry experiment. There are reed diffusers you can build from bamboo skewers, water bead jars, muslin sachets for a drawer and a homemade vanilla perfume that costs about a tenth of the bottle it replaces. Perfect for anyone who loves a good-smelling house and would rather know exactly what is in the air.
DIY Home Fragrance Ideas
1. Homemade Lilac Room Spray
Lilac only blooms for about two weeks, which is exactly why bottling it is worth doing. Fill a spray bottle with water and vodka in a fifty-fifty ratio, add 12 drops of lilac fragrance oil, shake, and test it. If the scent reads faint, add a few more drops rather than starting over. The vodka is not optional if you want it to last, since alcohol is what keeps the oil suspended and the scent from turning. A glass misting bottle with a paper tag turns it into a gift in about four minutes.
Get the full tutorial at At The Picket Fence.
2. Simmering Lime, Rosemary And Vanilla Air Freshener
Two limes sliced into rounds, three or four sprigs of fresh rosemary, three tablespoons of pure vanilla extract and four cups of water, all of it into a crockpot on low. Use real vanilla extract and not the imitation kind, because the imitation goes flat within the hour. Slicing the limes rather than wedging them is purely for looks, and it does look better. Top the water up whenever it drops. This is the blend to run in spring when the cinnamon-and-clove combinations start feeling too heavy for the weather.
Get the full tutorial at Gluesticks Gumdrops.
3. Make Your House Smell Like Pottery Barn
The copycat blend is simpler than you would expect: a small saucepan of water, one sliced lemon, two or three sprigs of rosemary and a tablespoon or so of vanilla extract. That is it. A whole vanilla bean works in place of the extract if you have one sitting in the cupboard. The mixture lasts two or three days before it needs replacing, so top up the water whenever you walk past. Move it to a small crockpot if you want to leave the house without thinking about it.
Get the full tutorial at Creative Homemaking.
4. Make Your House Smell Like A Holiday
This one is built like a recipe because it comes from a recipe blog, and it shows in the proportions. A cup and a half of fresh cranberries, three whole cinnamon sticks, a teaspoon of whole cloves, a tablespoon of vanilla, a small branch of fresh pine and a cup of apple cider all go into water on the stove. Frozen cranberries work if fresh are out of season. The whole pot takes five minutes to assemble and you can simmer the same batch twice before the scent gives out.
Get the full tutorial at Half Baked Harvest.
5. DIY Oil Diffuser
Reed diffusers earn their place in rooms where nothing else works: a bathroom with no outlet, a hall closet, a small foyer. There is no flame, no cord and no refilling a water tank. This one runs on three ingredients, and the version in the tutorial gets finished with ribbon and a monogram sticker before it is given away, which is the detail that makes it look bought rather than made. Flip the reeds when the scent starts to fade rather than adding more oil.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
6. Homemade Reed Diffusers
The formula is two parts unscented oil to one part alcohol, plus essential oils to taste. Baby oil, sweet almond or mineral oil all work for the base, and vodka or rubbing alcohol for the other part. The alcohol is what carries the scent up the reeds, so leaving it out is why a homemade diffuser sits there doing nothing. Choose a bottle with a narrow neck and no taller than half the reed length, because a wide neck evaporates the whole thing in a fortnight. Flip the reeds after the first hour.
Get the full tutorial at Coffee and Vanilla.
7. Citrus Blend Room Spray
The base recipe fills an 8 ounce bottle: half a cup of distilled water, half a cup of vodka or witch hazel and 20 to 30 drops of essential oil. The citrus blend named here is four drops each of grapefruit, lemon and lime with eight drops of orange, which is heavier on the orange than most people would guess. Distilled water matters more than it sounds, because tap minerals cloud the bottle. There are free printable labels with the tutorial, and labeled bottles are the difference between a gift and a science experiment.
Get the full tutorial at Homey Oh My.
8. Homemade Vanilla Perfume
Three things go into this: vanilla beans, vodka and jojoba oil. The beans get chopped and covered with just enough vodka for the alcohol to pull the scent out of them, then the jojoba carries it once the extraction is done. Almond oil is the recommended substitute if jojoba is too expensive, and it is. This is a patience project rather than a difficult one, since the beans need time sitting in the jar before anything smells like vanilla. It wears warm and soft and does not shout across a room.
Get the full tutorial at Jillian In Italy.
9. Cranberry Stove Top Potpourri
No measurements on this one, and that is deliberate. Citrus slices of any kind, cranberries, cinnamon sticks and whole spices like star anise, cloves or ginger go into a pot of water and simmer on low for a few hours. Add more water whenever it drops. The useful detail is storage: park the pot in the fridge between uses and it keeps going for several days, which is what turns a twenty-minute effect into a whole week of it. Tangerine or clementine work as well as orange.
