If you’ve ever wondered how to make your own scented carpet freshener, then look no further. Our beginner's tutorial will talk you through the process and options available as well as show you how simple it is to make your own scented carpet freshener using just two ingredients - bicarbonate of soda and fragrance oil.

Carpet Fresheners are a great product for refreshing your carpets and rugs as well as reducing the smell of unwanted odours. Quick and easy to use, carpet freshener is the perfect finishing touch to your cleaning regime.

Consumers have been enjoying carpet fresheners for decades and are now a staple cleaning product in many households. In fact, the advert for a well-known Shake n’ Vac powdered carpet freshener first aired in 1980 after the product launched in the UK in 1979 and has remained a popular home fragrance product for well over 40 years!

Check out our video tutorial below if you want to jump right in or read on to find out more about making your own customisable carpet freshener with just two simple ingredients. There’s a written tutorial below as well if you’d like to try this simple project yourself.

Our tutorial is meant for personal use only. If you'd like to sell your carpet freshener products, you'll need to follow all legal guidelines including ensuring your product includes a CLP label. For more information on CLP labelling, see our guide here.

Fancy making your own scented carpet freshener at home? Check out our full tutorial for step by step instructions.

Ingredients and Materials Needed

• 490g Sodium Bicarbonate
• 10g Pet Odour Eliminator Fragrance Oil

You'll also need...

• 1x 500g shaker bottle
• Digital weighing scales
• Stainless steel mixing bowl
• Sieve
• Wide neck funnel or tablespoon
• Kitchen roll to protect your work surface
• Nitrile gloves (or similar protective gloves) and an apron. We’d also highly recommend the use of a chemical mask.

Pro tip: Before starting, make sure your work surface is covered and you’re wearing the correct PPE as stated in the materials needed above. This is to avoid skin/respiratory irritation from the fragrance oil and to protect your clothes from any splashes.

Step 1 – Weighing out the Sodium Bicarbonate

Place the mixing bowl on your scales and set to weigh in grams. Take your sieve and sift 490g of sodium bicarbonate into the mixing bowl.

Keep the mixing bowl on the scales once weighed out.

Step 2 – Adding the Fragrance Oil

Tare your scales (to 0) and add 10g Pet Odour Eliminator fragrance oil to the sodium bicarbonate in the mixing bowl.

Step 3 – Mixing the Ingredients

Mix the ingredients by rubbing the sodium bicarbonate and fragrance oil between your fingers.

The end result should be a powder that isn’t clumpy. If its clumpy, then continue breaking up the mixture between your fingers.

Step 4 – Filling the Shaker Bottle

Once the powder and fragrance oil are fully combined, take your wide neck funnel (or tablespoon) and carefully transfer the powder into the shaker bottle.

Pop the lid on once full and tap a few times on your work surface to help the powder settle.

Step 5 – Using Your Carpet Freshener

Your carpet freshener is now made and ready to use. Simply sprinkle over your carpet, wait 5 minutes and vacuum.

Whilst you can use the product immediately, we recommend allowing the product a few days to dry out completely for the best results. Remember to give the powder a good shake before each use to break up any clumps that may have formed whilst the product is not in use.

Pro tips: Always test the carpet freshener on a hidden area first. You don’t need to use too much carpet freshener as a little goes a long way.

When using the carpet freshener, keep any pets and children out of the room until every last bit of powder has been vacuumed up.

Regular cleaning and emptying of your vacuum are advisable when using any type of carpet freshener powder.

Which Base Should I Use to Make Carpet Freshener?

Carpet freshener is really simple to make. The only base required is sodium bicarbonate, a food grade baking component also often known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda.

Which Scent Should I Choose for Making Carpet Freshener?

Here at Craftovator, we have a huge range of over 500 professional grade, high quality fragrance oils that can be used in your carpet freshener making. There is no right or wrong fragrance you should use, and we believe fragrances are so subjective that its entirely down to personal choice. If you’re struggling to choose however, we’ve got some recommendations for you.

You could opt for cleaning inspired fragrances to compliment your cleaning regime such as FloZora Linen Fresh or Fab Spring Blossom. If you didn’t want a cleaning inspired scent then you could go for a seasonal fragrance such as Jasmine for Spring, Very Berry for Summer, Pumpkin for Autumn or Mulberry for Winter.

The choice is entirely down to you and going through our range of fragrances by scent category is such a fun way to find the right one for your specific living space.

How Much Fragrance Oil Should I Use in My Carpet Freshener?

Due to the high strength of our fragrance oils, we advise a usage percentage of between 1%-2%. Each oils strength varies which means that some fragrances will perform better at a lower percentage and others will benefit from using at a higher percentage.

We do advise thorough testing to be undertaken so that you can find the percentage that performs best for the fragrance oil you’ve chosen. Remember to always check the IFRA 49^th Amendment document download on each fragrance oils page before choosing your desired fragrance to confirm suitability for its use and the maximum percentage allowed. For carpet freshener, the IFRA category is 12.

As we need to use a percentage of between 1%-2% we’re looking for the oils that state they can be used above this percentage. However, in most cases for category 12, the oils are not limited to a specific percentage. If an oil states a usage level of over 2% then we would advise to stick to the maximum of 2% regardless.

For this tutorial we’ve chosen to use Pet Odour Eliminator fragrance oil at 2% fragrance content. The amount of mixture you need depends on the size of the shaker bottle used. For our tutorial below, we’re using a 500g shaker bottle.

We know we need 500g total so we’ve used 490g of sodium bicarbonate and added 10g fragrance oil to give a total of 500g mixture (500 x 0.02 = 10). 2% of the overall mixture would be made up of the fragrance oil.

Pro tip: Always remember to weigh your oil and base in grams as each oil's individual densities cause them to weigh more or less than their millilitre quantity. 10ml of fragrance oil for example when weighed out in grams could vary by quite a wide margin. It may be as little as 8g and may even go up to as much as 15g!

Helpful tip: If you’ve decided to use a different fragrance oil at 2% and you find that the mixture is too wet after combining, this could mean that the fragrance oil is too heavy for the base. Simply add more sodium bicarbonate until the mixture appears smooth and dry. You’ll then know next time that this particular fragrance oil needs the percentage reducing to 1%.

What Type of Packaging is Best to Use for Carpet Fresheners?

There are two types of packaging that are better used for carpet fresheners.

One is shaker bottles. These are much easier to use as you simply pop the top on the sprinkle side and the powder is dispersed as its shaken lightly over the carpet.

The other option would be to use food grade resealable paper bags, but you may find too much powder comes out when shaken.

The choice will be dependent on which packaging option you feel most comfortable using.

For this tutorial we’ve opted to use a 500g shaker bottle.

Can I Use My Carpet Freshener Right Away?

Once the carpet freshener is fully combined and has been transferred to your shaker bottle or resealable bag, it can be used straight away although we would recommend allowing it to sit for a few days to dry out fully.

Just remember to give the powder a good shake before each use to break up any clumps that may have formed whilst not in use.

Remember a little goes a long way so use sparingly and always test on a hidden area before first use.

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learned how easy it is to make your own scented carpet freshener. Why not take a look through our huge variety of fragrance oils to find the next fragrance for your carpet freshener making project?