Do you enjoy using fabric conditioner as an air freshener, but don’t want to spend so much money buying new bottles of it every month? The good news is that you can make your own version of it at home that smells just as good but costs way, way less.
A lot of people love the smell of fabric conditioner so much that they spray it elsewhere in their house, not just on their clothes. They use it to freshen up furniture, or even the stinky dog bed (note: your dog may not like the smell of fabric conditioner).
Regardless of your preferred way to use it, let’s take a look at how to make your own at home.
You have two options when making your own air freshener spray. You can either use real fabric softener if you prefer the smell of it, or you can use other ingredients that will have a different scent. I’ll explain both recipes below.
How To Make Air Freshener Spray From Fabric Conditioner
To make your own real-smelling fabric conditioner spray, you’ll first need to start with… some real fabric conditioner. What we’re going to be doing is watering it down so that it lasts longer. We can also add other ingredients to make it stronger. Let’s take a look:
Ingredients:
- Fabric conditioner spray bottle – I recommend Febreze spray or Downy spray.
- At least a bit of fabric conditioner left in the bottle.
- One of the following: white vinegar, baking soda, or rubbing alcohol.
- Hot water.
The process is very simple. You just water down the original fabric softener, then strengthen it back up by adding the vinegar, baking soda, or alcohol. The benefit here is that buying vinegar, baking soda, or rubbing alcohol is very cheap.
How To Make It:
- Open a fabric conditioner spray bottle that has some fabric conditioner left in it.
- Add ONE of the following ingredients:
- 1/2 cup white vinegar.
- 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol.
- 2 tablespoons baking soda,
- Fill the rest of the bottle with hot water.
- Shake well to mix up ingredients.
- Wait for it to cool, then spray as needed.
It’s important to note that in step #2, the ingredients you add will help your solution become more effective at cleaning surfaces – if that’s what you want to do with it.
If you don’t care about cleaning anything, and you just want to spray it for the smell, you can use a bit less of the ingredient in step #2. If you want a stronger cleaner, then use a bit more.
How To Make 100% Natural Air Freshener Spray Without Synthetic Chemicals
If you don’t have fabric softener or don’t want to use it because of the unnatural chemicals, you can still make your own air freshener spray without it.
Instead of using fabric softener for the scent, we’re going to use natural scented oils. Let’s take a look at this easy recipe below:
Ingredients:
- Spray bottle of your choice – I recommend this pocket-sized mist bottle for portable use in the car, or this large spray bottle for around the house.
- Rubbing alcohol (preferred), or white vinegar.
- Essential oils of your choice – I recommend this affordable starter pack that comes with 6 scents.
- Warm water.
Rubbing alcohol is preferred for this air freshener spray because it will help the spray evaporate faster. However, vinegar will also work.
How To Make It:
- Open up your spray bottle.
- Fill the bottle about 15% full of rubbing alcohol.
- Add essential oil of your choice.
- Add 5 drops for a small bottle
- Add 20 drops for a large bottle.
- Or add even more if you want a stronger scent.
- Fill the rest of the bottle with warm water.
- Shake well.
- Wait for it to cool, then spray as needed.
If you cannot get rubbing alcohol or vinegar, you can also try adding your scented oils to water all by itself. It may work well enough that you don’t care about adding the extra ingredients. However, if you want to use it as a cleaning solution, the alcohol or vinegar will really help improve its cleaning effectiveness.
