How to Make a Baking Soda Air Freshener
You can make an easy air freshener for you closets or drawers or even your car using baking soda and essential oils. We’ll show you how!
If you’ve ever opened a closet and noticed an odor that wasn’t super fresh, you’re going to love this recipe for an easy DIY air freshener.
We make this in a jar for closets but you can also put it in an organza or linen bag to make a car air freshener or a drawer freshener.
The little sachet bags are easy to hide and the jars can be made up to look pretty so you can tuck them into any spot that needs a little deodorizing.
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Is Baking Soda Good for Air Freshening?
Baking soda is the perfect ingredient for absorbing odors in most spots.
Did you know that you can sprinkle it on rugs or furniture and then vacuum it up to absorb odors? You can also use it to make other cleaning products but we’re not covering those just yet.
You know you’re supposed to keep a box of it in your refrigerator right? (That’s to absorb odors in your refrigerator)
Ingredients for a Baking Soda Air Freshener
This is a super easy project because all you need is:
- Baking Soda (1/2 cup)
- Essential Oils (not fragrance oil) (20-25 drops)
- A mason jar with lid (or another container with lid) (4 oz jars are the best)
If you buy the bigger jars like I did you can use a whole box of baking soda in them. The smaller jars are great because they’re just as effective and you don’t need as many ingredients to fill them.
Baking Soda is a great product for absorbing odors. You can also use it for baking and we add it to our swimming pools to soften the water! It’s a multi-use product for sure.
Essential Oils can be used in any scent that you find appealing. We like lavender and eucalyptus for our cleaning supplies. Or Tea Tree Oil – it also has a nice clean scent to it.
Did you know that lavender is known to repel moths? That makes it a great scent to use in closets and drawers.
Eucalyptus has a nice clean scent and is known for it’s antibacterial property’s. You can use these together or individually. The vapor of eucalyptus is also a great decongestant that’s used in many cold remedy’s.
Be sure that you are using essential oils and not fragrance oils. They are very different products.
How to Make an Air Freshener Jar
We love to use mason jars for our air freshener because we can easily remove the lid and make a covering to be held on with ring.
You can also just use a ribbon or rubber band to hold a covering on just about any container if you don’t have a collection of mason jars!
For the top covering you can use paper, like a cupcake liner with holes poked in it or a piece of fabric. As long as it’s sheer enough for you to be able to smell the air freshener, it will work just fine.
We used a paper napkin and just poked a few holes in it with a toothpick and it worked great! I honestly think it would work just as well without poking any holes in it but we haven’t tried it that way yet.
Of course the first time it spills everywhere we will definitely try it that way!
It’s easiest to mix your oils and baking soda together before you add them to the jar.
This way you can be sure that you’ve added enough oils to get the scent strong enough. If not then feel free to add more.
Even though I bought the giant jars, I still only needed about 20 drops of oil total. It was plenty of scent.
How Long Will This Air Freshener Last?
This deodorizer should last at least a month, but it could last longer depending on where it’s placed. Sunlight will dissolve the essential oils quicker than being in an enclosed space.
If you live in a humid area you might need to shake it up to loosen the powder because it will absorb moisture as well as odors.
If the scent fades before a month or 6 weeks you can add a few more drops of your essential oil to refresh it.
After that you’ll probably want to make up a new batch.
Why is This Better than a Store Bought Air Freshener?
Many commercial air deodorizers contain chemicals that can be harmful to your health.
A few of these chemicals can be VOC’s, formaldehyde and phthalates. One of the big concerns is that manufacturers are not required to list all of their product ingredients on the labels so that can leave us unaware of what, exactly, is contained in the products.
Mind you – the chemicals help the products remain shelf stable and help disperse the scent, but we try to avoid them if possible.
Remember that even products labeled “all natural” can contain chemicals that might not be great for you.
We love scents but we like to keep them as clean as possible so creating our own with minimal ingredients is definitely a preferred method.
Homemade Air Freshener Warning
A homemade air freshener does allow you to control what you’re using in your home, but be careful that you aren’t using too many essential oils or mixing products that shouldn’t be mixed and creating a harmful situation.
Just because something is natural doesn’t mean that it’s totally safe. Essential oils can cause irritation of the skin if you come in direct contact with them because they are meant to be diluted.
Some people may be sensitive to certain scents and that includes essential oils.
Many essential oils are poisonous to cats. Cats don’t have an enzyme in their liver to process the scents so be aware of this!
Also be sure that you purchase your essential oils from a reliable distributor.
Your distributor should be able to provide you with all the benefits and warnings of any of the oils that you are using.
We hope you enjoy your new air freshener! Did you use these oils or did you pick a different combination for yours? Let us know in the comment section!
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