Having a good smelling home is one of the best things someone can do to make their house welcoming for guests. Plus, there’s nothing better than coming home to a nice smelling house after a long day of work!
Like many household products, air fresheners, one of the most common products used to make a house smell nice, come in all sorts of different scents and brands. This can make it hard to pick just one. They are also pretty expensive!
That being said, a lot of us also have some old cologne or perfume lying around. It’s always better to recycle, so many people are asking, can you use cologne as air freshener?
Can You Use Cologne as Air Freshener?
Yes, you can use cologne as air freshener, but it isn’t very cost effective unless you already own a lot of colognes you won’t be using.
Air freshener is much cheaper than cologne, but if you have a shelf full of gifted cologne that just isn’t your style anymore, there’s nothing stopping you from repurposing it!
Cologne (or Eau de Cologne) is a very concentrated fragrance that is safe to be used on human skin, while air fresheners are much less concentrated. This means using cologne as air freshener can work, but it will smell much stronger, sometimes unpleasantly so.
Cologne can also stain fabrics if sprayed too closely, and the scent of cologne can linger on fabrics much longer than you want it to.
To avoid this, diluting your cologne before using it as air freshener is important. You can make your own air freshener out of cologne in just a few simple steps:
- Find a clean, empty spray bottle.
- Use 2-3 drops of cologne for every ½ cup of water.
- Shake the bottle to mix well, and your air freshener is ready for use!
You can also scent your room with cologne by spritzing soft fabric items like pillows with the cologne and placing them throughout the room.
The scent of the cologne will then radiate throughout the room, acting as a constant air freshener. Just make sure to test the cologne on a small area of the fabric first to make sure it doesn’t stain!
Does Perfume Work as Air Freshener?
Yes, just like cologne, perfume can be used as air freshener.
Perfumes and colognes come in different strengths, so knowing what kind of perfume you have can be important when diluting it to make air freshener.
These fragrances are categorized by the amount of fragrance oil present in the perfume or cologne. The higher the percentage of fragrance oil, the longer the fragrance will last.
The different types of perfume and cologne are:
- Eau de Parfum – 10-20% fragrance oil
- Eau de Toilette – 5-15% fragrance oil
- Eau de Cologne – 2-4% fragrance oil
- Eau Fraîche – 1-2% fragrance oil
Depending on the type of fragrance, the scent can last as long as 8 hours or as briefly as 2 hours. This counts when the perfume is being used for its intended purpose, and when it has been repurposed into air freshener.
Don’t Use Air Freshener as Perfume or Cologne
Air freshener and cologne are also vastly different products, even though they both serve similar purposes; imparting pleasant smells. While cologne and perfume can be used as air fresheners, the reverse is definitely not true. Air fresheners can’t be used as cologne because the ingredients in air fresheners aren’t safe for use on human skin.
Using air fresheners as cologne can result in awful side effects like rashes and skin irritation!
Most air fresheners also don’t contain real fragrance oils, so even if they were safe to spray on your skin, they would dissipate almost immediately.
How Do I Scent My Room With Perfume
Scenting your room with perfume can be done in a number of ways. Spraying the perfume directly onto soft surfaces like blankets and pillows or making it into an air freshener are the 2 best ways to scent your room with perfume.
Spraying Perfume on Soft Surfaces
You might have seen a hopeless romantic spray their lover’s pillow with their perfume so they are reminded of them when they sleep in a movie or television show, but you might be surprised to know that this tactic actually works!
Soft fabrics like pillows and blankets absorb perfume and cologne and retain their scents for long periods of time. Since perfume and cologne are much more concentrated than room spray, this means a pillow spritzed with perfume can make an entire room smell nice, not just the pillow itself!
The only thing to consider is if your perfume or cologne could stain the fabrics. To avoid this, test a small area of the fabric with the perfume first to see if it leaves any marks once dry.
Making an Air Freshener
We described above how to make cologne into an air freshener, and the process is the same for perfume as well.
Basically, all you need to do is dilute 2-3 drops of perfume into ½ cup of water. Place this new mixture into a spray bottle and use it to spray throughout the room like any other air freshener.
Air Freshener Alternatives
Many homeowners don’t like air fresheners because of the harsh chemicals they can contain. If someone is worried about the safety of the chemicals in air fresheners, it’s a good bet to say they’re probably always on the lookout for alternatives.
Luckily, there are plenty of more natural ways to scent a room that don’t involve air fresheners! Here are just a few:
- Diluted essential oils
- Florals and herbs like lavender steeped in boiling water or soaked in alcohol
- Baking Soda
- White vinegar
- Vanilla soaked in alcohol
- Witch hazel
Conclusion
Cologne and perfumes can make effective, if expensive air fresheners. If you’ve already got the scent on hand and don’t want to wear it, repurposing it as an air freshener is a great way to avoid waste.
Making air fresheners from cologne is simple, but be careful to never use this trick in reverse! Air fresheners can’t be used as cologne.
With just a few steps you can have a brand new air freshener in no time. Why not give it a try yourself?
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Here at FullPersonalCare.com our main goal is to help you in your personal care and solve all the question you could have about any of the accessories you will normally use to take care of yourself.