Amazing Things To Do With Lemons

Lemons And Lemon Juice More Than Just A Citrus Fruit

The scent of a lemon smells clean and fresh and as with most citrus fruits the aroma in general is known to lessen the overall feeling of stress. Studies have shown that just by smelling the fragrance of a lemon our cognitive performance can be enhance. There are so many amazing things that can be done with the tart yellow fruit beyond using them in recipes. 

I doubt that it would be a surprise that lemons and the juice of lemons can be used in cleaning products. After all, we can find products on the shelves that have lemon added to them. Glass cleaners and dish washing detergents often have lemon added. Did you know that you can make your own products to clean different items around your home? You sure can! Depending on what you add to the lemon or juice you can have some specialty cleaners that usually cost quite a lot if purchased from the grocery store.

DIY Cleaning Products From Lemons

To clean and polish copper, use lemon juice on a damp cloth.

Polish your brass by using a paste made from lemon juice and cream of tartar. It also works on aluminum and stainless steel. 

Cut a lemon in half and rub it on your faucets to remove lime scale, hard water stains and soap residue. 

Got some white sneakers that don't look so white anymore? Spray some lemon juice on them and sit out in the sun for a few hours. They will be nice and white before you know it!

Need a mild bleach for delicate fabrics? Combine some lemon juice and baking soda in some water. Soak your dedicates for at least 1/2 hour before putting them in the washing machine. 

Speaking of laundry, adding lemon juice to the laundry water will boost the detergents power to clean, whiten clothes, and remove rust and mineral stains. Yep, just plain old lemon juice!

Remove ink stains from clothing by applying lemon juice to the stain and the rubbing it out. It takes quite a lot of juice but eventually that nasty ink is gone.

Grind the lemon rinds (or any citrus fruit rinds) in the garbage disposal every once in a while. It removes odors from old food trapped in the disposal. Plus gives the nice scent of lemon in the kitchen.

Place 1/2 lemon in the dishwasher every so often. You will have spot free dishes once the cycle is completed. 

A great glass cleaner is  created using lemon juice, vinegar and water. Place in a spraying and your windows will sparkle. I like to use old newspaper to wipe the solution off of the windows, too. 

Have you ever noticed that your humidifier starts to get a kind of stale smell to it? Add 3 to 4 teaspoons of lemon juice to the water. It will remove the odor and fill the room with the scent of lemon. 

So , there you have it! A few simple ways to use lemons or lemon juice to clean items in your home. Easy to do and much less expensive than the store bought cleaners.

Image Credit: The images used in this post are compliments of Pixabay

Bergamot Aromatherapy Tips

Bergamot The Fruit We Don't Eat

This citrus fruit is about the size of an orange, looks more like a lemon while it is growing on the tree and when ripe is more the color of a lime. It isn't consumed like other fruits, either. Nope, we use the rind or the essential oils that come from the rinds to use in all sorts of other things that we will talk about in a minute. 

Where does bergamot grow? Well, it is native to southern Italy, tropical parts of Asia and the Ivory Coast. We can find it being grown in conducive climates all over the world now because it is so popular to use in aromatherapy applications. 

It is very rare that we humans decide to eat this great smelling fruit from the citrus family. I've never tried to taste one but it must not taste good if people would rather use the rinds for the oil and discard the rest of it. 

Bergamot has some medicinal and therapeutic applications and is also used in perfumes, cosmetics and as a flavoring agent for Earl Grey Tea. The tea is one of my all time favorites to drink because not only does it have this wonderful taste but it smells so good once it is brewed, too. It also has a way of calming me down if I'm anxious about something.

When used as an essential oil, this fragrant fruit acts as an antidote for depression and anxiety. It can help with urinary tract infections and nervous indigestion. Actually the oil helps with all kinds of infections as it has a strong antiseptic property to it.

It has been known for helping with eating disorders. You wouldn't think that if it helps with anorexia that it could also help with compulsive eating but it does. It is because the oil acts as an agent to create a balance rather than truly suppress the appetite or cause someone to be hungry. I would guess that is from the properties that help with lessening stress and anxiety which would then help with the eating disorder. When we feel calm we don't have a tendency to want to stop eating or over eat.

The oil from the Bergamot is so helpful in being a calming agent that it is often recommended that you place a few drops on a cloth and carry it with you during your day. Sniff it every so often and feel yourself relax. This is especially good when we are traveling and feeling stressed by the experience but it is also good for those jobs where the stress level is high.

I like to warm scented wax that includes the oils from the Bergamot rinds in our home on a regular basis. It not only smells divine but has a calming effect on my husband and me. It might be my imagination but I think the cat is even calmer when I have the fragrance in a room. One of our favorites is the item shown below.