Get the full tutorial at Confessions of an Over-Worked Mom.
10. DIY Home Deodorizer Spray
A cup of hot water, half a teaspoon of baking soda, six drops of lemon juice and 20 drops of essential oil, into a spray bottle. Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water first, because cold water leaves it gritty and it clogs the nozzle. The baking soda is why this one deodorizes rather than just perfuming, which matters in a kitchen or a bathroom. One caution from the comments worth repeating: several oils including peppermint, lemon and lavender contain phenol, which is toxic to cats.
Get the full tutorial at Simply Stacie.
11. DIY Lavender & Pine Linen Spray
One cup of vodka and one cup of distilled water in a 16 ounce glass bottle, then 50 drops of essential oil. For this blend that is 25 drops of Scots pine and five of lavender, which is far more pine than the name suggests. Distilled water is not fussiness: tap minerals can stain fabric, and distilled keeps the spray fresh longer. Witch hazel works instead of vodka but is a weaker preservative, so halve the batch if you go that way. Test a hidden patch before you mist anything precious.
Get the full tutorial at Jenni Raincloud.
12. DIY Stovetop Potpourri
Two cups of cranberries, one sliced orange, cinnamon sticks, a little vanilla and nutmeg, and a few sprigs of rosemary, all covered with water and simmered low. The maker is clear that there is no fixed recipe to follow here, and she is right that almost any combination works. What makes this one photograph so well is the rosemary, which nothing else in a simmer pot replaces for that fresh green note against the sweet spice. She lets hers go about three hours, then refrigerates the pan and adds water the next time rather than tipping it out.
Get the full tutorial at Liz Marie Blog.
13. DIY Natural Room Scents
Three blends, all built the same way: ingredients into a glass jar, warm water to the brim, done. Orange with cinnamon sticks and cloves, lemon with rosemary and vanilla beans, or orange with cranberries and pine twigs. No stove required, which is the point of this version. Citrus rinds work as well as whole fruit, so keep the peels from your morning orange in the fridge rather than binning them. It is the cheapest thing on this page and it looks better than a plug-in.
Get the full tutorial at HelloFresh.
14. DIY Water Bead Air Freshener
A tablespoon of water beads in a bowl of water, left overnight to swell, then drained and divided between two mason jars. Add 10 drops of essential oil to start and build up from there depending on how strong you want it. A tablespoon expands into a startling amount, so do not be tempted to use more. When the scent fades, top up the water so the beads stay wet and add more oil rather than starting again. Wrapping leather cord and a shell around the rim dresses it up.
Get the full tutorial at Holoka Home.
15. Cinnamon, Orange and Clove Essential Oil Natural Room Spray
Sixty drops of orange, 20 of clove bud and 10 of cinnamon leaf, which is a far heavier hand than most room spray recipes use. Pour roughly 30ml of vodka into a 100ml amber bottle first, add the oils, then shake and leave it one to two hours so the oils bind to the alcohol before you top it up with water. Skipping that wait is why some homemade sprays separate. Test on fabric first, and do not spray it near anyone with breathing trouble.
Get the full tutorial at Swoon Worthy.
16. Floral + Sage Smudge Sticks
White sage bundled with lavender, roses and cedar, wrapped with cotton twine and hung to dry. It is the simplest project on this page and easily the prettiest. Use cotton string rather than anything synthetic, since synthetic melts. Bind the bundle tighter than feels necessary, because everything shrinks as it dries and a loose wrap falls apart in a fortnight. Dry them somewhere with air moving, not in a sealed cupboard. They take weeks to dry properly and then last for months.
Get the full tutorial at The Chalkboard Mag.
17. DIY Mason Jar Natural Room Scents
Five blends are laid out here, and the fifth is the one worth knowing: a handful of pine twigs, four bay leaves and a whole nutmeg with its outer layer grated into the water. Everything goes into a pint jar, covered with water, then simmered on the stove, warmed in a mini crockpot or heated in a candle warmer. Cinnamon sticks are the most reusable spice of the lot and go two or three rounds. Refrigerate between uses and reuse for two to three days.
Get the full tutorial at The Yummy Life.
18. DIY Orange Harvest Scented Muslin Tea Bag Sachets
A quarter cup of dried orange peel, an eighth of a cup of dried lemon peel, two teaspoons of dried ginger root and two cinnamon sticks broken into quarters, plus three drops of clove oil, two of orange and one or two of cinnamon bark. It fills a small muslin bag. Stamp the bag before you fill it, not after, which sounds obvious until you have tried it the other way. These go in a drawer, a closet or a car, and the whole batch costs less than one store-bought sachet.
Get the full tutorial at The Rising Spoon.
