Living in a shared building has its ups and downs. One of the downs is that you get to smell everything everyone else cooks, and those smells tend to stick around. This isn't always a bad thing - our next door neighbor is almost always cooking something that smells delicious - but when it's bad, it's really bad. She also has a nasty habit of spraying disgusting air fresheners in our shared hallway... the smell seeps into our condo and makes us sneeze and often makes us sick to our stomachs.
We have also been trying to conquer the smell of litter boxes. We recently bought a box with a lid on it, which does help, but doesn't eliminate the smell. Whether I clean them every day or not doesn't matter, we have one cat who kicks the litter out of the way and does her business right on the box, so the box holds the scent.
So why am I babbling about smells? I've been trying a solution that I wanted to share - Fresh Wave. Fresh Wave products use a unique blend of plant extracts to naturally eliminate odors. When activated by airflow, the Fresh Wave blend attaches to odor molecules and breaks them down, so that odors no longer exist. They are incredibly effective and, since they are made from natural ingredients, are completely safe to use in your home and for the environment.
Most competitive products are very unhealthy to use in your home. Last year the Natural Resources Defense Council evaluated 14 air fresheners, 12 of which had varying amounts of phthalates, chemicals that may affect fertility, cause cancer, and trigger developmental abnormalities in infants. The Fresh Wave line is a healthy choice for you, your home and the environment. As an example, the Fresh Wave odor neutralizing spray contains water, soya and natural extracts of lime, pine needle, aniseed, clove, and cedarwood. The odor neutralizing candle is made from soy wax.
All good to know, but how do they work? I put the odor neutralizing crystals, which you just set out where you want to remove odors, between the front door and one of the litter boxes. It had a bit of a difficult time with the scents coming in from the neighbor's cooking (they are very strong), but it did a wonderful job reducing the smell of her air freshener, and I can't even smell the litter box.
My first test with the crystals, though, was unexpected. I was making pasta for dinner. We were in the other room eating salad while the pot was on the burner to get the water boiling when Andrew says, "What's burning?" I walk into the kitchen to find that I had turned the wrong burner on, and the box of pasta was partially sitting on the burner I had accidentally turned on. The kitchen stunk of burnt cardboard, so I set the odor neutralizing crystals out over night. All I have to say is I am SO glad I did, they helped a lot! And the kitchen is fine, thankfully!
Fresh Wave odor neutralizing spray can be sprayed into the air or directly on fabrics to eliminate odors, and the odor neutralizing candle is good for lighting in the kitchen after cooking (Fresh Wave also makes a "Cook's Candle," and a "Kitchen Candle"). Other products include vacuum pearls, pearl packs, carpet shake, all purpose cleaning additive, gel refills, and a pet line. I'm tempted to try the pet shampoo.
Fresh Wave products can be purchased from their website, as well as nationally at Whole Foods, Ace Hardware, Sur La Table, Container Store and True Value.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:41 am
Sounds promising. I've been looking for a safer alternatives to commercial fresheners for some time now.
January 30th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Great product! Most of these products often have a dirty smell. But this one looks fine and classy
I hope your neighbor does not know you are blogging...
Lucia
January 30th, 2009 at 9:56 am
If the Fresh Wave line is as good as you describe it i would buy to eliminate the smell of our cat's business smell in our house..
January 31st, 2009 at 8:19 am
This definitely sounds lot safer than commercial fresheners out in the market.
February 1st, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Sounds like a really great product. I have no clue what is is products like febreze or lysol products and don't want to take a chance with any of them. This looks to be a nice alternative to those products that is safer and natural.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:05 am
Great product with naturally eliminate odor. I like this product and feature of the product.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:15 am
That is great product,
Thank you for the reference,
and it is not so expensive,
February 5th, 2009 at 11:03 am
This is great for we all know that plants and flowers are the natural deodorizer or odor eliminator and these products are natural too, It's really great.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Lucia, lol, no, my neighbors don't know about this site!
May 24th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Looks like another excellent green product. I love finding new stuff to try out and will surely be looking into Freshwasve. Thanks for the post!
July 10th, 2009 at 5:30 am
But do they smell as good as they look thats the question! They have nice packaging and presentation though.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:18 am
I will try this Product. We have to go away from chemical products.