How to Make Your Apartment Smell Heavenly
Living Pretty Ep12 | Home Fragrances: How to Make Your Apartment Smell Heavenly
Home fragrances are sooo important for the vibe of your studio apartment. With all kinds of odors floating around and no walls to guard against them, having some of the best home fragrance products is a must! Knowing how to decorate a studio apartment is one thing, but keeping it smelling nice is just as important.
In this video, I list out all my favorite home fragrance brands and scents that help me keep my studio apartment smelling pretty. One of my favorite room sprays straight up smells like an actual garden. Who doesn’t want that?
If you’re looking for studio apartment tips, how to make your apartment smell good, and a list of the best fragrance products, watch this video for some sweet smelling studio apartment inspiration.
*This video is not sponsored. I just really REALLY love these home fragrance products. Like, kind of obsessively.
Watch the video now!
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I’ve made some slight edits in the transcript so that everything makes more sense in text form. But overall, this is almost a word-for-word dictation of what I say in the episode. I’m a much better writer than this, I swear, haha.
I live in a studio, I eat Chipotle at least once a week, and I have a cat. My apartment should not smell as good as it does. And despite all these reasons why my apartment should, frankly, smell awful, it always smells beautiful in here. Because my home fragrance game is on fire. Literally, it's on fire.
In this video, I'm gonna take you through all the home fragrances that I actually use in my apartment - from candles to read diffusers - that make this place smell amazing. Always.
So the scents I have in here are what I consider to be a curation of the best scents out there. And they cover every budget; I have candles from Target and super luxe candles from Nordstrom.
I don't discriminate when it comes to price. But I do discriminate when it comes to the actual scent. I'm very picky. I could be like what a sommelier is for wine. I could be a scent sommelier... oh my god that would be the best job ever.
Are you the same way when it comes to home fragrance? If so, let me know in the comments and tell me your favorite brand!
And make sure you stay tuned to the end of the video, at which point I'm going to share a quick list of scents that you should be careful of. There are some types of scents that, if done poorly by the brand, can totally throw off the vibe of your home.
For example, have you ever noticed that sometimes the lavender scents can smell like public restrooms?
Take it from your very own scent sommelier.
So stay tuned for my list of cents to be extra picky about at the end.
So let's get started with some of the higher-end fragrances that I love and then we'll work our way to the less expensive options.
The first brand I'm going to talk about is Antica Farmacista. And this happens to be my favorite brand ever. Their fragrances are so beautiful and they're so complex.
The number one thing I look for in a fragrance is the complexity of it. I'm not looking for it to just be pretty - I want it to do something interesting to my brain. I want to be kind of challenged by a scent.
Antica Farmacista also has beautiful packaging. I love it so much, they're like pieces of decor in addition to filling your space with a beautiful scent.
I fell in love with an Antica Farmacista first with their reed diffusers, and I'm also a big fan of their candles, and I'm also a big fan of their room sprays. I'm clearly a die-hard fan of Antica Farmacista
One fun thing about Antica Farmacista room spray is I also love using it as a perfume. Their scents are so beautiful that I don't just want my home to smell like them I also want my body to smell like them.
The downside to Antica Farmacista is it is a bit more on the expensive side. I think that a reed diffuser this size is around sixty-something dollars, so it's definitely a bit of an investment. But you pay for good quality when it comes to scent and, like I said about the room spray, this can also double as a perfume. So you get a lot of bang for your buck with Antica Farmacista.
And on top of just loving their products they're also a woman-owned Seattle company, so I may be a little biased as a Seattle girl. But I love this brand, what can I say?
My next favorite home fragrance is actually not technically a home fragrance at all. It is actually a perfume from Le Labo, and it is their Santal 33.
This perfume has more staying power than any room spray that I've ever used. This is also probably one of my favorite woodsy scents of all time. So basically, if you want your home or your body to smell like an enchanted forest, Santal 33 is the one.
The downside to Le Labo is it is insanely expensive. One 50 milliliter bottle of this stuff is $192.00. I only have this little travel-size because my friend got it for me for my birthday a while ago.
But to be honest, I might - one of these days - actually invest in the full-size of this fragrance because that's how much I love it. And the upside is it'll last a really long time. One spray of this goes a very long way.
