What’s the Best Office Air Freshener?
Making an office smell better isn’t always the easiest thing in the world. If you work at home, you have to use the space that’s available. It might be a little small, and it may not have the best airflow. If you work in a traditional out-of-home office setting, you can’t just flood the area with a spray air freshener because your coworkers may not appreciate it – and spraying chemicals around the room isn’t really a healthy strategy for making your office smell better anyway.
The best office air freshener isn’t based on chemicals that “freshen” the air by covering unwanted scents or numbing your olfactory system. You don’t just want your work environment to smell great; you also want to make the air quality better and not worse.
The ideal way to freshen the air in your office is by removing the unwanted odors entirely. If you can’t do that, you can at least mask them with natural scents that are likely to be safer than synthetic chemicals. Here are the best strategies and products for freshening the air in your office.
Increased Airflow
Without a doubt, there is no office air freshener better than an open window. Opening a window may not be possible if you work in a traditional office, and it may not be practical in a home office depending on which room you’re working in and what time of the year it is. If you can, though, you should open windows on opposite sides of the room or opposite sides of the house to establish cross-ventilation. The breeze will push the stale air out of the room and replace it with fresh air. The more you’re able to ventilate the room, the less you’ll have to worry about unwanted smells.
Do you need even more air? Put fans in the windows and face them so that one draws fresh air in and the other forces stale air out.
Lifestyle Choices
If you work at home, it’s also important to make the right lifestyle choices if you want your office to smell nice. If you smoke in your office, for instance, there’s no getting around the fact that the space isn’t going to smell very good. Get a refillable vape instead and give your office a thorough cleaning to remove the stale smoke odor. Even if you don’t smoke, it’s probably a good idea to clean your office anyway if you haven’t done so in a while and have begun to notice unwanted smells.
Once you’ve given your office a good cleaning, you need to maintain it. Don’t leave half-finished food sitting around. If your office has a wastebasket, empty it regularly. The best office air freshener is often not doing the things that make the space smell bad in the first place.
Essential Oils
If you don’t want to spray chemicals around your office, what can you use as an air freshener instead? We suggest essential oils, which are distilled from natural botanical materials like flowers and spices. If you’re in a traditional office environment, you can put a few drops of oil in a dish and place the dish on your desk. You’ll notice the scent, but it’ll be mild enough that it won’t bother your coworkers. If you’re in a home office, you can put a warmer under the dish to project the scent throughout the room.
Reed Diffuser
If you want the scent of an essential oil to permeate your office but don’t want to use an electric or candle-based warmer, consider buying a reed diffuser instead. A reed diffuser is simply a small jar containing reeds and scented oils. The oil travels up the reeds and eventually evaporates into the air. This system requires no heat source, although you will need to clean the jar and replace the reeds occasionally.
Indoor Plants
One of the very best office air fresheners doesn’t require any electricity or supplies at all – just keep it supplied with power and light, and it’ll clean the air in the room automatically. We’re talking, of course, about houseplants. Plants don’t just improve indoor air quality; they can also add a welcome splash of color to a drab indoor environment. Some of the best plants for cleaning the air include English ivy, spider plants and snake plants.
You can also get some houseplants that have gentle scents of their own, which can be a great alternative if you’re sensitive to the smell of essential oils and want to use something milder. Some plants with pleasing scents that can be grown indoors include mint, lavender, basil and lemon balm.
Air Filter
As we’ve discussed at length in this guide, the best strategy for improving the air quality in your home office is to remove unwanted smells at their source rather than attempting to cover them up. Plants can help with that naturally, and good ventilation is also crucial if you can manage it. It’s possible, though, that those solutions aren’t possible in your work environment or aren’t enough to do the job on their own. In that case, you need to consider investing in an air filter.
Note that we used the term “air filter” and not “air purifier.” An air purifier usually works on the principle of ionization, which removes particles from the air by giving them an electric charge that causes them to stick to a collection plate. Studies have shown that ionizers don’t actually clean the air as well as they’re advertised to do. In fact, they can even potentially be detrimental to air quality because they can release harmful levels of ozone into the air.
A true air filter uses actual filter media and not ionization to clean the air. It uses a fan to draw in air and force it through various filter stages that trap odor-causing particles. At minimum, a good air filter will have a HEPA stage. It’s also a good idea to look for an air filter that uses activated charcoal to absorb gaseous particles.
