Scenting your home for Christmas creates a warm, inviting atmosphere by evoking warmth and elegance. It puts us right in the festive mood. Scent is super important to transport your home from 0 to 100 for the right celebratory atmosphere. This is a period of get-togethers, which also involves lots of cooking and entertaining for many. There are some fragrance practices to observe to ensure your home smells good, such as avoiding unpleasant and lingering cooking smells.

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Scent Training your Space

Here at POTC, we advocate *scent training your space. This is the practice of burning the same candle every day for a period of time (e.g two weeks) or layering different scents to create a harmonious and inviting fragrance orchestra.

Our candles should be burned a minimum of 1 hours and maximum of 4 hours. They are incredibly potent and will infuse your space – your fabrics and walls with their scent, all with a lovely clean non-sooting burn. Always, of course, trim your wicks to avoid your candle burning incorrectly. You wick should be no longer than a grain of rice.

Here’s how infuse your home with delightful Christmas scents:

Simmering Potpourri: Create a natural potpourri by simmering water with festive ingredients like cinnamon sticks, cloves, orange peels, cranberries, and sprigs of pine or cedar. Let it simmer on the stove or in a slow cooker for a gentle, long-lasting scent.

Scented Candles: scent train your home and light scented candles with fragrances with herbaceous or sweet scents such as our Grapefruit and Lavender candle which cuts rights through musty air. Our Violet Cassis candle is deliciously festive with its rich, sweet, fruity vibe.

Essential Oil Diffusers: Use essential oil diffusers to spread Christmas scents throughout your home. Whenever I travel to Morocco or Northern Nigeria’s ancient Kano city, I pick up essential oil blends from the souks.

Room Sprays: Make your own room spray by using essential oils diluted in water. Spritz in various rooms to add a burst of holiday fragrance. I love rose and neroli.

Scented Ornaments: Make scented ornaments by adding a few drops of essential oils to porous ornaments like clay. One of my favourite is the scented pomegranate from Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy.

Baking and Cooking: The aromas from holiday baking and cooking can naturally fill your home with delightful scents. Bake cookies, gingerbread, or simmer spices for mulled cider or wine.

Avoid cooking smells

Burn an incense every evening, such as in your kitchen especially after cooking, and light a candle once or twice a day.

Always ventilate when cooking, with an extractor fan or by opening the door. If you live in a cold environment, you can cross ventilate your home by periodically opening two windows or doors at opposite ends for 5-10 minutes at a time, for a total of 30 minutes per day. Regularly airing your home out in winter, freshens up your space and limits the spread of mould from damp, which cooking encourages.

With these ideas, you can fill your home with the delightful scents of Christmas and create a cozy, festive atmosphere for the holidays.