One of the first things that people notice about your home is the way it smells. Does the house smell clean, or can you detect pets or even last night’s dinner? The last thing you want is to give someone the wrong impression about your lifestyle right off the bat. Thankfully, there are tons of home fragrance products on the market to help you keep your space smelling fresh and inviting. And we’re here to tell you which ones are our favorites!

Scented candles

I’ll admit it, we are in love with scented candles. Nothing beats the excitement of going to the store to find the best-smelling candles and stocking up! For a while, we would only buy the Yankee Candle jar candles. We bought them at HomeGoods, where we could find them for about half the price. Then, we were introduced to Bath & Body Works’ candles and our lives changed. Not really, but I can honestly say that we LOVE their candles, and our candle loyalty lies with them. Is that a thing?

We buy the Bath & Body Works 3-wick scented candles. They are made with essential oils, and come in cute glass jars decorated with different colors and patterns. Plus, you can get them for 50% off when they go on sale (they go on sale often!). The reason why we prefer these candles is because their scents are SO GOOD and long-lasting. We noticed that with other candles, they would smell good for the first day or two of burning them, and then the scent would fade away. Bath & Body Works’ candles smell amazing for the entire life of the candle. We keep a candle out on our coffee table and light it when guests come over, or at night when we’re relaxing. Here are our favorite scents:

• Banana Bundt Cake – this our #1 go-to candle. It smells like you just pulled banana bread out of the oven.
• Paris Cafe – smells like freshly-brewed coffee with vanilla creamer. If you love coffee, you will love this candle.
• Strawberry Pound Cake – very similar to Banana Bundt Cake, but with a sweet strawberry scent.
• Blueberry Pie – the name says it all, it smells like warm blueberry pie!
• Fresh Balsam – our wintertime favorite. Pete came home from work one day and commented that our Christmas tree smelled great. It was this candle!

Scent preferences are totally unique to each person. Some people prefer floral aromas, while others gravitate toward citrus, earthy, or even minty scents. For us, we like our house to smell sweet! Sweet as in vanilla, caramel, fruit, etc. We are suckers for anything with that freshly-baked aroma.

Plug-In Air Fresheners

To keep our bedroom smelling like a dreamy oasis, we use a plug-in air freshener next to our bed. Our house is on the smaller side (about 1600 square feet), so one of these is enough to make our room and the entire hallway subtly fragrant. Again, we use the Bath & Body Works Wallflowers! They provide a month’s worth of fragrance, and are made with essential oils. Just choose a wallflower plug that matches your decor (ours is a pineapple), plug it into any outlet, and enjoy!

Since our Wallflower is in our bedroom, we gravitate toward calming scents, such as:

• Lavender Vanilla
• Warm Vanilla Sugar
• Fresh Linen or Fresh Cotton – these ones smell like you just washed your sheets, only every day!
• Linen & Lavender

Reed Diffusers

Lastly, let’s talk about reed diffusers. These are great because they look interesting (the reeds add texture to your space), last for months, and can be refilled. My mom gave us one a few years ago, and we just refill the scented liquid every 6 months or so. We keep ours on a shelf in our kitchen/dining combo area.

Lots of stores sell reed diffusers and the liquid refills (I think ours is from HomeGoods, but pretty much any home decor store will have them). You can even DIY your own. Check out this tutorial for making your own reed diffuser!

Overall, the key to home fragrance is to make your space smell pleasant and welcoming, without being too heavily perfumed. You can experiment with different aromas to figure out what scents suit your personality best. Remember, if using fragrances in multiple rooms, be sure to choose subtle scents that compliment each other. Share your favorite home fragrance products in the comments below!