Your sense of smell is a huge influence on your mood. Your home, your oasis in the midst of life, can uplift, inspire, and calm -or- it can stress, unease and depress you daily. Let's talk about creating your ideal smell and mood atmosphere.

Since our sense of smell affects our mood, why not take 3 Key steps to elevating your mood? 1 - Eliminate bad odors. 2 - Introduce good scents. 3 - Keep it fresh.

ELIMINATE BAD ODORS Aside from normal cleaning, you may need to go deeper. We can become "nose-blind" to odors in our home. Clean soft surfaces like carpets, sofas, and curtains that can hold smells like smoking or cooking odors. Minimize pet odors by frequent cat box changes, quick mess clean ups, and bathing pets often. Keep up with laundry, dishes, and trash disposal. These seem mundane, but they are all easy to slack on and they add up quickly to an unpleasant atmosphere.

INTRODUCE GOOD SCENTS

While there may be quick fixes, my favorite way to bring on lasting great scent is with candles. A single candle can soon fill the room with its fragrance. It is possibly the strongest and quickest way to fill your space. A good candle will give scent before being lit and long after it is extinguished.

Sometimes you'd rather not light a flame and using a warmer with melts is a better choice. You can get the same great results as lighting a candle if you have quality wax melts.

When candles and melts are not convenient (like in your dresser drawer, your closet, or even your car!), a sachet in the right place can freshen your area with good smells.

KEEP IT FRESH

To keep musty smells at bay, cleaning alone might not banish the musties. And we don't just want to cover them up.

Open up the windows at opposite ends of the house for a few minutes a couple of times a week, even if chilly or hot out, to create a cross breeze that will refresh your air.

Sprinkle baking soda on your carpets and let set 20 minutes before vacuuming to pull out any odors hanging on there.

Don't forget, just as you can go "nose-blind" to bad smells, you can also notice your good smells less if they are always the same fragrance. (Like when everyone smells your perfume but you.) So, change things up a bit. Try a new scent. Burn one scent of candle in the dining room and a different one in the living room. Maybe do your own "mixology" in the warmer blending wax melts of complimentary scents together. You'll notice it more.

Until next time...

Hoping you have a great smelling house!