Quilts and Room Fresheners
 

I just saw a commercial for room freshener which has the scent, as a mist floating through the house. I wonder how this would affect quilts hanging in the area.

Has anyone used the kind that sprays every once in a while? Do you worry about fabric (quilts and other things)that it gets on?

I don't use air freshners either. I burn scented candles occasionally but that's about all.

I have asthma, so I do not use any.

I Don’t use fragrances, DGS and I can’t tolerate them.

I have used air fresheners/febreeze for yeas and have not noticed any problems with quilts or afghans etc.

As I age, I don't tolerate odors well. That short burst of spray is there for a few minutes and then gone. The ones I tried years ago weren't very effective. I found Odoban concentrate in the original Eucalyptus scent and have loved it ever since. It works to "eat" odors on fabrics and carpets and is a disinfectant. I use about a Tablespoon in every wash to get rid of my husband's sweat odor that won't come out of his old work tee shirts. It's amazing. Somehow, without really having an odor, it makes a house feel & smell clean. The first thing I tried it on was hubby's truck. I took a 125 pound dog that had not had a bath in a couple of months to the vet. The dog managed to get the blanket off the seat and put his stinky odor all over it. Once I got him out, I sprayed the truck seats down really good...choked me up, it was so wet....opened up the windows and let it dry. Several hours later, you couldn't smell anything. I LOVE Odoban...found at Home Depot in the cleaning supplies area.

I have sprayed quilts and never had any problems.

I burn candles and when I cook fish or eggs or there is an illness, I spray Lysol....different scents. I have quilts everywhere and never noticed any lingering issues.

I do not use air fresheners, smelly fabric softener sheets, etc. Not sure if there would be any lasting effects from them.

I would think if you consider air sprays, you'd also have to consider things like grease from frying foods, candle/cigarette smoke, and Obnoxious Husband Poots. :D

I literally LOL-ed! :D

I will eventually wash my quilts and any odor or smell would probably come out. I do like a clean smell so I will use Tide with fabreeze. I burn candles sometimes and I have spay air freshers in the bathrooms. I use plugin air fresheners throughout the house including the quilt room.

Since i don't have any problems with smells or allergies I love to smell the Jasmines outside my bedroom window and the orange blossoms in the yard but my DD avoids going outside because she is very allergic to pollen.

I use air fresheners, if needed. Not paranoid about what's left behind. I do like to use the scented wax melties. As far as burning candles, no way! The smoke from candles do rise and can permeate things...and stain celings.....

After we cook onions or other stinky food we simmer some cloves on the stove....harmless and very effective.

Boston, those sprays are nasty. Read the labels.

In the past I used plug in air fresheners, until I noticed they were leaving a sticky residue on the unit itself and on the windowsilsl above them. Figured if there was a sticky residue there there would also be residue elsewhere. Now don't use anything but cloves boiled on top of stove for a few minutes.

SusieQoh,
Oh Sweetie, I do not have any. I just started thinking when I saw the commercial last night. :)

All those grocery store air fresheners and scented candles are toxic. We are exposed to so many toxins we can't avoid, I certainly avoid the ones I can. A diffuser with GOOD essential oils is my chosen method. The only trouble with that is with the rising popularity of essential oils, there are many adulterated ones on the market. I have one going right beside my design wall and don't worry about the fabric.

Ditto. And if the air freshener is oil based, imagine what breathing that in all day, every day, is doing to your lungs.

I have allergies and occasionally shop in thrift stores and pick up fabrics while shopping. From personal experience, I can tell you that perfumes and air fresheners penetrate fabrics, even if they are in closed cabinets. At the very least, I have to wash those fabrics twice to get the scent out.

And the "elsewhere" includes your lungs.

I don't worry about the fabric, either. But please note that the oils can coat the lung cells. Over time, the oil coating makes it difficult to breathe. It happened to my sister in law, only she just coated the outside of her nostrils (dry skin) once a day, with mineral oil. Cumulative affect of doing that (and unknowingly breathing in oil molecules) for years resulted in difficulty breathing. After all kinds of medical tests with negative results, a dr finally ordered a lung biopsy. The air sacs in the lungs were coated with oil. They could not take in oxygen or took in reduced amounts. She is in her 60's and tethered to an oxygen machine.

I don't worry about the fabric, either. But please note that the oils can coat the lung cells. Over time, the oil coating makes it difficult to breathe. It happened to my sister in law, only she just coated the outside of her nostrils (dry skin) once a day, with mineral oil. Cumulative affect of doing that (and unknowingly breathing in oil molecules) for years resulted in difficulty breathing. After all kinds of medical tests with negative results, a dr finally ordered a lung biopsy. The air sacs in the lungs were coated with oil. They could not take in oxygen or took in reduced amounts. She is in her 60's and tethered to an oxygen machine.

Just a note; essential oils are really oils, but the essence of the plant - kind of like our blood, and therefore are not oily.

