Oranges are great for creating fall and winter scented potpourri and what you add to those oranges can completely change the scent. I love this fall scented simmering potpourri that has orange peel, cinnamon, cloves and vanilla bean to give it a warm and welcoming scent. The vanilla will make it smell like you’ve been baking all day and really set the mood for the holidays.

Essential oils — Essential oils add a true boost of perfume to your wet potpourri recipe and help the fragrance last longer. The fermentation process does, however, release the natural aromatics of your ingredients. Therefore, if you do not have essential oils already, there is no need to rush out and buy them. Herbs of your choice — These can be fresh or dry. Use whatever is at your disposal in the kitchen. If you are using your wet potpourri as aromatherapy, consider the 8 best herbs for anxiety and best herbs for sleep to enjoy an extra boost of relaxation. Lavender, chamomile, mint, rosemary, and lemon balm are among our favorite fragrances. Flame or not, they release smoke. Since pets have a more acute and powerful sense of smell, they are more susceptible to the effects of smoke. Additionally, your pet's age (puppy/kitten or senior), as well as their anatomy (brachycephalic – flat-faced pets), impacts the effects smoke can have on them. cups dried flowers — Petals and/or heads. We suggest roses, lavender and hydrangea, but any blooms of your choice will suffice. If you have a garden, gather flower heads and petals just before they begin to discolor. If you don’t have a garden — or have little greenery growing in your outdoor space — ask friends or neighbors to donate a few blooms and branches. Four-to-five cups of flower heads/leaves will suffice. You can also gather pretty additions from nature (like pinecones, twigs and pebbles) to make sure your potpourri looks as good as it smells.

Forest Walk Scented Potpourri

If you have a cat and there is a recipe you want to try, and it has citrus, try leaving that part out or using ¼ to ½ of what is recommended. Here’s another wonderful simmering potpourri with pumpkin. This one has apple cider and canned pumpkin as well as apple slices – or peelings and core – and pumpkin pie spice to give it a really strong and wonderful scent. You just add all of your ingredients to a pot and simmer away. You can substitute the water in this one for apple juice or cider or use water if you want to cut down on the apple scent. For a blast of nature’s favorite cleansers, try an equal mixture of lemon, lime, and sweet orange in your recipe. Citrus essential oils have been scientifically proven to be generally safe to use with negligible toxicity to humans. If you want your home to smell minty fresh and airy, then add equal parts eucalyptus, peppermint, and tea tree oil into your potpourri recipe. Tea tree oil’s antimicrobial properties may also help fight off bad odors for longer. Making matters worse, the aromatic plant materials and essential oils used to create the scent in incense can also lead to all the other problems mentioned above. Some people want to use essential oils around their pets, myself included. However, this can be quite dangerous if not done properly. The concentration (i.e., amount of dilution) and type of oil are extremely important, but so too is the quality of the oil, the ventilation in the room, and a host of other factors.

Even better, you can use flameless candles, which will also eliminate the candle smoke that can irritate a cat or dog's respiratory system, leading to worsening of any existing asthma, bronchitis, tracheal (windpipe) problems, or other conditions of their respiratory system. Cleaner Burning Option Ingredients Some of our teammates in Seattle, Washington, use this air purifier, which has greatly helped with the smoke from forest fires. They really like the air quality sensor that indicates if the air is clean or dirty. Spices of your choice — We recommend cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, oregano or sage for superior scent-power. Dogs with sensitive airways — like those with a collapsing trachea, “kennel cough,” allergic bronchitis, and others — can experience the same problems. Our analysis found 133 different VOCs emitted from the 25 products, with an average of 17 VOCs per product. Of these 133 VOCs, 24 are classified as toxic or hazardous under U.S. federal laws, and each product emitted at least one of these compounds. For “green” products, emissions of these compounds were not significantly different from the other products.”People are capable of discriminating about one trillion different odors. Dogs can sense 100 million and cats 200 million. However, the area of the brain that analyzes odor is 40 times larger in dogs than in people. And cats appear to be able to smell 14 times better than people. I love the smell of apples simmering and this apple and ginger potpourri is so perfect for fall. You can simmer this every day from now until New Year’s and it’s really easy to throw together. Just add apple halves – or you can use the cores and peelings if you’re making a pie – along with cloves, fresh ginger, cinnamon and a few other spices to get the most perfectly wonderful scent. Make this potpourri with the leftover apple cores and peels after you’ve made tasty apple pie fries. This stove top potpourri has so many wonderful smells of the holidays including oranges, cinnamon and pinecones. You start by dicing apples and then add pinecones, cinnamon, oranges, and rosemary to a pot of water to create this wonderful scent. This is a great one for all winter and really makes your home smell warm and inviting. Plus, you can utilize pinecones. There are so many wonderful DIY pinecone crafts!