How to Keep Your Home Smelling Fresh

Everyone’s house has a distinct smell.

Except your own. No one knows what their own home smells like.

Maybe it’s just that we grow to like the way we smell (looking at you, German football coach Joachin Löw). Or maybe there’s a more scientific explanation at play.

Regardless, you should monitor the way your house smells, because some day you will have company. And that fetid towel that should’ve been in the hamper two weeks ago? Company can smell that. Even if you can’t.

Hence: a few tried and true methods for keeping every room in your abode fresh as a summer breeze — but stopping short of a ladies’ powder room.

Your office and living room
Oil from Japanese Aomori Hiba trees is naturally antimicrobial and Golda has distilled it into a spray that’ll make your home smell like a Japanese forest. They make a spray for dogs, too, which is solid, because dogs always stink. Always.

Your bed needs cleaning at least once weekly
Between night sweats and the fact that you release a lot of gas while sleeping, beds get funky. If you’re not washing your sheets at least weekly, grow up and start to. Motley x Thread Experiment Room just came out with a linen spray that’ll make your sheets and room smell like Italian bergamot. So basically like a chateau in Lake Como. Keeping the room cool and breezy is also a good call.

Your kitchen
First, get a smaller trash can and don’t skimp on the trash bag. Trash smells bad as it piles up. Using a smaller can ensures you don’t let it pile up. Like trade secrets, keep a tight lid on it. Also, never leave dirty dishes in the sink and keep that countertop squeaky clean with a natural spray, like Meyers. Then get herbs and flowers every week at the grocery store. That’ll keep your kitchen smelling fresh.

Your bathroom needs a lot of attention
Again, towels: wash them weekly, including the bath mats. Keep a candle and matches by the toilet. Haus Interior makes soy candles that smell like a fireplace, and Sydney Hale’s soy candles are equally as masculine, with scents of bourbon and blue sage. But most important: light them with matches. The phosphorus emitted when you strike a match is the most powerful odor-deterrent of them all.