Sep

15

By luckycharm4me

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Categories: four leaf clover

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Home Fragrances: Scented Candles Or Reed Diffusers?


 

When you are considering home fragrances, do your thoughts turn to scented candles or the more modern electrical diffusers?  When you are turning your home into a beautiful place to live and relax you will generally make careful choices of which fabrics to use, which carpets to buy, the colour of your paint or the pattern of your wallpaper. You take time in choosing the sofa and chairs, the coffee table and the pictures.

 

Then you turn to the accessories which add that extra something to your decor. It is the vases and the grasses, the statues and the flowers, that make a real difference and stamp your personality on each room.  One important factor to add to the ambiance of your home is the use of perfumes to make the room not only look good but also smell good.

   

Using scented candles offers four distinct advantages to a room that cannot be emulated by any form of diffuser, particularly by an electrical oil diffuser:

 

A.  The Smell

 

Scented candles give off a fabulous aroma and you have a massive range of scents to choose from that not only smell great but also can help to change your mood. There is a broad spectrum of scents available, from the soothing such as lavender, to the invigorating like ginger or bergamot. You can have a variety of floral smells, and others such as the popular vanilla or peppermint aromas. 

 

The scent given off from a candle seems to be more natural than that of an electrical diffuser. There’s nothing like walking into a room with lovely scented candle.  Some people prefer incense sticks, but they can’t hold a candle to a candle!

 

B. The Looks

 

The looks of a candle are far more attractive than an electrical diffuser. There are many different types of environmentally friendly candle such as those made from soy which last twenty to thirty times longer than normal paraffin wax or stearine candles. The looks are fashioned not only by their colour, but also in their wide range of shapes and designs.

 

There is the simple tea light, used not only as accent lighting but also as decorative floating candles and to heat scented oils. They are also used as votive candles (candles used for prayer), and get their name from their origins as small candles used to heat small teapots or kettles. Larger candles, fashioned from layers of differently coloured wax, are available in a wide range of sizes, colours and designs, and are much more decorative than scented oil diffusers.

 

C.  The Stands

 

The ornamental stands available for candles can make a tremendous difference to an otherwise ordinary room. You can use the traditional style of candlesticks for longer candles, and a variety of ornamental stands and trees to hold shorter votive candles, both inside your home and out in the garden. Scented candles are useful in a range of settings – they bring a warm glow and beautiful scent to an al fresco dinner or barbecue and of course, they are often regarded as at their best helping you relax while enjoying a long, luxurious bath. You can also purchase extremely attractive candleholders to add to the creative design of your room.

 

D. The Light

 

The fourth advantage is that of the light a candle produces. There is nothing more attractive than the flickering glow of a scented candle. Just imagine the lights switched off in your living room or bedroom and the shadows given off by the low glow of a flickering candle. The lighting is romantic and warm and comforting, not even dimmer switches can beat the glow from a candle.  It wins hands down against an electrical diffuser for this benefit alone.

 

The wonderful thing about candles is that they can be placed in any room and they will not only add to the decor, but the scent will fill the room with a beautiful aroma changing its feel as you enter it. From having tea lights floating in your bath to using decorative candles in your bedroom for a lovely romantic glow, they offer a degree of flexibility in their use that an oil diffuser can never match, particularly an electrical diffuser.  

 

Your lounge could be made into a cosy area of rest with the scent of lavender floating around the room as you relax after a busy day, the warm glow of the candle attracting your eye. You could even turn your kitchen into an aromatic delight with scents to make you feel good while you prepare meals or just sit and relax with a magazine.

 

Why choose an electric oil diffuser and use up your electricity when you could use something far more attractive which stimulates your senses with light and smell, and can be part of a great design feature for your home? If you are worried about melting wax then choose a jar candle or tea lights which do not have the problem of wax dripping down the candle as it is all contained in the jar. These are most attractive and safe for your home.

 

That is how you make your house a home, with attractive scented candles topping off the creative design of each room. That is why so many people use them and why they are so popular.

