Homemade Febreze-Go Green by staying Cheap!

I've seen this on the internet a few times, so I thought that I would bring it to the eyes of you fantastic readers at instructables.

Febreze- We all use it (I hope some of us do) to clean what we have dirtied, make that which is foul smell better, and generally add a hint of fragrance to our garments.

In this short but sweet instructable, I'll show you how to make your own Homemade Febreze with things you should already have in your home.

This is not my original idea. I see it on the internet a lot, but since it was not on instructables, I thought I'd share it with you here.

The motive behind making your own Febreze type smell good cleaners is that the cost of making it yourself is lower than the cost of most cleaners today. Cleaners are getting more expensive everyday, and by making your own, you can cut back on spending outrages amounts of money for a bottle of stuff that you can imitate with household ingredients. So when you make your own Febreze, you are saving money, which you can later invest in solar panels or other energy saving/producing devices.

UPDATE: I just found this instructable by Bigbadjohn81 on how to make Homemade Fabric Refresher. I usually search for instructables that I want to make to make sure that I do not repeat anything already made. I did not find his instructable while I was looking, and so it has been made. I'll leave it where it is for now.

UPDATED UPDATE: I found more instructables on Homemade Febreze earlier today that I didn't see before I made this. I don't know, maybe I looked to fast. I've also been getting comments pertaining to this instructable not being Green. I interpret Going Green as yes, saving the environment, AND saving yourself some dough at the same time. So by making your own Febreze for cheaper than you can buy it, I consider this to be green. Thanks!

Step 1: Some notes and recipes.

I've seen a couple of different recipes for making Homemade Febreze on the internet, and while I will be sharing all of those with you, I will only be demonstrating how to make the simplest one. Since simple=Fewer ingredients=cheaper=Greener!

Here are the varying recipes of Homemade Febreze that I have found, though for this instructable I will be showing how to make Recipe #5.

Recipe #1------------------------------Courtesy of TipNut.com *
1 cup fabric softener
1 cup white vinegar
2 cups water

Recipe #2------------------------------Courtesy of TipNut.com *
2 cups water
1 cup fabric softener

Recipe #3------------------------------Courtesy of TipNut.com *
3 cups water
3 TBS fabric softener
3 TBS rubbing alcohol

Recipe #4------------------------------Courtesy of TipNut.com *
2 cups water (warm)
1/4 cup fabric softener
1 TBS baking soda

Recipe #5------------------------------Courtesy of Thriftyfun.com **
1 part water
3 parts fabric softener

*http://tipnut.com/4-homemade-febreeze-recipes/

**http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf243748.tip.html

The Recipes above are borrowed from TipNut.com and Thriftyfun.com. I do not claim making any of these, but I am posting them here for informational purposes only.

If you have concerns about flammability, unhealthiness, or other life/fabric threatening concern, check out the comments on the TipNut page that talk about this, instead of filling my comments with questions that, frankly, I wouldn't know how to answer.

Comments

[cward20]

Okay first off, fabric softener in it self is dangerous when used in excess. Every now and then on your clothes is one thing, not to often though, but through your entire house? No not a good idea. These recipes are great but instead of using the fabric softener, use some type of natural oil scent that you usually use for incense and such. I personally love incense, it is naturally made from herbs, and smells great! My personal favorite for around the house is bamboo jasmine. You can get it at walmart for like 5 bucks, and you really only need about 2 or 3 drops for a 30 ml bottle. No incense oils are not the same thing as fragrance oils (those are filled with really bad chemicals so don't get them!).

[cward20]

Also here is a link to walmart for if you want to order a type of oil offline or just to see what it is I am talking about.

http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_query=incense+oils&ic=16_0&Find=Find&indexId=13c1df52e1cc&cdnHost=search-cdn.walmart.com&searchdropdowndiv=com.wm.module.305715.constraint&search_constraint=0

[blodefood]

I know this sounds counter to what you are trying to accomplish, but is there a fragrance free alternative to this?  I find so many of these products have such an objectionable smell, to say nothing of burning my eyes and throat, a scent free alternative is nice.  Any ideas?

[cward20]

My recomendation for you sweetie is to get some small little canning jars, poke some holes in the top parts (easy way to do it is get a nail hold it with an oven mitten, then heat up the tip of the nail with a flame then poke it through the metal) then fill it about halfway with baking soda. Put the lid on it and put it somewhere in your home. You can decorate it to please you or to blend it in with your decor. The baking soda basically absorbs the smells you have currently in your home, and then leaves somewhat of a soft gently airy smell behind (nothing that is to bad though it is more like a sniff in real big and go ahhh kind of smell). Hope it helps! It works great for me. Also, if you do want to add some smell but use this same concept, you can get incense and mash it up and add it to there. They sell them in these triangle shapes that you can burn straight like that, but there is a way to crush it up. Good luck! If you have any other questions let me know!

