Keeping our homes clean is a very important yet difficult chore. It takes ongoing work, and just when you think you’ve finished, some strange patch or smell appears. And while the bathroom is normally a location that no one wants to clean, it might actually be the simplest if you employ certain techniques. In fact, it might even become such a lovely and deliciously scented place that no one will ever grumble about having to clean it again.
Keep your towels dry
Storing towels when they’re still damp is a bad idea in any room of the house. But if you do it in the bathroom, it’s especially bad as it’s a very humid room. It’s advised to dry towels, just after using them, in the sun. Then you can hang them again in the bathroom when they’re a bit dry, but it’s better if you keep them somewhere even drier. In addition, it’s also very important to wash them frequently and to hang them instead of folding them when storing them.
Take advantage of the acidic power of lemon
The lemon is one of your best friends when it comes to cleaning and removing bad smells. Besides leaving a pleasant aroma and neutralizing bad odors, it’s a powerful natural cleaner. These properties come from the high levels of citric acid it contains. Ideally, the way you should use lemon is by rubbing it all over your bathroom after cleaning things with your everyday household detergent. This way, its effect will last longer on surfaces and it will get the job done.
Aromatize with oils
Aromatic oils are great allies when it comes to perfuming your home and avoiding bad smells. Clearly, these also apply to your bathroom. The key to using aromatic oils in this particular room is to soak a cotton ball in baby oil — or any other essential oil of your choice — and strategically place it around the bathroom. For example, you can place one inside the wastebasket before putting a liner in it so that every time you open it, the whole room will be filled with a nice aroma. Another good place is in the toilet paper roll or the mug or glass in which you keep your toothbrush.
Combine water and softener
Here’s another good hack to ensure that your towels always smell good, especially those that you use most often (like hand towels and such). Since these towels are constantly exposed to bad smells and bacteria from your skin, you can spray a mixture of water and fabric softener on them. A mix of water, baking soda, and fabric softener can also be used as a DIY room freshener.
Rely on baking soda.
Another household cleaning product we can always rely on is baking soda. Baking soda is already well known for getting rid of even the nastiest and toughest odors. Ideally, you should use it in your cleaning routine by combining it with boiling water. You can then use the resulting mix by pouring it onto surfaces you want to clean. Let it sit for a while before removing it. If you really want it to go a long way, you can combine this method with the cleaning suggestions from point 2.
Make perfume for your toilet brush
Despite what many people believe, the toilet brush is not sentenced to be forever nasty and smelly. On the contrary, it can actually become a great way to make your bathroom smell pleasant. In fact, one of the top-secret and most effective hacks hotel owners use is to scent their toilet brushes. Yep, you read that right, they scent the toilet brush. After finishing your cleaning session, it’s recommended to add a few drops of essential oil to the brush so that it evaporates, little by little, while leaving a pleasant scent behind.
Add detergent to the toilet tank
In addition to all the products available to make the water running through the toilet fresher, there is also a little tip you can use to make it extra aromatic. Just add a little detergent (that has a pleasant scent, of course) to the water that will be released once you press the handle down to flush. That way, it will release a pleasant and vibrant scent that will linger in the air for a long time.
Make homemade air fresheners
For some time now, making homemade air fresheners has become a sort of trend that many people decided to embrace, mainly because of how practical and inexpensive the whole idea is compared to buying traditional products. Making a homemade air freshener is actually quite simple. The only things you’ll need are a nice glass bottle, sticks, water, alcohol, and your favorite essential oils. If you have not yet decided which oil you like most, we’ve made a short list of the most popular oils that people typically use to add a scent to their homes.
- Lavender
- Tea tree
- Eucalyptus
- Peppermint
- Sweet orange
- Lemongrass
Ventilate the room on a daily basis
In addition to all of the above, the simplest and healthiest hack of all is the most obvious one: allow air to circulate through the bathroom. Ventilating the room will allow any bad odors to flow out. It is recommended for you to open the windows every day for at least 15 minutes, which according to electric companies, should be enough to make sure fresh air comes in without you having to spend too much energy reheating the place during the winter months, for example. Not only will you breathe in better air, but any viruses or bacteria that may have accumulated since the last time you ventilated the place will also be gone.
Place aromatic soaps in the bathroom
A very important thing to take into account when thinking about bathroom scents is the choice of soap you use. Depending on what your preferences are, you might choose to use an unscented soap or a combination of different scented soaps. In any case, what’s clear is that the scent they give off will affect the smell of the room in general. If what you want to achieve is a space with a pleasant fragrance, choose scented soaps, especially if they’re going to be exposed, like on the sink, for example.
