5 Quick Ways to Make Your Kitchen Smell Amazing Naturally

Natasha Bruce-Carline
5 Quick Ways to Make Your Kitchen Smell Amazing Naturally
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Are you worried about unexpected guests and want to know how to keep your kitchen smelling fresh?

The kitchen is the unarguable heart of the home. It is also the place most likely to develop nasty whiffs and odors. Unwashed dishes, food waste, cooking smells, and excess moisture can all contribute to your kitchen not smelling as delicious as you might want it to. 

The good news is that with a mix of natural deodorizing techniques with a thoughtful approach to aromatics, you can keep your kitchen smelling fresh every day. 

In this article, we’ll quickly think about the main culprits creating a stench, get them clean, and then we’ll think about aromatics. I have some really great recipes that will quickly have your kitchen seeming like it just came out of a magazine.

Start With the Basics: Clean & Deodorize Your Kitchen Naturally

Kitchen smells derive from a variety of sources. These could be cooking odors, perishing food, accumulated grease on walls and surfaces and walls,  a buildup in your drain pipes, or whiffy trash. Your kitchen can get very warm and humid when it is full of activity. Odors cling to walls, fabrics, appliances, and even linger, unappealing the air. Keeping your kitchen smelling clean isn’t just about covering up bad smells. It is also about removing their sources.

1. Get Cleaning

Achieving a clean, fresh kitchen starts with common sense and simply removing what’s causing the odiferous problem in the first place:

    • Be sure to take out the trash on a regular basis. Smelly trash and lingering food waste are among the biggest contributors to unappealing smells in your kitchen.

    • Wash and clean the garbage bin. When you empty the trash, always check the bins for escaping garbage or watery fluids at the bottom. Wipe it down with hot soapy water, or a mixture of one part baking soda and two parts white vinegar to fully neutralize and deodorize the odors, especially the ones even the plastic hangs on to! 

    • Wipe and clean your kitchen surfaces daily. Accumulating crumbs, cooking grease, and smeared food can quickly create unpleasant aromas. A daily wipe or wash and weekly disinfectant should help you keep on top of this.

    • Be proactive and set out natural odor absorbers. Pop a small bowl of baking soda or white vinegar on the counter; they will do wonders for deodorizing kitchen odors before they get out of hand. 

2. Deep Clean Odor Hotspots

We all have those areas in the kitchen that require more targeted and regular attention to stay clean and fresh:

    • Garbage disposal and drain pipes: These can get choked up with gunk and grime. Rinse through with hot soapy water. Try running a few cut-up citrus pieces through, mixed with ice cubes, which is even better! Try pouring down a couple of cups of baking soda, followed by the same amount of white vinegar, to break down that yukky gunk and greasy grime. 

    • Deodorize the dishwasher: It really helps to run a cleaning cycle, especially if your dishwasher starts to smell musty and fusty. Try running it through with Lemon juice and deodorizing baking soda, or a cup of white vinegar works just as well, too.

    • Declutter the fridge: Doing a weekly clean out of your fridge helps. With me, it is storing leftovers where I can see them to use them up before they go off. Clean up those annoying food spills you made when you were in a hurry, to avoid making the whole kitchen smell.

    • Disinfect, wash, and renew washing cloths and sponges: These are notorious for holding onto odor-causing bacteria. I invested in some excellent heavy-duty cotton cloths that take disinfecting with boiling water. I also switched to natural sponges that can be composted when worn, reducing the amount of microplastics in the environment. 

3. Use Natural Odor Absorbers You Can Set and Forget

    • Utilise the positive actions of baking soda: Baking soda actually deodorizes and neutralizes odors, making it an effective cleaning tool for odors. Place an open box in the fridge door or keep a small bowl on the counter.

    • Use odor-absorbing gels or charcoal bags: These are really great for discreet odor control around your kitchen and in cupboards. 

    • Try an air purifier: If you have little ventilation or a particularly small kitchen, these can prove pretty useful allies in your battle against odors.

As you can see, these are really simple, common-sense steps, which will lay the foundation for a clean, fresh kitchen, without relying on harsh chemicals or commercial products. 

Ventilation Is Your Secret Weapon for a Fresh-Smelling Kitchen

 

Searching for how to keep your kitchen smelling fresh? Ventilation is one of the easiest things to use to help yourself. Good airflow goes a long way in removing pesky odors and cooking smells:

    • Turn on your extractor fan before you cook, not after.

