Good Smells, Good Life
Engineering your "smellscape" may help improve your life.
Posted June 7, 2025 | Reviewed by Margaret Foley
Many of us are about to seal up our homes for the season. We’re getting ready to turn on our air conditioners (Northern Hemisphere) or our heating systems (Southern Hemisphere).
After the windows close, it will take a few days for the air in our homes to get stale and for us to begin to think fondly of the fresh breezes that had been wafting through our homes, and you may be considering actively scenting your home. But should you “engineer” the scent in your home, and what scents are best if you do?
When we’re in a place that smells “good,” our mood improves, and when that happens, we are more effective problem-solvers, we think more creatively, and we get along better with other people, for example.
A space smells good when it smells fresh. “Fresh” is one of those sensory experiences we recognize when we encounter it, but find hard to describe in words. If you’re opening windows when you can, have an up-to-date ventilation system, clean/replace your HVAC system’s air filters on schedule, and keep up with the dusting, vacuuming, and mopping, your home is probably smelling pretty fresh.
So, once you’ve established a “fresh” base, what scents should you layer on?
You bring products into your home with scents—even the “unscented” ones usually smell like something. Beyond keeping your house smelling fresh, you need to make multiple scent-related choices as you buy cleaning products, soaps, and so on.
What does the research say about the specific smells you should look for in scented products or air fresheners?
Don’t add too much scent to spaces—people should not even realize a space has been "smellscaped" unless you draw their attention to it, and even then, they should not be able to identify any odors in use. Easy does it.
Managing the scents in your life is one way to make your life much better.
Rachel Herz. 2009. The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell. HarperCollins.
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Sally Augustin, Ph.D. , is an environmental psychologist and the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture .
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.