Fresh air vs air freshners

Today, I’ve mostly been thinking about air fresheners. I just can’t stand the stinkin' things.

As time goes on, the Air Wicks of the world get more and more sophisticated. So now the adverts proudly display a plug-in air freshener with three different ‘fragrances’ that alternate every forty minutes.

How much does your house have to smell before you need a squirt of air freshener EVERY FORTY MINUTES.

It is ironic - and not in an Alanis Morissette kinda way - that many of the fragrances used in air freshensers mimick the natural world. We have 'Fresh Pine forests', 'Soothing Lavender' and 'Festive Oranges and Cloves'.

So we've destroyed most the forests and natural places in this country to build our lovely warm boxes. These boxes get a bit smelly cos we don’t open the windows. Then we destroy a bit more of the planet, using up energy, chemicals, metal and plastic, to produce fake natural fumes in a handy plug in dispenser.

What should we do? Throw away the things (or better yet – don’t buy em), don’t smoke inside, give our carpets a good Hoover and open our windows once a day to AIR the place. That is use real air to freshen our homes rather than air fresheners.

That should do it.