Have you ever walked into a friend’s house and thought, “Wow, it smells amazing in here!”? Maybe it was chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven or vegetables roasting on the stove. Well, seasonal smells can enhance a home’s decor, so we’ve got just the thing: A collection of fall scents!
Even though you want your home to smell fresh, always cooking something that smells delicious is probably out of the question for most of us.
Fortunately for those of us who aren’t Martha Stewart, there’s an easy way to make our homes smell great with just a few minutes of work. All you need is a stove, a pot and your favorite scents, which happen to be in your spice rack or herb garden.
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Easy Fall Scents for the Home
Since fall is just around the corner, here are five stovetop fall scent recipes that will help your house put its freshest face forward. If the idea of leaving your stove on makes you nervous, you can just add the ingredients and water to your Instant Pot or slow cooker, then set on low for the same effect without the fire.
Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice
Maybe you haven’t gotten around to baking that loaf of pumpkin bread or making homemade applesauce, but that doesn’t mean you can’t fool everyone who walks through your door. This scent is made from leftovers – apple peels and orange rinds, along with some powerhouses from your spice cabinet – cinnamon sticks and whole cloves. Add to some water and simmer away.
Lemony Freshness
You know that smell when you just walked into your house and it’s completely clean? It’s a happy dance smell, which is why putting this on simmer will make you smile from ear to ear, even if the floor is still sticky from this morning’s oatmeal mishap. Slice up a lemon, trim some rosemary from the garden, then add some vanilla extract to pull it all together. (If you want to change it up, switch out the lemon for grapefruit slices and add some eucalyptus leaves too).
Sweet Treats
Nothing beats the aroma of freshly-baked sweets but if you don’t have the time, you can still conjure up the delicious smell without any of the calories. Just add in a few drops of vanilla, a few dashes of pumpkin pie spice and two chai tea bags – no mixing required.
Bring the Outdoors In
There’s nothing quite like the smell of fall, when the pine trees, pine cones and rustic smells of the outdoors come together. Bring that same scent inside by clipping a few pieces of pine from your yard, adding in a few cloves of nutmeg, a couple of bay leaves and then a few teaspoons of jojoba oil (which is also a great face moisturizer for when the weather gets colder).
Soothing & Relaxing
The calming scent of lavender is the perfect welcome fall scent for those stressful evenings or weekend mornings; you know, when homework is on the table, laundry needs doing and there’s a hundred phone calls to make. Throw in a cup of dried lavender (or a few drops of lavender essential oil), citrus rinds (lemon, orange, or grapefruit) and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Now take a deep breath in and a deep breath out.
Hero (Top) Feature Image: © jpldesigns
Additional Images (in Order) Courtesy:
Melissa Beveridge