We have used fabreeze in our bathrooms, and mine has a quilted curtain and a “panel” shower curtain and I have not noticed any issues and they do get washed at least twice a year.

I agree! DH and I both have problems with things like this and scented candles and fabric softener. If we walk into a shop that has a heavy scent we have to leave or we'll both have sinus headaches. My nose starts to itch immediately, which is annoying enough. I don't know if they do anything to quilts, but it stands to reason that long exposure is probably not good. When you smell anything it is because your nose is picking up actual atoms of whatever it is.

Thanks for the hint about using cloves to neutralize odors.

And my mind circles back around to the obnoxious poots from the beloved hubby. :shock: Good thing he makes me laugh a lot!

I like the so-called copycat Williams Sonoma air freshener. You put water, a couple sprigs of rosemary, couple slices of lemon, and some good quality vanilla extract in a pot, simmer low on the stove (or put it in a small crock pot). Smells sooooo good!

But by far my favorite air freshener is to open the windows and doors and let the fresh air in.

Thanks Barb! I’ve never heard of that, can’t wait to try it!!

Back, a number of years before I was diagnosed with asthma, I had a violent respiratory problem caused by a room freshner spray. This particular product contained formaldehyde, and I suspect that a majority of them also contain formaldehyde -- I ended up in the ER on oxygen and injected medication. I also had another instance of exposure to room freshner sprays which ended with the paramedics being called. There have been other incidents with room freshener sprays -- for 30+ years, my employer would not allow them in the office where I worked, or in an adjacent condominium office unit which he owned. Anything airborne that contains formaldehyde can be very dangerous for anyone -- but in the early 1991 I was diagnosed with adult onset asthma. Suffice it to say, we don't allow them in our house, nor do I allow smoking in my house. There is nothing more frightening than being unable to breathe, I've been there done that!

Irishrose2, I totally agree with you. I use essential oils from a trusted company and diffuse in my sewing room and throughout my house. I am not breathing any toxins and everything smells so fresh. KarenG

I grew up many years ago on a rural farm. How did we survive with all the barnyard smells, the smells of canning, cooking and baking without chemical sprays and diffusers to mask the smells of living?

Nobody cans, cooks, or bakes anymore. :( I make pancakes from scratch and my kids' friends are amazed. They didn't know you could do that.

I went to several stores lately, looking for biscuit cutters. Couldn't find one anywhere. An employee workin nearby, an older woman, asked me if she could help me find anything, I said in frustration "Biscuit cutters! There's 7 different kinds of can openers but no biscuit cutters?!?!?!?" She replied "It's a sad statement about our culture today, isn't it?"

that's a generalization now isn't it?? I'm still raising my kids and all of them enjoy cooking from scratch and they LOVE to bake. The real trick is getting them to stop baking things, I can only eat so many delicious treats (to be a supportive parent you understand ;)) and I have to watch my weight :p. It's not just our family either, my two best friends (both raising kids too) are teaching all of their children to cook and bake. It's very frustrating to be trying to do my best to raise good productive independent future adults and all everyone can do is get on the "bashing younger people" bandwagon.

I'll give you the canning thing though, the closest we come to canning is making homemade freezer jam for the deep freeze. I also don't own a biscuit cutter because I use a glass (like my mother and grandmothers did) or make drop biscuits.

Me, too! :D

LOL. I had a similar experience a few years back, when I was looking for round metal cutters that could withstand prolonged heat so I could make my own english muffins. My recipe makes a loose batter, so it needs to be poured into a ring as it cooks to keep its shape. My local kitchen supply store only had plastic novelty cookie cutters and large silicone rounds made for cooking fried eggs, which would have worked if they hadn't leaked at the bottom. I ended up buying four multipacks of different sized metal cutters meant to be used to cut cakes just to have four circles of the size I wanted.

I would also advise against the use of air fresheners. I used to work in the flavors and fragrance industry (think Lemon Pledge, BBQ potato chips, various colognes) and perfumes are considered "hazardous waste" that must be disposed of safely. The natural odors of cooking and daily living can easily be dispersed by opening a window or two for a few minutes. Even in the dead of a Minnesota winter.

Excuse me, who said anything about "bashing younger people?" My only comment about youth was that my kids' friends were unaware that you could make pancakes from scratch. That is in no way bashing; it is stating a fact.

If you are referring to the clerk's comment about our culture, I still ask, who said anything about bashing younger people?? She said "our culture today" which includes members of every generation!

Good grief.

I think we are getting off topic. My original post was about what it does to our quilts.

Perhaps the topic has shifted a little, but the relevance is modern replacements for products of simple living. My original post on rural farm living without chemical sprays was somewhat tongue in cheek. We have been convinced by advertisers that we need chemical sprays to mask the smells of everyday life that we didn’t used to think were a problem. Your question about whether the air fresheners might harm quilts is a legitimate one. A broader and more vital question might be how they might affect our health and the health of our planet.