    • Open the windows; this helps move smelly air out and bring fresh air in.

    • Use cross-ventilation whenever possible. Open windows and a door to push the stinky air out of the house and pull fresh air in instead. I open the kitchen windows and put my front door open on the safety chain, which stops the door from being blown open and creates better airflow. 

    • Ventilate small apartment kitchens. Cooking odors spread quickly throughout small apartments and spaces, so ventilation is key here. Even five minutes of moving airflow can help remove food smells from the home quickly and effectively.

Add Essential Oils to Your Cleaning Routine

It is so easy today to add essential oils to your cleaning routines and even make your own cleaning products. Find plenty of ideas here - DIY Natural Cleaning Products: Get a Sparkling Clean Home, Naturally! I find that essential oils blend beautifully with natural-based cleaners and homemade cleaning supplies. 

Try a couple of these ideas:

    • Add a few drops of Lemon, Thyme, Oregano, or Tea Tree to a soapy, white vinegar and water spray.

    • Put Rosemary, Eucalyptus, or Peppermint oil on a cotton ball and tuck it into the bottom of the garbage bin. Although this is a great way to use any old or oxidized essential oils, especially old citrus oils.

    • Drop a few drops of bright and breezy citrus oils down the garbage disposal before running it. Try it with a few ice cubes for maximum results. Again, a great way to use up old essential oils.

These super simple tips go a long way towards keeping your kitchen smelling fresh and clean every day.

Discover, with Liz, The Best Essential Oils for Cleaning: Keep Your Home Clean & Green

Try a Natural Simmer Pot On The Stove Top

Simmer pots are a classic and traditional way to instantly freshen a kitchen, and they are having somewhat of a resurgence. You can even buy commercial options, but this natural method is so easy to put together yourself, don’t waste your money on pre-made!  

    • Simply ⅔ fill two-thirds of a stove-top pot with warm water

    • Add dried or fresh citrus slices, Cinnamon sticks, Cloves, fresh sprigs of Rosemary, small twiglets of Pine or Fir, or a few drops of essential oil. Or even all of the above! 

    • Let it simmer very, very gently and fill your kitchen with luscious natural aromas.

    • Adding a teaspoon of baking soda helps neutralize and deodorize any lingering odors.

These quick and easy simmer pots fill your kitchen with delicious aromas. Stick to citrus and herbal blends for freshness, and warm spices and wood shavings for a more cozy ambience.

More Quick Fixes When Cooking Smells Hit Hard

For those moments when the aroma of dinner has taken over the entire house, and you need quick and easy solutions fast, try these:

    • Place small bowls of baking soda strategically around the kitchen

    • Use an air purifier, if you have one, to neutralize odors quickly

These easy solutions work especially well in small apartments where cooking odors can travel fast and linger longer.

Make Your Kitchen Smell Good Naturally with Essential Oils

Essential oils offer you a natural and botanical way to freshen, revive, and clean your kitchen naturally. They are especially useful once you have cleaned your space and you want to give your kitchen a fresh, uplifting, and invigorating aroma.

Use an Essential Oil Diffuser to Freshen the Air

An essential oils diffuser is one of the quickest and easiest ways to make your kitchen smell good naturally. You can choose the vibe you want to create and design your essential oil blends accordingly.

You may want fresh and inviting, but equally, you might want warm and inviting or even intimate and sensuous for a dinner cooked together. All of these moods are possible using VINEVIDA essential oils and fragrance oils.

However, let's stick with clean, refreshing, and enlivening blends for the purposes of this article. Here are a few blend ideas:

How To:

Simply combine the essential oils and decant into a 5ml bottle, label clearly listing all ingredients and safety cautions. Follow your diffuser manufacturer's instructions for dilution and usage instructions. 

Citrus Clean Kitchen Blend

This is wonderfully bright, refreshing, and energizing, making it perfect for neutralizing cooking smells joyfully! Personally, I prefer Pink Grapefruit rather than White Grapefruit in this vivifying blend. 

Safety:

    • Not for topical use

    • Do not diffuse in a home where cats are present

After Cooking Fish Blend

This blend is excellent for tackling strong fishy odors and masking foul smells. Always add in some ventilation when you are cooking fish. You could use Lemon Eucalyptus essential oil (Eucalyptus citriodora) here if you want to instead. 