[MsJan]

Did you know that there is not one type of fabric softener on the market that is not toxic to humans???? They cause cancer. My neighbor has pancreas cancer and the doctor will not allow the whole family to have this in their home. My son now has a lump on his pancreas and it swells making him not be able to eat. When I researched it it said it could be from fabric softner. There family now does not use itany longer. People need to wake up before more become ill. These companies just want our money and do not care about our health. If we stop buying toxic products than they will offer us smarter choices. You can add baking soda in with your unscented laundry soap to keep your clothes soft or add a cup of white vinegar to the last rinse cycle or if you miss it than put white vingar on a wash cloth an toss it in to the dryer with your cloths. Stay healthy and make better choices.

[kimhmyers]

not green. sorry. fabric softener is not green. you are still purchasing icky chemicals from a big company that is killing our planet. it's awesome that you want to be diy and make stuff and i encourage you to keep going. it's also great that you want to be green!! let's stop buying things from proctor and gamble! A study found that fabric softeners often contain chemicals such as benzyl acetate, formaldehyde, camphor, chloroform, ethyl acetate, pentane, linalool and limonene. And, according to the Allergy and Environmental Health Association, both liquid and dryer sheet fabric softeners are “the most toxic product produced for daily household use.”
Try this instead! And keep making things at home!
Febreze Alternative 1
1 cup water
1 cup cheap vodka
20-40 drops essential oils (optional)
Febreze Alternative 2
1 cup water
2 tbsp baking soda / sodium bicarbonate
2 tbsp cheap vodka
10-20 drops essential oils (optional)
My Favorite Mix of Oils
15 drops Clary Sage
9 drops Lemon
6 drops Lavender
Put all the ingredients into a spray bottle, shake well and spray. So easy! You could even have different scents for different rooms or moods.

[dalston1]

For the green folks: technically, you can just make homemade "green" fabric softener (also available at TipNut), and then use that as the "fabric softener" ingredient in all the recipes.

So, taking that as an assumption from the very beginning, it's green.

Now get off his back.

[tabitha_6878]

THANK YOU for this recipe!

LOVE IT!

My mother in law has 13 cats and this is just what I needed!

{{BIG HUG}}

[soulcalibur]

seems the simplest of all ideas. by the way if i were you i'd buy one of those garden pressurizer bottle things and use that instead. maybe even a well cleaned out weed killer pump pressurized container. still i think the solution won't clean and keep it that way as good as febreeze does.

[zomfibame]

I dig the idea of making cheaper versions of name brand stuff no doubt; but this is not any more green than just buying the name brand stuff. Fabric softener is NOT green. some might argue it is somewhat the opposite of green. due to the fact that it is a skin irritant to many people, and it can cause problems if it finds its way into lakes, ponds, rivers etc. Good instructable, but possibly change the name of it by removing the "green" part. ... I could be biased though, since I'm not too fond of fabreeze. I tend to like Lysol

[lawizeg]

NIce one, once again. I just have a question...how is this green? I dont really get it.

[Gunk on Floor]

The cost of fabric softener, which most people already have, and water (costs relatively nothing) means that making your own Febreze is cheaper than buying it at the store. And spending less money in an already money hungry world that we live in, can help you save what you have and be green! Hope I've answered your question!

[Aar000n3y]

Wait, so spending less money is a way of being green? I don't understand

[bedeboop]

No toxins mainly. :)

[nerdnurture]

Yes! Part of the environmental disaster we have created stems directly from our need to consume every new-fangled something that enters the market. We cannot continue the current rate of consumption. Period. The more you can make yourself, and the more you can find multiple uses for the same stuff, the better. Reduce and reuse. They come before recycle... I think homemade febreeze is a good idea. Vinegar makes a good fabric softener too though, and it doesn't have any of those wierd chemicals you can't pronounce.

[DaNerd11]

I get that, i think.... Nice instructable, im doing it right now.

[Gunk on Floor]

Thanks for the support nerdnurture, sometimes it's hard to explain things the way you mean them and other people (you) can put them in the right words.

[gillian]

For one thing, by making your own instead of buying febreeze, you'd be preventing the water weight from being transported via truck, so there would technically be less use of petroleum. That being said, I bet fabric softener is not very good for the environment.

[Gunk on Floor]

Well, yeah. Spending less money on anything by finding a cheaper more efficient alternative is the equivalent of being green. Take vegetable oil for example. You can use used vegetable oil in diesel vehicles as an alternative to diesel fuel. You can get the vegetable oil for almost free, and it's better for the environment, so your being green. Hope I've answered your question!

[Aar000n3y]

No no, that's green because it is recycling something to use its energy instead of letting it go to waste. Not because it's cheaper, even if that is a plus.

