How to Keep Your Home Smelling Neutral – Not Stinky and Not Scented
It is amazing how much mis-information there is online regarding eliminating odor. At Nokout.com, we promote the idea that your home environment can be odor free and still have great indoor air quality. After all, we spend a lot of time indoors, and over and over, we are told that the air quality inside our homes is often worse that the air quality outside. So it is important for our peace of mind that our homes not have a bad smell and that the air we are breathing at home is not harmful to our health, as well. Nokout and Sniper can be relied upon to get rid of odors in your home, without compromising the air that you breathe while you and your family are at home. You can start to achieve a better home environment by understanding the myths regarding eliminating odors.
Common Myths About Eliminating Odors In Your Home
1) Charcoal eliminate odors – Well, not really. At best, this is a temporary fix. Charcoal can absorb odors but does nothing to eliminate the odor issue at the source. So whatever it is will just keep on stinking. Charcoal filters in a fan-driven air purification unit do absorb chemicals from the air that is forced over the charcoal. This is a good thing for an air purifier to do – remove chemicals from the air. While not eliminating the odor from the source, this is useful when you have some newly manufactured item in your home that is off-gassing over an extended period of time. Other than this “off-gassing” charcoal is a poor odor eliminator because it doesn’t remove the odor source.
Baking Soda
2) Baking Soda eliminates odor – another odor absorber that does nothing to actually eliminate odors. Having a box in your refrigerator is useful, but it is a completely passive thing that again, does not actually remove the odor source. In your refrigerator, odors usually arise from something going off (which should be removed from the fridge and whatever mess is left behind wiped/cleaned away to actually eliminate the odor permanently). Baking soda is like charcoal in that it does nothing to remove the source of the odor.
Coffee Grounds
3) Coffee grounds – another absorber that, while being “natural” doesn’t actually do much. It is an old Real Estate agent’s trick to brew a pot of coffee in a house that he/she is trying to sell, just before the client shows up. The smell of fresh coffee in the air is a pleasant thing, and it is certainly better than some chemical air freshener, but in the end, it is another short-lived cover-up that does nothing to eliminate the source of the odor.
Air Fresheners
4) Air fresheners – basically perfume for the air. And what kind of perfume is it? The kind that is contrived from a bunch of chemicals? Who wants to breathe in all that? Most of the chemicals comprising the perfume are not regulated and who knows whether it is actually safe to be breathing this stuff? And let’s face it – people who use air fresheners tend to use too much and then they become “nose blind” to that smell and go on to overuse their favorite, even more. Yet again, another product that does nothing whatsoever to eliminate the odor at the source.
Vodka
5) Vodka – Often touted for removing pet odors. Many oils will dissolve in alcohol, which then evaporates into the inside air, which you will then be breathing. It seems kind of expensive to me. This one has some possibility of removing the source of the odor, but not only is it expensive, it is also highly flammable. It may not be all that good for us to breathe in vodka fumes as well.
How Can a Disinfectant Get Rid of Odor in Your Home?
Many odors are microbial in origin. A good example is sweat. When we first sweat, it’s not stinky! But then the microbes living in your skin start consuming nutrients in your sweat as a food source – and then they poop. It is microbe poop that causes your sweat to stink! Ugh! Sounds awful, doesn’t it! But it illustrates the point that microbial action causes many stinks. This is why a disinfectant such as Sniper, when used as part of ordinary housecleaning, can help reduce odors.
The Facts
To keep your home smelling pleasant, it is ALWAYS best to remove the odor at the source. You can put out all the odor absorbers you want, but if the source of the stinky odor is still there, your home will continue to smell bad. That’s a fact.
The Myths
It is a myth that odor absorbers will keep your house smelling good. They may absorb some small amount of odor, but they can’t get all the odor and the odor source is still there smelling up your home.
It is also a myth that air fresheners help – they usually smell worse and that scent is most often contrived from unregulated chemicals – which you and your family are then breathing!
So What to Do?
First, clean away any mess that is the odor source. Spray Nokout or Sniper there – and walk away, allowing it to air dry naturally. You may need to spray a second time – a bit like “lather, Rinse and Repeat”, but even so, using Sniper or Nokout will work for you to permanently remove the odor at the source. And the good part is that our products will not leave a toxic mess in your indoor air. Your home can smell neutral again!
Additional Reading For You
1) Introducing Chlorine Dioxide – ClO2
2) What Level of Clean is Right For Your Home?
4) How to Troubleshoot Odors in Your Home
