Old Glass Jars Collecting Dust In Your Home? Use Them To Freshen Up Your Bathroom

Scent can be an often overlooked invisible element when imagining the perfect inviting and cozy home, and yet it's one of the first things both we and our visitors notice. Even a pristine home can smell stale and uninspiring, while homes with pets, children, or unwelcome cooking smells may be more obviously unpleasant. While many air fresheners, melts, can candles can be inhospitable to those with allergies and scent intolerances, there are more natural ways of refreshing your home. This includes the renewed popularity of simmer pots, which is an age-old way of adding scent that you can create on your stovetop. These collections of fruit, herbs, and spices boiling on the stove can fill a home with cozy and delicious smells when in use. Some DIY-ers are finding new ways to harness the scent of a simmer pot for use in other areas of the home, like the bathroom, including using recycled jars as containers.

This is a perfect way to use earth-friendly scents and upcycle old jars or glass containers, like old candle jars, that you might not want to part with. All you need are your scented elements from nature, a glass container that can accommodate boiling water, and a stovetop or electric kettle. 

To create your portable simmer pots, assemble your scented ingredients and disperse them into the jars, creating whatever combination of scents you desire. Highly aromatic elements like citrus fruits, berries, and spices, are great for releasing their scents when hot water is added. Since you're working with boiling water, be sure to carefully place the jars in their intended location first, making sure that your container can withstand the necessary heat (glass jars are great for this since part of the canning process usually involves high temperatures, but your might want to check them in the sink first.)

Use your kettle to add boiling water to the container, and its contents will release its scent intensely and continue to intensify over time. As the water cools and the steam dissipates, simply add more hot water to the pot You can also use a strainer to remove the older water before refilling. Most aromatic elements will continue to release scent for several days. Since the ingredients are inexpensive, just replace them as needed. The jars make a much less toxic alternative to air fresheners and a safer option than burning candles. 

People often create holiday simmer pots during the winter months, but there are combinations of scents that are perfect for your needs all year long, While citrus fruits and berries are always popular additions, you can find the perfect simmer pot recipe to suit the season, including oranges and cranberries for fall or crisp limes and lemons for spring or summer. You can also use spices and herbs, including thyme, sage, mint, and rosemary, that will add greater depth to the scents, as well as nature-foraged materials like twigs, branches, and pine cones. For more intense and varied smells, try adding a few drops of essential oil to each jar.

You can also find small portable simmer pots on Etsy that use a tea light to keep the water heated. You will still have to replace the water as it boils away, but it will stay warm and scented for the duration. An electric liquid potpourri heater, like this one from Amazon, will also work to keep the scent continuously releasing.