Fragrance is an important and often underrated element when it comes to designing the spaces around us.
It can freshen up a stuffy room and mask unpleasant odours, but most importantly it’s a staple for defining your atmosphere. There are various ways you can add scent to a space, such as reed diffusers, melts and scented candles, each have their own pros & cons. Now let's choose where to pop your perfect home fragrances.
How should I scent my space?
The answer to this question depends on what vibe you're going for, as well as your personal preferences. Firstly, choose a few areas in your home that could benefit from good smells. Start by considering the use of the room, is it a work or living space? Are you looking to cover up an odour or create a relaxed atmosphere? These questions will help you navigate through the next steps of choosing the right vessel & scent.
Choosing a vessel:
Scented Candles
Our personal favourite, if you’re looking to create atmosphere, is a simple scented soy candle. They disperse the scent evenly and have a bold scent throw, both hot & cold (the technical terms for how much scent they emit when lit or unlit). Lighting a candle is a great way to include ritual in your day to day life. Not to mention, there are so many different candle vessels out there these days! You can find a size and style to suit every room.
Another advantage of scented candles is that when you look after them, they last a long time. Here are a couple of golden rules to get the most hours of burn time from your candles:
- Trim your wick to 5mm before every burn
- Melt the wax pool to the edge of your vessel on the first burn
- Keep it covered to reduce dust
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Don’t burn for too long to avoid overheating and the wick falling into the wax
Reed Diffusers
A low-maintenance, set and forget option. For those who fancy flameless fragrance either for safety or laziness reasons (no judgement here). You simply pop your reeds in, place them on a mantlepiece/side table/tucked away in a corner and then… forget about them – something you definitely can’t do with a lit candle! Another handy tip: if you are finding the scent too strong for a space, you can remove some of the reeds to emit a lighter scent. The trade-off with these fixed fresheners is atmosphere. You just can’t replicate the twinkling glow of a lit candle or it’s smooth warm wafts of fragrance that seem to glide around the room.
Our Watermelon & Eucalyptus diffusers are an amazing palate cleanser.
Melts
One of the more flexible ways to scent a room is through soy wax melts. You can choose a wax warmer or tealight burner to suit your personal style, then pop as many, or as little, wax melt pellets as you want. You can use an electric warmer or a tea-light burner, whatever you have on hand. These melts also last a long time as the fragrance evaporates at a slightly slower rate than when heating directly with a lit wick. Very economical!
Our original best-selling Mulberry & Sandalwood Soy Wax Melts are a great way to add scent in a style that suits you.
Choosing your scents:
We recommend using one scent per room – rather than using a signature scent for your entire house. This means that each space will have a different feel, to reflect its purpose or the desired mood.
Which Type Of Fragrance Is Best?
Sandalwood, cedar, lotus, juniper, mandarin… There are endless fragrances to choose from, each falling into a general family whose notes evoke different feelings and suit different moods. Scent is a sense that is strongly linked to memory, so it is important to consider what they might awaken in you. Check out our article on scent and memory to learn more on how you can harness this power for positivity!
Green Tea & Basil is a powerful fresh scent perfect for studies.
Floral Fragrances
Florals are often “heart-notes” or “mid-notes”, these are the ones that are a bit more emotional and sometimes divisive (think jasmine). In aromatherapy, floral scents are associated with calming and soothing properties, so if you are feeling stressed or anxious, a fragrance with a strong floral note, like lavender, geranium or sweet pea may be your pick.
Sweet Pea & Juniper Berries combine to make a luxuriously calming & comforting blend.
Citrus Scents
Do you love the zestiness of yuzu, lime, mandarin and orange? While of these are all energising fragrances, they can have a different impact in the context of a candle. Warm citrus is more likely to give the feel of mulled wine, whereas mandarin in a diffuser will retain its strong zingy freshness. Citrus is a great contender for spaces you want to freshen up and give a clean feeling.
Soft zesty freshness of Mandarin & Sandalwood is perfect for kitchens, laundries and bathrooms.
Spicy Notes
Generally connected to the festive times of year, scents that include spicy elements such as cinnamon, nutmeg and clove are often quite good at bringing back childhood memories. A perfect pairing for an occasion such as a family dinner or cosy catchup throughout the year where you want to reminisce on the good old days.
French Pear is the perfect scent to put a twinkle in your eye.
Woody Tones
Woody scents like sandalwood, tobacco, cedar and amber are key members of this fragrance family that we like to use in quite a few of our scents. Synonymous with grounding, calming and balancing energies, we recommend using woody scents for spaces where you want to evoke a feeling of calm.
Homely tobacco & amber combine to make our Fireside scent a winter winner!
A Scent For Every Room: Which Works Best Where?
Now you know the vessels to use in different settings and the strengths of each scent family you can build out your home fragrance design. What feels good to you from these? Decide what kind of mood you want to set and take into account the strengths and vibes of different fragrances.
Your sugary baked creations need no covering up, but for days when there’s something less aromatic in the oven, look to a fresh, citrus scent. Unlike other fruity fragrances, citrus won’t clash with the aromas of food – keep this in mind if you are hosting a dinner party. Diffusers work well here as they will cover up other strong smells, such as garlic or fish.
Soft zesty freshness of Mandarin & Sandalwood is perfect for kitchens, laundries and bathrooms.
We often use the same fragrance in hallways or areas between rooms to refresh the senses before entering the next space, i.e you’re working away in your home office and you need a break, if you walk through fresh "wall of scent", into your living area you will be more likely to detach from what you have been thinking about at your desk. A palate cleanser if you will.
There’s nothing better than a flickering warm scented candle in the bedroom, particularly as they double up as soft mood lighting. Floral & woody scents are thought to be able to reduce your heart rate, making them perfect for encouraging a good night’s sleep – Sweet Juniper or Mulberry & Sandalwood are both good choices.
Our original best-selling Mulberry & Sandalwood. A total crowd-pleaser.
As a space where you both entertain and relax, your living room requires a fragrance that reflects both activities. As a shared space, it’s important not to choose a scent that’s too strong here – you don’t want anyone to feel overwhelmed. The atmosphere should feel welcoming, so scents like French Pear, or Among The Gum Trees – which are both inviting, fresh, yet quite neutral – are ideal.
Among The Gum Trees is inviting, fresh and perfect for a shared living space.
Fresh green fragrances such as Eucalyptus, Peppermint or Green Tea can help you focus and feel more alert (at a push the smell of a peppermint tea can help), making them perfect to release during those mid-afternoon slumps. This is particularly important if you work in the same place as you relax; switching up the scents signals to your brain that you are up to something new. Worth a try if you have trouble switching off at the end of the day.
At the end of the day, these are our suggestions: but it’s your home, and your nose, so anything goes - if you want French Pear in every room, be our guest!
