You can make an air freshener for your car or gym bag without all of the toxic chemicals found in store-bought ones. All you need is some felt and fragrance or essential oils. If you aren’t into hand stitching, don’t worry, a glue gun can be used instead!
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I like to have a nice-smelling car, but the problem for me with store-bought car air fresheners is that they are overpowering and give me a headache.
The solution I’ve found is to make my own. In this post Ill show you how you can use felt and essential oils, or phthalate-free fragrance oils, to make a non-irritating air freshener for your car or other small space.
Let’s get started!
Materials Needed for Making a Non-toxic Air Freshener
- Craft felt
- Scissors
- Embroidery floss
- Stitching needle
- Glue gun
- Glue stick
- Jute twine
- Essential or fragrance oil
- Gauze
I embroidered some flowers on the felt that I used for my air freshener, but that is totally optional. With a quick Google search you can find some easy-to-follow embroidery videos, that’s how I learned and it was fun!
If you aren’t going to embroider your felt, you don’t need the embroidery floss or stitching needle. A glue gun can be used to put the air freshener together. I used both hand stitching and a glue gun to make the air freshener pictured.
I made the hanger for my air freshener out of jute twine, some bracelet making elastic or any type of string would work too.
I am a soap maker, so I have lot of high-quality, non-irritating essential and fragrance oils on hand. Use whichever you prefer and are comfortable with.
Inside the air freshener I put a piece of fragrance oil-soaked gauze that I wrapped in felt. You could use paper towel or felt alone if you want.
Directions for Making a Non-toxic Air Freshener
- 1. Optional: Embroider a design on a piece of craft felt with embroidery floss and a stitching needle
- 2. With scissors, cut the felt into the desired size and shape. Mine is a hexagon measuring roughly 3.5 inches x 4 inches. This will be the front of the air freshener
- 3. Using the front you made as a template, cut out another piece of felt slightly larger. This will be one half of the air freshener
- 4. Cut out another piece of felt, exactly the same size as the one you just made. This will be the back of the air freshener
- 5. Hot glue the embroidered front to one of the larger felt pieces
- 6. Stitch (or hot glue) the 2 larger pieces of felt together at the edges, leaving an opening on one side for inserting the fragrance
- 7. Soak a piece of gauze in essential or fragrance oil. I just inverted my bottle a few times to wet the gauze
- 8. Wrap the gauze in a piece of leftover felt
- 9. Place the felt-wrapped gauze into the opening you left in the air freshener
- 10. Finish stitching or hot gluing to close the opening
- 11. Cut a piece of jute twine for the hanger
- 12. Stitch or hot glue the hanger to the back of the air freshener
- 13. Hang the air freshener in your car and enjoy!
Mother, farmer, author, and teacher by trade… She loves tending to things and watching them grow!