Picture this: you walk into a beautiful room. Your eye alights on drapery puddling elegantly at the baseboards; your hand compulsively reaches for your phone to snap a photo of the marquetry inlay on a side table. You are overwhelmed by beauty, and then—what’s that? There’s something…musty? You consider the bouquet confronting your olfactory sense and start to wonder if maybe this palazzo hasn’t seen better days. Now, let’s snap back to reality and tuck ourselves in for some real talk: a beautiful space can be ruined by a bad smell.
If you, like the team here at ELLE Decor, are a huge home fragrance fanatic, it makes sense that you would want to scent your space the right way. That’s why we sat down with a panel of experts to find out the right way to make your home smell good. No, there’s not only one, but whether you’re devoted to candles, diffusers, or room sprays, there are a few guidelines you can always follow for the best results.
It Starts With Cleaning, Silly
You need to deodorize your space before introducing new scents, according to Alexandra Pauly, founder of the forthcoming luxury grooming brand Biche. “If you’re not regularly cleaning your home, burning a candle or incense will just add a layer of smell on top of the unpleasant odors that inevitably build up in your kitchen, bathroom, bedding, and furniture,” says Pauly. “I sweep and vacuum my furniture, then use a lightly scented fabric spray like Frederic Malle’s Dans Mon Lit. I also mop with a white vinegar solution. It’s really important to clear out your kitchen drain and wipe down gross places like the toilet and bathroom or kitchen trash, after which I’ll use a spritz of LAFCO’s Odor-Removing Room Mist in Champagne.”
Size Matters
Jessica Dawes, CMO of Diptyque Paris, which expanded into cleaning products a few years ago, says that layering home fragrance is all about balance and harmony. “The secret is to match the fragrance layers to the size of the room, ensuring the scent lingers enough to be noticed, but not overpower the atmosphere,” says Dawes. “Putting a massive diffuser or oversized candle in a small room will overwhelm the space. Instead, use a small-sized diffuser or candle in tighter spaces such as your bathroom to allow the scent to diffuse evenly and subtly. Also, don’t forget to turn over those diffuser reeds when you’re craving a refresh!”
Frances Shoemack, a former sommelier who founded the natural perfume brand Abel, agrees that different needs require different applications. “Diffusers create that consistent ‘always-on’ scent, which works beautifully in bathrooms but feels less intentional in spaces where ritual matters, like bedrooms or lounges,” says Shoemack. “We prefer room sprays for their immediate impact and versatility. You can target specific areas, refresh fabrics like sheets, and control the intensity with each spray. They offer that perfect balance between presence and subtlety.”
A mix of candles in different sizes from Loewe.
Layering Is An Art
“I think that a lot of people underestimate how a fragrance can be an integral part of the design of a house,” says Nuria Cruelles, perfumer for Loewe. “It is extremely impactful on your senses when you enter a room.” Curelles agrees that candles create a “cozy vibe” while infusing the space with fragrance, whereas a room spray has that more instantaneous effect. Loewe’s own home fragrances are drawn from the olfactory experience of a garden, one that can be personalized by mixing the brand’s wide range of scents like Oregano and Tomato. “The experience of the full collection works great exactly because all the fragrances are individual olfactory portraits,” says Curelles.
Shoemack offers her own set of easy-to-follow guidelines for layering scents. “For combining fragrance profiles we pair complementary families like citrus with herbs, or woody scents with spices; stick to the rule of three scent families to avoid overwhelming complexity; and look for ‘bridge notes’ like vanilla that connect different fragrance families.”
Room sprays from Beverly Bguyen’s collaboration with Atmos.
Set Your Intentions For Success
Beverly Nguyen, founder of the homewares shop Beverly 1975, recently developed a series of three all-natural room sprays with Atmos Fragrance dubbed “The Memory Book,” a labor of love that took over a year to get just right. “The scents have everything to do with my memory of scent as a child growing up in California,” says Nguyen, who starts her days burning palo santo and the Carta d’Armenia incense papers from Santa Maria Novella to “clear her mind.” “I’ll then spray Dawn onto my shower curtains in the morning and let the steam release the oils to fill the bathroom with hints of star jasmine and cedarwood.”
Being grounded in a sense of place also informs the new line of scented candles from the jewelry brand Foundrae. Founder Beth Hutchens worked with Givaudan to create three scents that translate the brand’s tenets into something “tangible.” “Whenever I feel the need to center myself, I light a candle, take a few deep breaths, and close my eyes for a minute, turning inward,” says Hutchens. “The flickering of the candle flame reminds me of my own light, and its power to illuminate. That is a reset for me no matter where I am.”
Sean Santiago is ELLE Decor’s Deputy Editor, covering news, trends and talents in interior design, hospitality and travel, culture, and luxury shopping. Since starting his career at an interior design firm in 2011, he has gone on to cover the industry for Vogue, Architectural Digest, Sight Unseen, PIN-UP and Domino. He is the author of The Lonny Home (Weldon Owens, 2018), has produced scripted social content for brands including West Elm and Streeteasy, and is sometimes recognized on the street for his Instagram Reels series, #DanceToDecor