 

 

 

                          

Sep

6

By luckycharm4me

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Categories: four leaf clover

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Using A Fragrance Reed Diffuser In Your Home


 

 

It is obvious to anybody that you are using a fragrance reed diffuser in your home the minute they step over the door. The scent from reed diffusers is a delight to your olfactory senses and is completely free from smoke or any other interfering medium that can detract from the sheer pleasure of the smell.

 

Many people use scented candles, and these are also a fabulous way of giving your home a marvelous smell, but many prefer the pure smell of a reed diffuser. So what is a fragrance reed diffuser, and how does it differ from a candle or an oil burner or evaporator?They work in a similar way to a conventional oil evaporator except that reeds are used to retain the aromatic oils.

 

The diffuser consists of a number of reeds that act as the wicks. Reeds, such as rattan, are essential since they have an absorbent honeycomb structure, unlike wood or bamboo. Neither wood nor bamboo are suitable for use as diffusers, because their structure is too dense and does not permit sufficient absorbance of the oil.Trying to take shortcuts by using cheaper alternative sticks, such as wooden skewers, will not yield the desired results.

 

The oil itself should be specifically intended as fragrance oil for reed diffusers and will generally have a low molecular weight so that the size of the molecule doesn’t prevent it absorption in to the structure of the reed. Most other oils will not work due to their excessively large molecular size, and neither can they be used to dilute fragrance oils to make them last longer or go farther.

 

Around 10-12 narrow reeds are normally used, and placed into a bottle containing the light fragrant oil.  The oil is absorbed by the reeds, diffuses through them and is then evaporated at room temperature into your room. It is a pure smell because no fire or smoke is involved. The fragrance is delightfully fresh as long as you use oils designed specifically for reed diffusers – normal fragrance oils, such as you would use in an evaporator or burner, are too heavy and thick to be of much use in such a diffuser.

 

It was stated earlier that you cannot dilute fragrant oils with other cheap oils in order, and in the same way you also cannot add some fragrant light aromatherapy carrier oil to them to achieve the same thing:  that does not reduce the molecular size of the oil molecules, just dilutes it so that the reed acts as a filter allowing the lighter scent-free oil to be absorbed but not the fragrant essential oil.  Reed oils are chosen for their absorption properties as well as their fragrance.

 

You can use a relatively low molecular weight substance that is compatible with oils, such as dipropylene glycol, but you will need to make sure of this and that you don’t ruin your oil with anything that will clog up the pores of the reeds.  It requires an experienced fragrance chemist, familiar with the chemical nature of fragrant oils, to properly formulate oils suitable for fragrance reed diffusers.

 

The reeds you use should be cut to about twice the height of the bottle so that half the reed is in the bottle and half out of it, and your bottle can be anything from half full to full of oil. Do not be tempted to stint on the amount of oil you use as this may mean the fragrance is not properly absorbed by the reeds. So a 10 inch bottle can be filled from 5 inches up to 10 inches with oil and the reeds should be cut to 20 inches. A six inch bottle should contain 12 inch reeds, and so on.

 

A final tip is never to reuse reeds. Although it might appear that you should be able to do that, oils thicken with time and the air in your room can also contain dust, so the reeds can become clogged up with oil and dust and prevent proper absorption.

 

Among the advantages that a reed diffuser offers over scented candles is the fact there is no flame, and hence no fire hazard, and it therefore cannot go out. Because they operate without the need for heat or power they are more convenient than electrical diffusers which need an electric socket to work properly.  There is also no heat:  heat can degrade and damage fragrant oils while a fragrance reed diffuser requires no external energy source other than the ambient temperature of your room.

 

What are the benefits of fragrance diffusers; why do people use them? The primary use for a reed diffuser is, of course, to help your home smell fresh, neutralising the smell of cooking or other unpleasant odours.  However, they are also calming and soothing. People will use fragrance reed diffusers in the same way that others will use incense sticks or cones. They are a simple pleasure of life just as a hot relaxing bath is after a hard day at work.  You don’t have to justify it, just enjoy it.

 

Using a fragrant reed diffuser in your home can provide a relaxing and satisfying end to a long day.Armed with a chilled glass of your favourite wine and an enjoyable read, what better way could you imagine to end a busy day?