In today’s relatively deodorised world, home fragrances aren’t about covering up or disguising smells. Instead, they’re a way to create a lovely ambience, set the mood or calm the spirits.

Home fragrances can do just as much as your decor when it comes to making your place a special space for you to enjoy.

What's your favourite welcoming or beautiful smell for the home? Is it freshly baked bread, or maybe cut grass? Tell us below.

Aroma as therapy

The age-old practice of aromatherapy is a natural therapy using essential oils extracted from plants and herbs. In Ancient Egypt, essential oils were used in healing, as they were known to help bring the mind and body into a healthier state of balance. These days, essential oils are used for many purposes, including natural therapy and pampering the senses. To experience the therapeutic benefits of essential oils, it’s best to consult an aromatherapist. When using essential oils around the home, however, simply be guided by your nose!

Interior fragrances

A bowl of potpourri and burning incense are effective ways to fragrance your home, but these days, you can also choose from an incredible range of scented candles, room sprays and diffusers. This means, on the days you don’t have fresh flowers to surrender their wonderful aroma, you can delight your senses with one of these home fragrances.

• Room sprays instantly enhance the ambience of a room. They are complementary, too, so you can layer them with the fragrance of a scented candle or diffuser.
• Aroma reeds or fragrance diffusers absorb the liquid scent from a bottle of fragrance, then gently diffuse it throughout the room. You can adjust the strength of the fragrance by varying the number of reeds you have in the bottle at one time, and also by turning the reeds upside down every few days.
• Fragrance diffusers are also beautiful decorative items just in themselves.

Scented candles are mostly made from beeswax, paraffin or vegetable-based waxes such as soy wax. All of these ingredients can create a quality product, but as a general rule, quality and price go hand in hand. A high-grade candle will burn well, cause minimal soot and provide a lasting fragrance.

Beeswax candles give off a natural, delicate fragrance, are smoke-free and actually purify the air while they burn. This is because beeswax is a natural ioniser, that is, it emits negative ions when burned. The negative ions attract positively charged ions floating in the air such as dusts, pollens, nasty odours, viruses, bacteria, germs, and even toxic residues and emissions from household furnishings. As a result, all these nasties are burnt off by the burning wick of the candle, purifying the air in your space.

Soy wax candles have a vegetable base, which means any spillage can be cleaned up with soap and hot water. Plus, soy wax offers a 30 per cent longer burning time than paraffin wax, and generates much less soot.

Candle melts are used in an oil burner instead of essential oils and water. All you need is a tea-light candle underneath to melt the wax.

DIY wax melts

Make your own fragrant wax melts to use in your oil burner. All you need to do is melt the wax, stir in your fragrance and fill the moulds. Once they’re set, they’re ready. All supplies and full instructions are available from Natural Candle Supply.

What's your favourite welcoming or beautiful smell for the home? Is it freshly baked bread, or maybe cut grass? Tell us below.