My Dear Watson

It has a rather sophisticated and smart appeal with a mixture of Bergamot, mint, cedar and suede. My husband likes it because it doesn't smell too girly girl and actually that is one of the reasons that I like it, too. Besides the bergamot and mint combined have that calming effect that makes our days enjoyable.

If you haven't considered using this fragrance in your home or for medicinal and therapeutic purposes, you should. I think you will find it a most pleasing fragrance along with giving you the benefits that I mentioned above.

Using the Scent of Orange In Your Home

Different Ways To Use The Scent Of Oranges

As a scent this wonderful citrus fruit relieves stress. It lessens anxiety for us very much like the color of the fruit does. 

Orange is a power color even without the fragrance associated with it. The color radiates warmth and happiness. It is a combination of red which is is a stimulating color and yellow which is a cheerful color. 

The meaning of the scent of orange is associated with love, companionship and relationships. It brings harmony into our souls. It can stand alone as a pleasant aroma to have in our homes or it can be combined with other fragrances like cinnamon or cloves for an even more appealing aroma.

You can take orange peels and grind them up in your garbage disposal to get rid of those stale lingering food smells. You can also purchase all purpose cleaners that have the scent of orange for a clean smell to please your nostrils after cleaning.

Using an essential oil in a warmer is also an option for having the sweet scent of oranges in your home or office.

NOW Foods Orange Oil Sweet, 4 ounce

A DIY Project For The Scent Of Orange

Create a pretty and useful scent item to have in your kitchen using oranges. They are easy to create and make the room smell heavenly. That will relieve stress for you or anyone who enters the kitchen.

Place orange slices, cloves, cinnamon stick or allspice in a pan. Cover with water and heat in the pan until the water starts to boil. Remove from the stove and let it cool down. During the cool down period your kitchen begins to have the wonderful aroma of oranges, cloves and cinnamon. You can also placed the cooled ingredients in a mason jar to just sit on the counter. Yes, it is that easy!

You can place the lid on the mason jar and refrigerate the combination, too. Take it out when you are ready for that wonderful aroma again and re-heat. That works for a couple of times and then you will need to make a new recipe.

Artificial Christmas Trees Have No Scent

Do you miss the smell of a Christmas Tree?

So many of us have been using artificial trees for our Christmas decorating for all sorts of reasons. For one thing there is no mess with cleaning up those dropping needles and they are much less of a fire hazard in our homes. The trouble is they don't give us that aroma of a pine tree during the holidays. 

There are actually benefits from having this fragrance in our homes whether it is Christmas or not. The scent of pine can help alleviate sinus congestion when breathed in. It also helps with stimulating our minds and bodies with a little more energy. 

How Do we get that pine scent when our tree isn't real?

Actually, that can be accomplished with a fair amount of ease. You can purchase a room spray that has a pine or cedar scent base. I recommend spraying it on the tree when the lights are off. The spray will linger for several days because the spray is on the branches. 

You can also get a little scent circle and hang it on the tree. Often times those little circles are decorative in and of themselves and could pass for an ornament on the tree. If not, place it near the center of the tree where the base pole is. That way it will be hidden but still emit the fragrance of pine in your room. 

Another option would be what we call a scent pak. Basically, that is like what my Grandma used to call a sachet. Little pieces of scented wax or some other media are sewn into a little pillow of fabric. You can make your own pretty easily with some cute fabric, essential oil that smells like pine and some thread. Place the pack under the tree or even on a limb of the tree. These little sachet packets need to be handled every so often so that the scent gets spread in the room. 

Of these three suggestions, the spray is going to last the longest. The circle will last about as long but may not fill the entire room. The little scented pack is not going to have the same coverage as the other two but will give a subtle hint of the scent of pine near your tree. 

Peppermint And Coffee Can Boost Your Energy

Peppermint Often A Christmas Scent

At least, I think of the scent of peppermint for a Christmas aroma. That is probably due to those peppermint candy canes that I still enjoy. The fragrance itself, that of peppermint, is actually a fragrance that has benefits for us all year long, not specifically at Christmastime. 

As a scent, peppermint has a soothing quality. It can boost your energy levels just by inhaling its aroma. Science has found that the scent of the peppermint plant has a mood elevating nature to it that can assist in alleviating the symptoms of depression and anxiety. It helps to boost our mood from feeling sad or anxious to a feeling of happiness. This, in turn, can help us have a more productive day. 

The Aroma of Coffee Is Also A Energy Enhancer

We know that as a beverage, coffee will help to boost our energy from the caffeine. Did you know that just the aroma of coffee brewing or the grinding of coffee beans has a benefit of giving us a little "pick-me-up"? It does! It might not have the same effect as drinking a cup of coffee but it will give you more of a boost than you might think. 