[Gunk on Floor]

But because you're using it in place of the oil, that's one more car that doesn't rely on fossil fuels which are inevitably destroying the atmosphere. So while it does do a good amount for the ozone layer, it's also helping you save money, because like you said, you are using the energy from it that would have been wasted.

[Gunk on Floor]

I also interpret being Green in a little bit of a different way than most because of my money pinching dad. Going green should mostly be about helping the environment, but anything that you can do to save money will help in the long run.

[Aar000n3y]

Well it also says eco-friendly projects in the description of the contest, so you could think about the contest in that way instead. How will saving money help in the long run for the environment?

[Gunk on Floor]

Because you could then use money you saved to invest in solar panels or something like that.

[Aar000n3y]

I understand your reasoning, but it's too indirect. Setting up solar panels is green, but how you get the money for them isn't. Also, I could use this instructable to save some money, but then use the money to buy some gasoline.

[Gunk on Floor]

Or just save the money and find an alternative to gasoline that is green? What's wrong with saving money.

[Aar000n3y]

What I was saying is that this is about money, and money isn't always used for something that's eco-friendly. I have nothing against saving money, I just don't think saving money is eco-friendly by it self.

[chris76108]

Money is GREEN!
But I think Aar000n3y needs to go GRAY (duct tape) ;oX

[pyelitegamerro76]

by buying the ingredients, you can make many batches using the original supplies once you use all your febreeze, once your done with your fabreeze, you need to buy more effectively using more plastic bottles, so this instructable saves you plastic bottles less plastic = more green

[lawizeg]

Yea, you have! thanks!

[Patty_Racket]

Couple of pointers I think would be worth adding... First, if you buy non-toxic biodegradable (ie: 7th Generation) liquid fabric softener, your not doing much harm to the water table... and its better 4 your clothes too. Second, doubles as an awesome "wrinkle-release'er" solution. Note that i use only a couple of tablespoons softener per BOTTLE of this stuff even as a "Febreez" To apply use an 'atomizer' pump spray and for extra effect toss the garment in the dryer on low, or fluff, for a few minutes. Just as a precaution: don't go overboard on this stuff!! You can accelerate fabric damage over time. And finally... as we all hate static in our laundry, and yes. some of us use dryer sheets... well this stuff triples in function if you just spray 3-4 pumps in the dryer near the end of the cycle-- viola-- no static and a light softer effect as well!!! Hmmmm... doesn't that seem curiously like what Febreez/Tide and Febreez/Bounce did in a partner marketing campaign? Just be sure to use non-toxic softener brands or dilute as much as possible while still getting the desired effect.

[aprilq1111]

Most fabric softeners are bad for your skin - they cause allergic reactions and flare-ups of conditions like psoriasis and excema(sp?). Not green. They also build up on your clothes, which shortens their lifespan. Not green. And of course, the runoff enters our water supply, which affects everyone downstream... So spraying diluted fabric softener around your home is just not good. My homemade freshener is as follows: Place 2 tablespoons cheap vodka in a clean 20-30 oz bottle. Add distilled water to almost the top. Add 2-5 drops essential oil of your choice, or until you like the effect (lavender, peppermint, or orange are nice, sandalwood is a little more masculine). Shake before using. This lasts forever because of the distilled water. The vodka keeps it sanitary, and helps the water to evaporate quicker. Mist it anywhere and enjoy! It's safe for fabrics, and won't leave stains. Because I don't use fabric softener anymore, I spray my sheets after laundering them.

[amariusd]

If you add vinegar- 1 to 2 tbsp- it will help dissapate the odors as opposed to covering them. Also be careful as most fabric softeners are flamable. I have tried the green tea with vinegar and rather like that combo... Very cool though.

[bookfreak53]

Good Job! Your project seems "green" to me and I'm all for doing things that save me money while being better for the planet. You are an honest person and I applaud you for sharing what you have learned!!!

[anngel369]

can't wait to try it out! thanks

[cowscankill]

(removed by author or community request)

[Gunk on Floor]

The recipe is 3:1 softener to water, but after looking at my fabric softener, which seemed slightly thick, I changed it around and used 3 parts water to 1 part fabric softener. Sorry for the confusion, I just didn't want a super thick mess of febreze.

[cowscankill]

ah, smart thank you

[dchall8]

Or if you don't like the smell of Febreeze or any of the commercial fabric softeners, but you do have a favorite hair conditioner, you could do the same thing with that. Hair conditioner AND fabric softeners are made from various waxes, surfactants (soapy chemicals), alcohols, fragrances and water. The waxes are what make and keep fabric and hair soft. The fragrance is all you want for your air freshener. For those people who can't figure out what is green about this, they must need to have the color on their monitors checked. The pictures in Step 3 clearly show a green liquid ;-) Maybe they used a different interpretation of "green."

[Ward_Nox]

you might want to shop arounf for fabric softener most brands have chemicals in em that water proof fabrics