Forget Candles and Air Fresheners: A Cleaning Expert’s Simple Trick to Keep Your Home Smelling Fresh All the Time

Walking into your home and feeling a mix of yesterday’s cooking, damp laundry, and strong cleaning chemicals isn’t exactly refreshing. We all want our living spaces to smell clean and inviting without drowning in artificial scents. A seasoned cleaning expert reveals a straightforward, natural trick that changes everything.

Why Your Home Never Feels Truly Fresh Despite All Those Scents

The issue isn’t that your home smells bad per se, it’s that it carries a jumble of odors constantly competing with each other. Faint hints of frying oil mingle with the damp corridor and the stubborn lemon floor cleaner scent lingering late into the night. Such mixtures cling stubbornly to fabrics and corners, especially where air struggles to circulate.

In response, many reach for scented candles or sprays, trying to mask these smells. But piling scent upon scent only creates confusion for the nose and thickens the air. Rather than feeling fresh, the environment grows stifling and unnatural.

The booming market for air fresheners, worth billions globally, thrives on this endless masking game. Fancy names like “fresh cotton” or “boreal forest” get washed over every room, yet ironically rob our homes of their true character. Do you really want your lounge to perpetually smell like synthetic laundry soap?

A cleaning pro often tells clients: no perfume will save a space that hasn’t first been purified. Think of it this way—trying to deodorize without cleaning is like expecting deoderant to work without showering.

The Simple Secret That Cleans Without Cooking Up a Storm of Scents

Experts swear by a humble household item: bicarbonate of soda. This little miracle doesn’t cover smells, it absorbs them. Place a small bowl with two or three tablespoons of baking soda in rooms where odors tend to settle. Entryways, bathrooms, the area around shoes or litter boxes benefit the most.

Unlike sprays, it quietly soaks up unwanted smells throughout the day. There’s no overpowering perfume, no lingering artificial scent—just a cleaner, lighter air quality. In rental apartments left unventilated for weeks, placing several bicarbonate bowls alongside good airflow and surface cleaning can transform the atmosphere.

Hours later, you’ll notice not a scent replacing another but an absence of heaviness. The room feels as if it breathes, free of chemical clouds or overpowering fragrances. Bicarbonate works as an invisible filter, capturing odor molecules rather than layering new smells on top.

How to Maintain a Naturally Fresh Home Without Breaking a Sweat

Creating a home that smells fresh day after day isn’t about perfection but smart, bite-sized routines grounded in reality. In addition to bicarbonate, three habits stand out: open windows wide for 5 to 10 minutes daily, wash textiles prone to holding odors frequently, and avoid overusing heavily scented cleaning products.

Understandably, no one sticks religiously to this every single day. The goal is a sustainable rhythm—not daily martyrdom. For those craving just a touch of fragrance, subtle natural enhancers work wonders—a slice of lemon simmering with cloves, a sprig of rosemary placed casually, or a few drops of essential oil on an earthy ceramic stone.

The secret here is restraint: the aroma accompanies you rather than shouts over you. The expert repeats to hesitant homeowners worried by traces of ‘lived-in’ smells: a perfectly odorless home simply doesn’t exist. What matters is an air that doesn’t assault your senses but lets you breathe freely. Everything else is marketing fluff.

Keep this in mind as your personal mantra: neutralize first with bicarbonate and fresh air, then add a gentle natural scent if you wish. Focus on targeting hotspots rather than saturating entire spaces, and remember to replace your baking soda regularly every 2 to 4 weeks for best results.

At its core, a home that smells inviting evokes comfort—like the quiet welcome after a busy day. It’s a blend of everyday traces: the morning coffee, the oven’s warm baking smell, or a pet shaking off the garden’s earth. Baking soda doesn’t erase this life, it simply softens the backdrop, letting you decide what lingers.

Élisabeth-Sophie Bonicel

At 38, I am a proud and passionate geek. My world revolves around comics, the latest cult series, and everything that makes pop culture tick. On this blog, I open the doors to my ‘lair’ to share my top picks, my reviews, and my life as a collector