Our olfactory nerves run straight to our brains, no detours, just straight to the old noggin. So, any stimulation from smells get to our brain really fast. Those aromas are on a super highway and effect us almost immediately. A case in point: Just how fast do you start to gag when you encounter a really bad smell? Hmmm? You may not realize it but the smells that are positive are working on your mood and energy levels too. They may not be as apparent as a reaction to a nasty smell but they are working just the same. 

A Scent Recipe Using Peppermint and Coffee

Many people think of this as a scent to use during the holidays but I like it all year round. I particularly like combing these two scents when I'm feeling exhausted or even a little down in the old dumper. We all have those days. So, here is my recipe for perking up and feeling happier.

If the image is a little hard for you to read the recipe is:

• 1/2 cube of Peppermint Dreams
• 1/2 cube of Perk Me Up

If you are not going to warm these two in a Scentsy warmer, you can still use essential oils to create the same effect. 

The Peppermint Dreams wax from our line smells like a chocolate cupcake with mint. It is so yummy all by itself! The Perk Me Up wax from our line smells like Guatemalan coffee beans with just a hint of hazelnut. Put the two together and you have a energy boosting, happy feeling coming on. 

Scent Recipe For Men Rugged Cowboy

Creating a Scent for Men

Having special scents in our home and offices doesn't mean that they have to be all girly girl. Oh no, we have fragrances that appeal to the males of the world, too. Actually, I know many women (including myself) who actually prefer the scents that have been designated as a masculine scent. 

I like pretty flowers as much as the next gal but I am not fond of the fragrances that have a floral scent. Most guys are not either if the truth be told.

Now some fellas like the aroma of something food related but might feel that those are even a little more feminine than they would prefer, especially if they are going to warm a scent in their office or if they are single and living in a bachelor pad or with other guys. They are not going to want some fru-fruey frilly scent in their space, now are they? As I said before, some of us gals don't want those kind of fragrances in our spaces either. 

So, what are some scents that a guy might like? A new favorite of mine and my husband is the scent called Shaka. It has a rich sandalwood base with a splash of bergamot and lime. Very manly in its make-up. Think Old Spice or an aftershave that isn't too overwhelming and manly to the core.

Our very favorite Scentsy Man scent is Vanilla Suede. It is subtle and very appealing in our opinions. There is the classic vanilla aroma with a rich amber combined with subdued hint of sandalwood and spice. It is another fragrance that reminds me of the older after-shaves that I grew up with. 

A Way To Combine The Two

So, by now if you are following my blog you know I love to use a little mixology and combine scents from time to time. This is the recipe that I call: Rugged Cowboy.

Both scents are awesome standing alone in any warmer but mix the two together and you have a really manly and very appealing aroma in your space. It is nice for any office whether that office is occupied by men, women or both. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

You can follow the link to my online catalog at the right to go to my site to order or call your local consultant and have her order it for you.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Scent

How to create the aroma of chocolate chip cookies without baking

Do you just love the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven? Well, shoot, I don't think I know of many people who don't love that smell. With our busy lives we do not always have the time to bake the cookies in order to have that aroma permeate our kitchens. Let me tell you how you can have the scent without turning on the oven. The added bonus is that the scent has no calories to count either!

It is really pretty simple to do if you have a Scentsy warmer and a couple of different bars of our scented wax cubes. The warmer doesn't matter, just place your favorite in the kitchen. 

You will need our bar called Sugar Cookie and Mochadoodle in order to create this comforting aroma in your kitchen. 

I suggest that you cut one cube of each in half. Place both in your warmer, turn it on and before you know it...the kitchen smells like you are baking chocolate chip cookies. Yep, it is that easy!

The fragrance of Sugar Cookie is one of the favorites in the catalog. It offers the warm and sweet blends of butter, sugar and creamy vanilla. It is a nice scent all by itself but lends itself well to mixing with other scents to create a different type of baked goods aroma in the kitchen. It is one of my favorite "go to" bars when I am in the mood to create something different. If you haven't tried it solo, I would highly recommend it, especially if you prefer those sweet smells of baking in the house. 

Mochadoodle is found in our Corner Cafe section in the catalog each season. It is one of the top selling scent bars for our company because who doesn't love the smell of chocolate? It also lends itself to be a choice to mix with other fragrances for a new scent. Your nose will pick the scents of roasted coffee beans and cocoa being balanced out with a little sugar, a little caramel and cream. 

Put these two scents together and you have a chocolate chip cookie smell that will make your mouth water! 

Like I said before, we can have the aroma without adding inches to our waistline, you know if we bake them we will have to eat them. Creating a mixture of scents that smells the same is one way to enjoy the fragrance without the hassle of baking or the temptation to indulge. 

You can find both of these scent bars at my online shop. Bev Owens Scentsy Shop