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You love great smells but just can’t seem to find one to stick around. Wouldn’t you just love to eliminate those tough odors once and for all and create the perfect ambiance to die for!

Whether riding in your car, relaxing in your home or at the office, challenging odors sometimes come out of nowhere. Day old food in your car, the smell of smoke from your husband’s cigar or cigarettes or those musty office smells just won’t escape you. Don’t you just hate when you can’t get a nagging odor out.

Using the perfect air freshener can help eliminate those challenging odors for good. It can also give you a new identity and add positive energy all around you. You could even give your car a new identity. Sit back, relax and feel as if you owned the road with the right scent. You may know of someone whose car smells great all the time. Wouldn’t you like for that to be you?

There are several ways you can try to get the most out of your air freshener.

1. Spray the fragrance out of the bottle for a nice long-lasting aroma.
If the smell doesn’t last for a couple of days, switch brands. You will eventually realice that you may spend less today but will spend more in the end when purchasing those cheap, watered-down air fresheners.

2. Add the air freshener to your mopping solution on your tile or linoleum floor covering for heavy duty smells in your kitchen or bathroom.
Purchase a good concentrated liquid air freshener. For every 3-parts water, add 1-part fragrance.

3. Spray the freshener on cotton balls and put the cotton balls in your air conditioner vents.
This works great around the holidays. Keeps you in the holiday mood.

4. Pour the fragrance air freshener into your favorite potpourri pot.
Make sure that you use a 100% concentrated air freshener if you are trying to burn it. This process makes your home smell great for days to come. What’s more invigorating than to come home after a hard days work and soothe your mood while catering to your soul with an ambiance to die for. It sort of makes the hard day worth it. Be careful if you have allergies.

5. Refreshen the fragrance sachet in your lingerie drawer by squirting it with your favorite fragrance air freshener.
Give a little spice to your undearwear. Men, there is hope for those “tightie whities” afterall.

6. Add water, if the air freshener is concentrated, to create a mist for those gentle odors and spray it whenever and wherever needed.
This works best for those not so challenging odors.

7. Mix the concentrated fragrance with your steam cleaning vacuum for tough, nagging odors like pet, smoke and other chronic odors.
I am sure that you probably can identify with the frustration you may have experienced when your pet urined or defacated on your carpet. You probably thought that you would never get the odor out. In addition, when your husband walked around the house with his cigar and the smell lasted for days. I have found that most people who smoke, do not like the smell of smoke because the smell gets into their clothes, hair, etc. and lasts for days. Simply pour 1-part fragrance to 3-parts water in your vacuum and your carpet, home, etc. will smell fresh and clean for several days.

Go ahead and have fun while experimenting. Create the perfect ambiance just for you. After all, life is full of smells. It is up to YOU how YOU choose to handle them.

www.jazzyfresh.com

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Two months ago, after a long discourse at the breakfast table on the many wonderful aspects of soy candles, my 13-year-old son accused me of being a soy candle head, as in dead head. What had got me started was the soy milk e had been drinking for breakfast, and having recently discovered soy candles in a big way, my mind was understandably full of how this wonderful material was so much a part of our lives - food, drink, and now candles!

Whatever my son might say, however, I can’t stop gushing about soy candles and their unique properties, and you, dear reader, are now in my line of fire. Not only are soy candles longer lasting, they also hold a fragrance better and do not produce unsightly deposits of soot. And when I say long lasting, I mean it, because the average 14 oz wax candle will last you about 70 hours, give or take five, while a soy candle will last all of 100, if not more. That’s almost 50 hours more, and not at significantly higher prices either.

If you’ve been following these articles, you’ll know about my friend Charlene Dewitt, the one who is an aromatherapy expert. Well, inevitably, it was Charlene who introduced me to soy candles, and one of the first things I noticed was the absence of soot. All those who have spent time cleaning blackened and grimy candle jars, walls and even ceilings know what a menace soot can be. With soy candles, because they are natural, the jar remains pristine, and the walls and ceilings unsullied.

Now I come to the most important reason for using soy candles. Various studies have revealed that traditional wax candles emit carcinogens into the air. Now, as we all know, carcinogens are cancer-causing toxins that also cause other health problems. Mostly, researchers are trying to prove that anything that emits carbon dioxide when burnt, such as wax candles and charcoal, will release carcinogens. Though it is too early to comment on this issue, soy candles certainly do not produce carcinogens, which means they are healthy, too!