Safety:

    • Not for topical use

    • Do not diffuse in a home where cats are present

Fresh Herb Garden Blend

I love this super clean, aromatic herbal essential oil blend. It is great for those open and airy kitchens, but it works just as wonderfully in my small kitchen. 

Safety:

    • Not for topical use

    • Do not diffuse in a home where cats are present

Essential oils and aromatherapy diffusers help keep your kitchen smelling wonderfully fresh and blissfully clean without being overpowering or suffocating. 

VINEVIDA Fragrance Oils: A World of Scent to Elevate Your Kitchen

While essential oils are perfect for a more natural approach to keeping your kitchen smelling fresh, VINEVIDA fragrance oils offer a huge variety of choices, giving you a myriad of fun and creative possibilities. Fragrance oils can sometimes offer better longevity, and of course, we have the perfect fragrance oils for the job. Our Diffuser variations are specifically designed for nebulizing or Cold Air Diffusers only, and the Soaps & Candles variations are for making toiletries, candles, and home cleaning products, amongst many others. 

Why Use Fragrance Oils in the Kitchen?

Fragrance oils are ideal when you want your kitchen to smell good effortlessly… and quickly!

A Wider Variety of Scent Types

Fragrance oils have a wider range of specific types of aromas than essential oils. 

Capturing Elusive & Precious Scents

Fragrance oils are wonderful at capturing scents that are challenging to do naturally. Think of those elusive and enigmatic spring flowers like Hyacinth, Narcissus, Tulips, and Bluebells.

Tropical fruits like Pomegranate, Lychee, Guava, and Pineapple can be hard to capture in essential oils, and so fragrance oils make a wonderfully bright and refreshing option.  

Fragrance oils also provide us with sustainable alternatives. Some might not be economically viable and produce an essential oil that is prohibitively and exorbitantly expensive, taking it out of the price range of most people. 

They also offer us more eco-conscious ways of using alternatives to precious resources. Using fragrance oils, we can reduce habitat destruction and make more sustainable choices.

Think Palo Santo, Sandalwood, Oud, Ambergris, and Amber. All offer a variety of valid reasons to use a fragrance oil over the precious essential oil, where the active components are not required.

Longevity, Intensity & Consistency

Fragrance oils will often linger longer in the air, giving you a longer scent life. It can be worth choosing fragrances with more intense aromas for tackling tough jobs around the kitchen. 

Don’t forget we also have NO. 24 - Citrus Odor Eliminator and NO. 70 - Vanilla Odor Eliminator to help you keep on top of pesky whiffs.

Some fragrance oils offer you a better level of intensity of fragrance intensity. You can bolster essential oils with a matching fragrance oil to give both the active properties of the essential oil, but a deeper and more intense aroma.

For example, you could pair Lavender essential oil with NO. 46 - Lavender fragrance oil. You could add extra dimension and texture with NO. 47 - Lavender Vanilla or NO. 140 - Dreamy Lavender.

Essential oils are naturally derived and therefore variable, meaning that they can change from area to area, batch to batch, and production to production. Fragrance oils are usually much the same and don’t vary much, if any. They offer better consistency for scenting and a more stable fragrance, which you can rely on for being the same every time. 

How to Use Fragrance Oils Safely

Like essential oils, we do need to pay attention to some of the safety aspects of using fragrance oils to keep kitchens smelling fresh and clean.

Use The Right Variation

When it comes to using them in a diffuser, always follow the manufacturer's guidance as to what type of oil to use and whether you should dilute it or not. VINEVIDA Diffuser fragrance oils are only designed for nebulizing or Cold Air Diffusers and should not be used for anything else. Soaps & Candles fragrance oils can be used in most other types of diffusers. If in doubt - check this out! How To Use Vinevida Oils.

Only add them to a diffuser if the product is approved for it.

Stay Skin Safe & Follow IFRA Guidelines

When using fragrance oils in situations where your skin might be exposed to them, in products like surface cleansers, washing detergents, and room sprays. You need to follow the IFRA skin safety guidelines. Click here for How to Find Safety Information On The VINEVIDA Website.

Explore more in - How To Get The Best From Soaps & Candles Fragrance Oil.

