People spend a lot of time in their cars, so it can be pretty unpleasant if they are driving around in a less-than-fragrant environment. Fortunately, there are many potential fixes for the problem, and some of them are fairly inexpensive and chemical-free. The following suggestions are cheap and simple ways to keep your call smelling good.
Keep Your Car Refreshed
Open a box of dryer sheets
Store an open box of dryer sheets under the front seat of your car. It’s cheaper and lasts more than three months — longer than an air freshener or even Febreze. Additionally, if your clothes have static electricity in them, or you’re a smoker and don’t want to smell like an ashtray, just use a few dryer sheets by rubbing them on your clothing, and you’ll be good to go!
Fill a sock with coffee
Who loves the smell of fresh-brewed coffee in the morning? Have you ever wondered why perfume departments have coffee beans on their counters? Coffee is an aromatic cleanser and is considered a pleasant smell by many people. You can keep that pleasant scent lingering all day by creating a coffee air freshener for your vehicle or personal space.
Take a sock (or two) and fill them with coffee beans, or even ground coffee.
Secure the sock by tying it closed and put it under the driver’s seat. If you have a second sock, stick it under the passenger seat. If you don’t have a spare sock on hand, a paper bag would work as well. Many flight attendants use coffee beans in a paper bag as a clever way to banish nasty smells in airplanes. Plus, an added bonus: if you simply love the smell, you can duplicate the process and use this as an air freshener in your home.
Essential Oils
By adding 10 to 15 drops of an essential oil to a clay disc or a cotton ball, once it has absorbed the oil, you simply place it in your car and enjoy the scented air.
You can find special-purpose clay discs at craft stores, kitchen specialty stores, or online. Basically, any terra-cotta vessel, such as a flower-pot saucer you can find at your local home improvement store can serve as an essential oil diffuser.
Baking Soda
One of the last cheap and simple ways to keep your call smelling good is to take it back to the basics with baking soda! Baking soda has been eliminating odors of all kinds for generations. Much like how it helps freshens and deodorizes in your refrigerator, its absorption qualities trap and lock in smells by neutralizing the odor.
Simply sprinkle it into your carpets and seats, then scrub it in with a brush and let it sit overnight. The next day, vacuum it up to leave your vehicle smelling fresh and clean!