All in all, it is no surprise that soy candles are gaining in popularity, considering they were only launched in 1991, and their discovery is credited to a certain Michael Richards, who found out by trial and error that mixing soybean oil with palm and coconut oils produced a perfect wax. He added a small amount of beeswax to the mixture to improve it even further.

Today, it has been conclusively proved that 100% natural soy wax does not contain petroleum or other environmentally unsafe ingredients. And it is much less expensive than other natural waxes like beeswax.

So I end my rave. Go ahead, call me a soy candle head, but remember what I’ve told you the next time you buy your candle supplies!

***You may reprint this article as long as the three URL’s are hyperlinked.***

Tania Penwell is a successful author who provides information on soy candles and candle fragrance oil for Candles 4U - your guide to candles and candlemaking.

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On a trip to Dubai I had the opportunity to visit the spectacular Burj Al Arab hotel, a luxuriously modern and decadent retreat for the rich and famous, often touted as the world’s finest hotel. With its unique sail-shape architecture cutting a stunning profile against a backdrop of deep blue sea, it has become the signature of cosmopolitan Dubai. The lobby greeted me with dazzling bold colors, vivid gold accents, a cascading fountain, and a stunning floor to ceiling aquarium. But, what initially captivated me, and remains etched in my memory, was the memorizing aroma of frankincense. It was an ethereal waft of incense smoke that spun through the revolving door and transported me inside the hotel.

In the growing world of home fragrances we are frequently confronted with new and innovative products - better plug-ins, the next generation in candles, fragrant cleaning supplies - and we overlook the original source of aromatic appreciation: incense. Incense is fragrance in its oldest and purest form. Some thousands of years ago man learned that adding certain woods, resins, herbs, and spices to fire created a pleasing aroma and from there the appreciation grew. Coveted ingredients became common offerings in spiritual practice. Today, incense is still associated with worship throughout the world but you do not have to be in touch with your inner Buddha to become a connoisseur. Evolution has brought us various forms of incense, from traditional to contemporary fragrances, which are well suited to personal use. Burning incense can add a uniquely rich and warm aromatic atmosphere to your home. Experiment with the different styles and forms to find one that you enjoy.

Incense Forms & Use

The most common form of incense sold today is in the form of sticks, either with a bamboo rod in the center or in the form of joss sticks, spaghetti-shaped sticks of pure incense material. Joss sticks are generally of better quality and tend to burn with less smoke because they lack the bamboo interior. Stick incense come in various lengths, making them suitable for many uses, inside or outside. A 3″ joss stick will burn for about 15 - 20 minutes and can fragrance a standard sized living room. For a larger space or one with high ceilings you can burn several short sticks, use longer sticks, or try coils.

Incense coils are a variation on joss sticks. Since longer joss sticks are fragile and more prone to break the coil shape was developed. Coils vary in size but a two-inch diameter coil will burn for approximately 120 minutes. They are ideal for larger spaces and active spaces, like at a party or an event. Incense coils are also popular for their appearance. Displayed in an attractive holder they make beautiful home accents.

Cones are another well-known form of incense. Like joss sticks and coils, incense cones are made from pure incense material but their sturdy shape makes them the easiest form to pack around with you. A typical incense cone will burn for about ten minutes.

The oldest form of incense is loose incense, blends of raw ingredients that are burned directly over charcoal. Ingredients can include resins, woodchips, spices, herbs, and dried flowers. This form of incense appreciation takes more preparation and requires some experience but can be a very rewarding and creates a dramatic effect. Burning the raw materials causes more smoke so it must be done in a well ventilated space or outside.

A variation on the traditional loose incense is the Japanese methods of soradaki and mon-koh, the latter of which is used in the Japanese incense ceremony. These methods are suitable for warming fragrant wood chips. They involve the use of white ash and charcoal to just warm the wood so it releases its fragrance. Both require some patience and practice but are quite elegant and nice for a small space. If done properly there is virtually no smoke. Or, a simpler alternative is to use a portable wood chip heater that requires no ash, or an electric heater.

Your Choice of Holders

Once you have made a choice about which incense form to use, you can select an appropriate holder. The holder can be a home d

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