Considered Placement

If you are tucking cotton wool balls into garbage bins or in the back of cupboards, think about how safe it is, especially if you have children and pets in your home. Use your common sense and make sure they are tucked out of the way of curious hands and mouths. This is especially important if you are using it undiluted! Don’t forget, fragrance oils are… well…. OILS, so they can stain. Always do a patch test first! 

Tash’s Favourite Fragrance Profiles for Clean & Fresh Smelling Kitchens

Fragrance oils offer endless ways to give your kitchen a refreshing scent identity, and we can easily create this by choosing appropriate aromas or blending them together to give us our desired outcome.

Refreshing Citrus

This is the most obvious choice when you want your kitchen to smell clean, fresh, and invigorating. Zesty, zingy citrus aromas are found in commercial kitchen products across the globe. Citrus aromas offer you bright, sparkling, clean scents that uplift, enliven, and vivify you.

Try these bright and zingy favorites of mine: 

Don’t forget you can combine them with these citrus essential oils:

Invigorating Herbal Greens

Green herbs are deliciously fresh and uplifting, and pair extremely well with citrus notes. They can be some of the most invigorating and make wonderful choices for a kitchen with a fresh smell. 

Try these enlivening and life-affirming favorites of mine: 

Don’t forget you can combine them with these vivifying herbal essential oils:

Fresh Airy Nature

I make no bones about this being one of my favourite types of aroma, especially at this time of the year. Choose scents that evoke wide open spaces, big skies, calm seas, and meandering streams through ancient woodland.

Try these airy and evocative favorites of mine: 

Don’t forget you can combine them with these bright and breezy essential oils:

Fresh Linen or Cotton

So many of you just adore these crisp, clean aromas that evoke fresh, line-dried washing. Their airy, pristine aromas are perfect for kitchens that open into dining or living areas.

Try these favorites of mine: 

Don’t forget you can combine them with these complementary essential oils:

Baked Goods

These are not always the freshest of aromas, but I know you love their cozy warmth at this time of year. You can get those cozy and comforting aromas and feel a good ambience, without actually baking. I’ll show you how to uplift them and make them a bit fresher by offering you their perfect, more lively companion

Try these combined favorites of mine: 

Don’t forget you can combine them with these contrasting essential oils:

Final Words

Keeping your kitchen smelling fresh is completely achievable — and it doesn’t have to be complicated. By tackling odor sources, using natural neutralizing and deodorizing ingredients, like baking soda and white vinegar, and layering in inviting aromas with essential oils and fragrance oils, you can give your kitchen a delightful scent every day.

First, Develop Long-Term Habits to Keep Your Kitchen Smelling Fresh Every Day

Deep cleaning your kitchen is a definitive start point, and once your kitchen is clean and fresh, these small daily habits will help to keep it that way as long as possible.

It Is Good Practice To:

    • Wipe your kitchen surfaces with warm, soapy water after cooking

    • Deep clean both your garbage disposal and the dishwasher to help prevent buildup

    • Keep any food waste covered and remove it daily, especially waste for composting

    • Ensure you always have good ventilation and cross-breeze

    • Use long-lasting cotton cloths for more effective cleaning. They will also withstand being boiled and disinfected, which is more sustainable. 

    • Freshen the space with an aromatherapy diffuser or use a homemade air freshener

    • Keep a bowl or open box of baking soda in your fridge, pantry, and cupboards to neutralize odor.s

    • Clean and deodorize your kitchen regularly

Simple, small steps go a long way to help keep your kitchen smelling fresh and clean easily and effortlessly.

Layering Refreshing Scent

Once your kitchen is crisp, fresh, and clean, then you can start and have oodles of fun with scent layering natural essential oils and bright and refreshing fragrance oils. Use the active properties of essential oils like Oregano and Tea Tree to bust bugs and microbes, and pair it with invigorating and enlivening fragrance oils like NO. 1112 - Inspired by: Eucalyptus Spearmint by Bath & Body Works for a scent bursting with life and vitality. Make your own cleaning products and streamline your Signature Scent through them all for a kitchen that smells as good as it looks. Clean, fresh, and beautifully fragranced: that’s the kind of kitchen everyone wants to walk into. Now you know how to keep your kitchen smelling fresh with both essential oils and fragrance oils. Have fun with it and never worry about those unexpected guests ever again!

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