My next favorite home fragrance scent is Baies by Diptyque. This stuff smells like an actual garden.
And I love this scent because it doesn't smell perfume-y. It smells like actual flowers. It lasts a long time so you get a lot of bang for your buck - I think I've had this for the last year, and I've only used this much. And I use it a lot.
This is another room spring that I also love to use as a perfume so you get that double purpose that kind of stretches the expensive price tag a little bit further.
And speaking of expensive price tag, that is the down side to Diptyque as a brand - they're very expensive. But again, their fragrances are so complex and sophisticated and beautiful, you really do get what you pay for.
Another home fragrance brand that I'm crazy about is Archipelago Botanicals. And I want to talk about one particular scent from this brand, and that is their jasmine scent.
One thing I absolutely hate about jasmine scents from most brands is they don't actually smell like jasmine. Actual jasmine flowers are probably the most beautiful scent mother nature put on this earth and it's so hard to find like a candle or reed diffuser version of it.
Archipelago Botanicals is the closest I've ever gotten to actual jasmine scent. It is intoxicating, I love this candle so much. This candle doesn't even have to be lit and it gives off a beautiful jasmine scent
The downside to Archipelago Botanicals is they're harder to find in person. They're kind of in random shops here and there so I usually just order them online, or I'm sure you could also find locations on their website. But they're just a little fewer and further between.
But take my word for it - if you just order their jasmine candle without even smelling it first, I have a feeling you'll be very happy.
So let's talk about Project 62 from Target.
I love perusing the candle aisle of Target as I feel like most women do, but I tend to not really like most of the scents at Target. Most of them are a little on the boring side for me, um but Project 62 has fragrances that are complex and sophisticated and beautiful, and I'm shocked that they're at Target.
And the packaging is extremely chic. Like, go Target! This is really cute this looks like it would be at a high-end spa.
There's really no downside to the Project 62 candles. I love them. They're super cheap and they smell amazing. You really can't wrong with these.
Lastly, I want to talk about TJ Maxx.
I'm gonna talk more about the general shopping experience and not so much a specific brand, because there isn't really, like, a TJ Maxx brand. At least that I know of.
The reason why I love shopping at TJ Maxx for candles is because they're very very cheap.
I've also found that TJ Maxx, for whatever reason, is really great for finding really nice woodsy smoky fragrances. I have this candle that I got at TJ Maxx and also this candle I got at TJ Maxx. And these are amazing, like, woodsy, smokey candles and they look really chic too.
So you can find really beautiful nicely scented candles at TJ Maxx. The downside to shopping for candles at TJ Maxx is most of their scents, frankly, suck.
I was actually just shopping at TJ Maxx for candles last week and I would say 95% of the candles that I smelled were pretty awful. And I feel like when I’ve found really good candles at TJ Maxx, it was a stroke of luck.
So if you're gonna shop at TJ Maxx for candles, just get ready to kiss a few frogs before you find a prince.
So those are my favorite brands and places to shop for home fragrance.
And, as promised, here's a fast-fire list of scents to be careful of when you're shopping for candles and reed diffusers. These are scents that can smell amazing if done well but horrible if they're done poorly.
As I said earlier, lavender can smell like a public restroom.
Cedar can smell like men's deodorant.
Citrusy scents like lemon or orange can smell like cleaning spray.
Tobacco can smell dirty and overwhelming, to the point of inducing a headache.
Patchouli can smell like a basement that hasn't left the 70’s.
And cucumber can be a little too much of a throwback to the Bath and Bodyworks cucumber/melon days of yore… 90’s kids know. And we’ll always cherish those heady days of body glitter and butterfly clips.
Again, these scents can be amazing. Usually the higher end brands know how to do them right, but whatever your budget I would just make sure to always approach these particular scents with an extra level of pickiness.
At the end of the day, I would only buy candles and reed diffusers that fill you with happiness. Don't waste your money on fragrances that don't connect with you on a personal level. And don't settle for scents that don't make your apartment feel like a home.
For daily glimpses into my studio apartment life, follow me on Instagram @moda.misfit, and be sure to subscribe to my channel and hit the bell to be notified when a new episode of Living Pretty goes up every week.
And remember, your apartment is destined to be pretty - and to smell pretty - and you're pretty powerful.