I love a house that smells good when you walk in!  There was a time in my life where I would have used a plug in,  a scented candle, the potent melted wax, or air freshener sprays, but now I know better.   Keeping an artificially fragrance free house is tough because I still want to remove food or other stinky odors from my house but you can’t brainlessly spray a chemical to pollute your indoor air. Did you know that the EPA estimates that indoor air is 4 times more polluted than outdoor air in most homes in the winter time when houses are closed up tight?

I have used many different natural products that I have laying around my house or my yard.  I have used pine needles and lemon juice, I have used cloves and citrus, I have used cinnamon and apple cores but one of my favorite scents is orange peel and cinnamon.   The smell of cinnamon smells like fresh baked goods, and the citrusy smell of orange smells like sunshine.

You can use a small pan on the stove but you have to make sure that you dont simmer all of the water out and start a fire, instead I have this potpourri warmer that I have had for about 10 years that is really awesome for natural air fresheners.

My old school potpourri warmer, some ground cinnamon, and an orange

Peel an orange, eat the orange and put the orange peel into the pot.

Add 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon, or eyeball it.

Add water to fill up the pot, mix the cinnamon and orange peel, put it on the stove to simmer, or if you have a potpourri warmer plug it in.  Enjoy a fresh smelling house without adding any chemicals, phthalates, petroleum products, or chemical fragrances and protect your indoor air quality.

Since I stopped using toxic dryer sheets a few years back I have had them sitting in their box in my basement collecting dust. I heard a rumor that you could use dryer sheets to remove dried bugs from your car.  I thought that sounds like a good thing to test out so I put on a rubber glove, grabbed one dryer sheet out of the box and went outside.

After driving around all summer long, collecting bugs, letting them bake on, my car looked like this.

After wetting the front of the car with the hose,  rubbing one dryer sheet over the front of my car, headlights and grill with very little effort, it looked like this.  (I guess they don’t remove the scuffs you get when your son runs into your car with a big wheel.)

So if you are like me and don’t use dryer sheets in your dryer because you refuse to put dangerous chemicals and hormone disrupting fragrances on your clean clothes, you can bring those extra dryer sheets to the garage as a very simple and effective bug remover.