Wellness Wednesday: all-natural air freshener
As much as I love cats (which is a LOT), keeping them indoors can be a bit stinky. Growing up, we never had this problem as the cats mainly hung out outside and had a whole acre of land to bury their business, but when I started fostering cats at my apartment last year the litter tray smell wafting out from the bathroom really started to bother me. (Wow, this is a REALLY glamorous post, isn’t it!)
I didn’t want to start using chemical air fresheners so kept my antennae out for a natural solution, and what did I happen to see on someone’s Facebook page? A little mention about cloves being great for deodorising air AND keeping away insects.
“Ha, how could sprinkling a few cloves around battle the pong of cat poo?” I thought to myself (it’s just getting more and more glamorous!) but as a bag of cloves costs hardly anything and I love their fragrance, I gave it a go…
… and was pleasantly surprised. So now I have little bowls of cloves in the bathroom and in the living area too. Luckily cats don’t seem to like cloves so they don’t tend to go and chew on them and upset the bowl everywhere. It’s also a bonus that the cloves necessitate the use of little decorative bowls because I have heaps of them from my travels and otherwise they don’t get used. These ones are made of buffalo horn and I bought them in Indonesia last year. I’m very partial to buffalo horn (cue shameless plug for my jewellery range, haha).
Doesn’t this look much nicer than having a can of air freshener sitting around?
You can make cloves into pomander balls for your wardrobe (or to hang like decorative pom poms elsewhere… pom-pomanders?) or put them into little cushiony bags if you prefer. For those of you crazy people who don’t like cloves, they don’t actually scent the room much at all (unless it’s a really small room), but just seem to remove whatever yukky odour is in there, so give them a go.
As a fellow cat co-habiter, I thank you for this tip. I’ll be trying it as soon as possible because I have this constant fear that my house smells badly of cat but I don’t notice it because I’m accustomed to the aroma.
Same here Katie!! Maybe try Amy’s tip too. The house will smell like Christmas!
Great post! Cloves are a beautiful way to fragrance the home gently and naturally, as are bunches of cinnamon quills and when the scent starts to fade you can put a drop or 2 of the essential oil to freshen it up.
On a kitty litter note, try using Chandler clay pet litter which is available at supermarkets. It is much better at absorbing odours than all others and not too small and gritty that it gets tracked all over the house.
Thanks Amy, I will try the cinnamon idea, it sounds divine. Re the litter, I find the Safeway brand one OK in terms of tracking and dust, but maybe the Chandler one is better for odours… will look out for it. Crazy cat ladies unite!
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