I don’t do it very often, but sometimes it’s nice to boost the “clean smell” of the house by sprinkling my carpets with a little deodorizing powder. (I can only imagine that if you had pets it would be more of a necessity than a nicety!) But rather than spending $5 on a bottle of carpet powder with all sorts of strange and hard-to-pronounce ingredients, I decided I’d whip up a batch of my very own deodorizing carpet powder! It worked wonderfully, and I’ve been using it ever since!
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Not only is this carpet powder made from all natural ingredients, it’s also made with products you can easily find in your local grocery store. It’s fairly inexpensive to make, too! Now you can keep your carpets smelling fresh the natural way. :-)
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Natural Carpet Powder
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup borax
- 1/2 cup baking soda
- 30 drops essential oil(s)
OR - 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon or cloves
Directions:
Start by combining the borax and baking soda in a glass or plastic bowl.
Add around 30 drops of your essential oil(s) of choice. If you don’t have essential oils on hand, you can add a teaspoon of cinnamon or ground cloves for scent instead. (Or you can do it like we did and combine the two! We used about 20 drops of sweet orange essential oil and 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon. It ended up smelling like homemade orange rolls – yum!)
Stir to combine until the mixture is free of lumps.
Transfer powder to an empty shaker container, or a jar with a dispenser top. (An empty parmesan cheese container would work nicely!)
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Shake the powder onto your carpets, and let sit for 15 to 20 minutes before vacuuming thoroughly.
Tip #1: DON’T use ground cinnamon or cloves if you have a lighter colored carpet, because it could cause discoloration. Use cinnamon or clove essential oil instead if you still want to incorporate their scent into your carpet powder!
Tip #2: If you or someone in your family is sensitive to smells, use plain baking soda only for your carpeting. Baking soda can effectively absorb odors on its own.
Love this post! I am going to try this today as I have small animals and teenage children and this mix can cause overwhelming aromas, so I’m going to mix up a batch or two, and freshen up my carpets throughout my house.
Cheers from Auckland New Zealand.
We just purchased a cottage, and haven’t had a chance to take out the old carpet yet, we will try this recipe and see if it helps! I would much rather make my own than purchase it from a store!
Research essential oils prior citrus oils are toxic to cats not sure about dogs. It causes either kidney or liver damage I’m not sure which one
Made this and loved it. Just went to use it only to find the kids had used it up and put the empty container away. Oh well, the borax was out for making laundry soap, so I’ll just whip up some more.
I have yet to find a newletter of Jillee’s that DOESN’T have great tips I use and comments that bring up other things. I am definitely using this one, with a cat and old carpet (and a husband;)). Thanks Jillee!
LOVE THIS! Used just baking soda & cinnamon and it was subtle & delightful! THANK YOU!
I use pretty much the same recipe, with 1 difference. I grind 1/4 cup of Purex Crystals until it’s powder. Add it to the Borax and Baking soda. It smells amazing, and the scent refreshes every time I run the vacuum!
Is borax safe for my pets?
No. It is dangerous to use borax around pets. This works well without the borax.
OOOOh, good to know, thanks!
Our camper carpet needed freshening. So, surprisingly, my hubby looked online for just such a recipe. The one he found was similar, except it called for whole cloves. The reason stated was more antibacterial power. It also included bay leaves. (It was all mixed in the blender)
We inherited an oriental that had been very friendly with a dog, and smelled like it!. I didn’t know that borax could be in this recipe, but found that baking soda, with rosemary, lemongrass and lavender essential oils shaken together and applied as Jillee describes above worked amazingly well.