Making DIY Natural Laundry Scent Booster at Home

As crafters, we’re always looking for ways to make things by hand – and make them better than what’s in stores. It’s only natural we would turn our creativity onto our chores. Making your own natural laundry scent booster is a great way to add a little personal flair to laundry day.

Knowing what’s in the products you buy is important, especially if you’re going to be putting those products onto your skin. Many people develop sensitivities, allergies, and even dermatitis – all from their laundry!

Making the switch to a clean, green alternative will keep you and your family safe and smelling great! Keep reading to learn some helpful tips for making your own natural laundry scent booster.

Pros of Making Natural Laundry Scent Booster

Let’s get specific on all the reasons you should be making your own natural laundry scent booster.

Price

Laundry scent booster is a relatively new product for your laundry, and stores will want you to spend anywhere from $7 to $20. Not only that, but you’ll have to use them in addition to your soap and fabric softener.

This recipe for natural laundry scent booster is a fabric softener and scent booster in one! That means you’ll cut back on your spending – and your waste. Salt and baking soda – the two main ingredients in our recipe – are both relatively cheap, and after you buy a good set of quality essential oils, you can use them in this project and many others!

Allergies

Store-bought laundry scent booster can be full of synthetic perfumes and fragrances. Even the brands that make natural scent boosters for sensitive skin still have to print allergy warnings on their labels.

DIY natural laundry scent booster, on the other hand, can be a great alternative. Using just a few, common ingredients and essential oils, you’re much less likely to have a reaction to your clothing. Still, please note that for very sensitive people, it’s best to use good judgment and even consult with a doctor if you’ve had trouble in the past.

We give a more detailed look at essential oil safety and potential allergies in our article on reed diffuser oil, so definitely read that for more information on the safety of essential oils.

Scent

Store-bought laundry scent booster often smells highly artificial. With names like “tropical breeze” and “ocean spray”, it’s hard not to picture a candle! If you don’t want to walk around smelling like you had a run-in with the perfume kiosk at the mall, you’re better off playing with natural, more subtle scents instead.

Since our recipe uses essential oils, you can customize your beautiful, fresh laundry scent exactly to your liking. We’ll offer some suggestions on how to pair essential oil scents together to make a unique combination for your laundry.

Ingredients for Natural Laundry Scent Booster

The ingredient list for making natural laundry scent booster is small, and the process is super easy. You’ll be wondering why you’ve never tried it before – and how you could ever go without homemade laundry scent booster again!

To make natural laundry scent booster, you will need:

• Epsom salt or kosher salt (depending on your water)
• Baking soda
• Essential oils

Epsom Salt

This is the main ingredient in your natural laundry scent booster. Epsom salts, or magnesium sulfate, is the carrier for your scent. It’ll dissolve completely in the wash – as long as you’re washing with warm or hot water. In addition to carrying the scent, Epsom salt acts as a fabric softener as well, so you can skip the dryer sheet.

Many green cleaning blogs disagree on whether to use Epsom salt or kosher salt in their natural laundry scent booster. Some say avoid Epsom salt at all costs, while others swear by it to make their laundry beautifully soft.

Epsom salt is not actually salt at all! Its chemical name is magnesium sulfate. It has a tendency to harden your water, so if you have hard water already, you’ll want to make your natural laundry scent booster with kosher salt or rock salt instead.

Play with both and see what seems to make your laundry turn out softer!

Kosher Salt

Kosher salt is another great carrier ingredient for your homemade laundry scent booster. Kosher salt and rock salt are often considered interchangeable on some blogs and articles, but they are a bit different.

Both will work for you, but be aware that they are different and the cost may differ as well.

Like Epsom salt, it will totally dissolve in your warm or hot water wash, and it will work to soften clothes, too.

Try both, and let us know in the comments what seems to be working best for you.

Baking Soda

While not technically necessary in this recipe, baking soda is a hero ingredient! It’ll help freshen your laundry, making your whites whiter and your colors brighter. We absolutely recommend trying it in your homemade laundry scent booster.

Essential Oils

There are so many great essential oil scents out there. If you’re a stickler for high quality ingredients like we are, you’ll want to buy from a trusted brand. These essential oil sellers are widely considered to be free from harmful ingredients:

• Plant Therapy
• Aura Cacia
• Now Foods
• Rocky Mountain Oils

Browse the available scents, and let them inspire you! One of the great things about making your own natural laundry scent booster is being in total control of the scent.

Best Laundry Scent Booster – Essential Oil Combinations

There’s a more detailed explanation in our guide to essential oil combinations about the traditional uses for many essential oils, but here are some combinations that would be great for your laundry.

The only limit here is your imagination, so play around with your essential oil scents and figure out what smells great to you! Different scents can be great for different occasions. For example, you might want your kitchen towels to smell fresh but your bed linens to relax you to sleep at night.

How to make Natural Laundry Scent Booster

Let’s get into the method of making your natural laundry scent booster for use in your home and washing machine.

Recipe for natural laundry scent booster

Tips for using Laundry Scent Booster

The most important tip for using a laundry scent booster is to always use your homemade product in the washer, not the dryer! Essential oils are flammable, so you definitely do not want to put them in the dryer.

Make sure you’re washing in warm or hot water when you use DIY natural laundry scent booster. The ingredients need to dissolve, and they won’t if you wash in cold water.

Cold washers who want to use essential oil to freshen their laundry can simply add a few drops to their liquid, fragrance-free detergent or apply the essential oil to a wet washrag and add that to the load. This method won’t have the same effect on your clothes, but it will add a nice smell.

Homemade Laundry Scent Booster – Final Thoughts

When you use your own, homemade laundry scent booster, you’ll be proud of making a green choice, and you’ll smell great, too! Whether you’re trying to be more mindful of ingredients or you just don’t like what’s available at the store, there’s no question that homemade is the way to go. We’ve even tried our hands at making DIY reed diffusers at home…with pretty awesome results.

Crafters already know this, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling of using something you made by yourself. This recipe makes your clothes smell fresh for a long, long time, so you’ll get a little burst of happiness every time you go to get dressed.

And now that you’re hooked on using essential oils, definitely check out our tips for making your own room fragrance using essential oils!

Let us know in the comments how the recipe turned out for you, and what essential oil combinations smelled best in your laundry!