7 Home Scents to Stage Your House With and Lure Buyers

The scent in your home is a detail that can be easy to overlook but is absolutely crucial for attracting buyers. Unpleasant smells or odors can drive potential buyers away in a hurry, so it is good to make an effort to excise these smells and replace them with something more pleasant.

A subtle but inviting interior scent is important for making a good first impression. It will set the right tone for your home and make a buyer feel at home as they view your home. So if you are planning to have an open house soon, consider these points so that you can effectively remove any bad smells from your home and introduce some pleasant ones instead. 

How to Make Your House Smell Good

A nice scent can help set the perfect ambiance for your open house.

Incoming smells are processed by the part of your brain that is also implicated in emotion and memory. This may be why smells are known to be so successful at triggering emotions and memories. In other words, smells can have a bigger effect than initially expected. You may have tuned out some of the unpleasant smells in your home but a newcomer will notice this immediately.

On the question of how to make your house smell good, the first order of business is to complete a deep clean of your home, with a special focus on smellier areas. Pet beds, carpets, upholstery, and bathrooms harbor smells in your home the most. Once you are done cleaning, air out your home by opening as many of your windows as you can for as long as possible. This will remove any lingering odors and introduce fresh air to the interior of your home. 

Natural Scents

With this done your home will now have a neutral home scent, allowing you to introduce some subtle pleasant smells without mixing up the good and the bad and overpowering the olfactory senses of your visitors. As we shall see, natural or homemade products are by far the best for your home since you don’t want to remove a bad smell only to replace it with strong chemical scents.

Scents That Could Turn Buyers Away

Bad smells can be a real turn-off for buyers even if you don’t notice them at first.

There are plenty of different home scents that aren’t going to be that pleasant for a potential buyer to come across. One of these that may not be immediately apparent is the smell of dusty air vents. For example, if your vents are clogged with dust, your home would also smell like dust and will feel quite stuffy as a result. 

Other smells such as those of mold, cigarette smoke, kitchen grease smells, and smelly pets are also certain to turn off a potential buyer. Put yourself in the shoes of a homebuyer as you try to root out bad smells; think about the smells you would hate to sense as you go about a home. This will make your job easier. 

How to Remove Stubborn Odors 

If you’ve got a bad smell in your home that just won’t go away, you might be tempted to bombard the area with some strong chemical deodorizers. However, it may not be necessary to resort to such extremes to get the bad smells out. In fact, there’s a range of natural household cleaning hacks that are quite adept at getting rid of your home’s odors.

Coffee grounds, vanilla extract, baking soda, white vinegar, and lemons are all known for their odor-absorbent qualities, making them excellent solutions for a smelly home. As you will see, most of the remedies for bad smells are both easy to get your hands on and are also easy to use. 

1. Cinnamon 

The lovely scent of cinnamon creates a wonderfully warm atmosphere in your home.

For the best home scent that carries some fall flair, consider setting up a cinnamon diffuser or some cinnamon candles. The distinct smell of cinnamon helps create a pleasant warm atmosphere in your home, especially nice during the longer and colder months of fall. The other advantage of cinnamon is that it can be introduced to your home in a variety of ways. Cinnamon sticks and cinnamon confections are also great options. 

2. Vanilla 

There’s nothing quite like the subtle scent of vanilla permeating your home and eliminating all odors.

Anyone who likes some vanilla with their coffee knows that the smell of vanilla in the morning is something one can’t beat. Imagine a subtle vanilla home scent permeating your home, eliminating all unpleasant odors and restoring a sense of comfort and serenity. If that sounds good to you, it goes without saying that it will be pretty good for a potential buyer as well. After all, what better way to get a buyer to seriously consider your home as an option than to put their mind at ease right off the bat?  

3. Spa Scents 

Spa botanicals are typically potent essential oils made from various herbs and are perfect at overpowering bad smells.

Also known as spa botanicals, the best home fragrances are typically quite strong, making them a perfect candidate for removing an unpleasant odor. Since essential oils of this kind tend to be quite potent, a little bit can go a long way. Essential oils are typically extracts of the essences of various plant life such as flowers, barks, leaves, resins, berries, and citrus products. Whatever you choose to use, make sure it’s a natural product so you don’t end up with a synthetic chemical mystery product. 

4. Coffee 

Recycle your coffee grounds as an effective odor remover instead of throwing them away.

Used coffee grounds can be used in a variety of ways to take away unpleasant smells. To make use of coffee grounds you’ll need to set some aside and let them dry out. Once they’re dry, you can place them in an open container and then stick this container in your fridge or any other compartment that smells musty. Dried grounds can also be placed in a thin sock and used to deodorize shoes or a coat. Finally, since coffee is an insecticide, it will not attract insects, so there’s one less thing to worry about!

5. Citrus 

The scent of citrus is a universal crowdpleaser guaranteed to charm a potential buyer.

Citrus is a universally popular smell known for reducing stress and taking away any unpleasant odors from the environment. If you want to bring the lovely tang of citrus into your home, be sure that you go for a natural solution rather than a chemical one for the best results. There are plenty of natural products that are designed to bring a pleasant citrus scent into your home, and some of these even combine citrus with cilantro. This allows your home’s scent to be balanced by the subtle undertones of another one. A home filled with good smells and is well-cleaned is a home that is unlocking its full potential value, so be sure to make an investment in a potent natural scent that makes the difference.

6. Jasmine 

Jasmine products can be found all over the world and provide a great scent for bedrooms and bathrooms.

Jasmine is another crowd-pleaser. This fragrant flower is most associated with the Middle East and the Iberian peninsula, but products made from jasmine can be found throughout the world. A jasmine diffuser will provide the best home fragrance that is especially well suited to bedrooms and bathrooms. This scent also embodies a good balance of qualities since it is both easy to sense but also subtle enough that it doesn’t overpower the senses. 

7. Pine

There is no shortage of ways to bring the pine scent into your abode.

If you live in pine country you know that pine trees have a prominent and pleasant scent that can eliminate unpleasant smells of smoke or other pollutants. Pine provides a home scent that is fresh and natural and also sets the stage for a relaxing down-to-earth atmosphere. This gets everyone in a good mood and puts any nervous homebuyer at ease.

Tree scents such as pine or cedar are also a great choice for those with a more rustic interior design since the scent of wood complements a farmhouse aesthetic. Plus, there are a variety of ways to use pine scent in your home even besides a diffuser or some candles. Pinecones, pine garlands, and pine wreaths are all good options worth also considering.