News

Smell the Happy

Today, I invite you to "Smell the Happy!" I would love to know just what "Smell the Happy" means to you! Please send me an email (info at columbiafragrance.com) or a message via Facebook with how smelling the happy brings back your magical memories! 

 

 

 

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Our La Vie en Rose recipe

Ingredients:
  • 1 oz Vodka 
  • 1 oz Absolut Mandarin Vodka
  • 4 oz Cranberry Juice
  • 1.5 oz St Germain
  • Flower garnish
Preparation:

Pour all ingredients into a blender or NutriBullet type mixer and add a cup and a half of ice.

Blend until slushy consistency.

*Compliments of BarNotes. 

Beauty and the Beast

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New Pirates of the Caribbean scents

New Pirates of the Caribbean scents

 

We are excited to announce we have two new Pirates of the Caribbean scents for you! 

 

 

Our new scents include Pirate's Plunder, which is the salty sea breezes you sense when you turn the first corner of the ride. Also new is Pirate Party, the celebratory scent of spiced rum.

Both fragrances are available in all current fragrance products. 

 

Learn how to save 15% with every order.  Check out our VIP membership program

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Scent By Mickey unboxing with Ali and Pete of two tiny wings

Scent By MIckey subscription box

Have you ever wanted to know what our customers say about our Scent By Mickey subscription boxes? Check out this unboxing review by Ali and Pete with two tiny wings!

 

Learn how you can save 15% on every order with our VIP membership program

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Scent By Mickey subscription boxes

Scent By Mickey subscription boxes

Our Scent By Mickey subscription boxes bring magical fragrances from the happiest places into your home each month. Each box contains one candle, two fragrance products and a special, magical gift!

 

Love our fragrance products? For only $5, you can upsize your box with full size fragrance products. Like the travel tin and trial sizes? Stick with the Minnie version!

Here's what our customers are saying about these boxes:

Our family looks forward to receiving our subscription boxes - they are so fun to receive and are full of quality items. The fragrances are fantastic!
I can absolutely see the time and love you put into these boxes. It’s like Christmas every delivery! They are beautiful and the Etsy gifts are always spot on for the theme. Thanks for spreading the joy ❤️

 

Boxes ship by the 25th of the month. Get yours here today!

Want to save 15% with every order? Check out the benefits of our VIP club today!

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Top 5 Scents for Spring

Top 5 Scents for Spring

What a wonderful time to throw open the windows and finally breathe the fresh air of spring! Watch as I discuss why these are the best scents and what makes them so special: 

 

 We have five beautiful fragrances for you this spring, plus one newly created just for your magical memories:

and new this year...Minnie Flowers (Alyssum)!. Learn more about why these are the best scents for any spring home. Now through March 15, 2021, all spring scents are 15% off. 

 

Learn how you can save 15% everyday with our VIP membership program!

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5 Ways to Freshen Your Home Office

5 Ways to Freshen Your Home Office

As we spend more time these days working in the home office, it’s more important than ever to create clear lines of distinction between our home and professional worlds. If you’re already able to focus on your output while working at home, great! If not, here are few tips how to help scent your home office for your professional work:

  • Empty your trash. This may sound obvious, but if you’re accustomed to working in an office building, you probably aren’t responsible for removing your trash or emptying the recycle bins. Working at home, you also probably aren’t clearing your trash as frequently as the overnight cleaning company does. Besides, do you really need a daily reminder than you cleaned the bag of potato chips from the pantry?
  • Clean your space. Ok, dust bunnies happen in a cubicle as well, and we probably don’t notice them until we clean our desk for something to do when the computers go down. Spritz a DIY cleaner, adding your own essential or fragrance oils, to make sure odors don’t get trapped in those tiny places we tend to overlook.
  • Open the window. Even opening the window just a crack will aid in ventilation, bringing the good aid in and circulating the bad air out. If you’re in the ‘burbs, this is especially beneficial on lawn mowing day!
  • Bring the outdoors in. If you have flowers in your garden, snip one and add it to a bud vase nearly. In addition to a soft floral scent, you’ll feel endorphins from knowing something you cultivated can bring beauty into your life. Don’t have a garden? Add a houseplant to your desk. Houseplants are natural deodorizers, cleaning the air of CO2 and other toxins. Think of how much they’ll grow when you need to debrief after a Zoom meeting!
  • Add scent to your space. Move your favorite fragrance product from the living or bedroom into your office and take a deep breath. Scent is one of our most primal senses and can help bring balance to our world when it’s needed most.

For more information, check out our blog post 5 Ways to Use Fragrance in Your Home Office.

 

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5 Ways to Use Fragrance in Your Home Office

5 Ways to Use Fragrance in Your Home Office

We love candles. That’s what initially drove us into business so many years ago. But candles aren’t always the best method for scenting our home office.

When we’re working, we want as little distraction as possible, especially when working from home. We may already have the distraction of home schooling, the dog or kitty cat, or delivery service. So try to find scenting alternatives which require little thought and oversight.

  • Use a reed diffuser. Reed diffusers are great for small spaces. They can provide a simple aesthetic to the home office which gradually releasing fragrance. Be sure to turn your reeds at least once a week for to enable the fragrance to pull through the reed. Try positioning them near a vent so the air flow can help distribute the scent through the room. (More tips available here.) 
  • Use a mist diffuser. Popular and widely available, most mist diffusers are marketed for use with essential oils. The chemical composition of fragrance oils is not dramatically different from essential oils, making them safe to use in these small appliances. Mist diffusers have the added benefit of automatic shut off, enabling their safety in the home.
  • Use a fragrance warmer. This is a personal choice of ours. Often used for wax melts warmers distribute fragrances more true to their chemical structure and without being distilled by water. Placed near a vent, they can provide the most natural scent of your oil, similar to the reed diffusers. But warmers have the benefit of breaking down the oils and releasing more fragrance, making them a stronger option.
  • Find other uses for fragrance oil. One of our favorite methods is to put a few drops of fragrance oil on the air filter in the furnace. But if you’re scenting your office differently from your home (see our post on 5 Ways to Freshen Your Home Office), try putting a few drops on a paper towel which you’ll then place in a vent. Can your paper towel with the same frequency as your air filter. (More tips on using home fragrance oils here.) 
  • Use a fragrance spray. If you’re like me, your new desk is your living room table. Spritzing a few sprays onto the skirt of the tablecloth and your fragrance will waft as you move throughout the day.

For information on the best fragrances to use, check out our post 5 Great Scents to Use in Your Home Office.

 

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5 Great Scents for Your Home Office

5 Great Scents for Your Home Office

Scenting your home office is a bit different than scenting your home. Typically, we want our home to convey a feeling – fresh and clean, comfy and cozy, or reminiscent of a happy place. But in a work environment, what we don’t want is to layer additional distractions, especially when working from in the home office. Too much fresh and clean can feel antiseptic. Too much comfy and cozy can make us hungry or go looking for a place to cuddle and nap. Too much of a happy place changes our focus to photographs and memories.

When scenting your home, consider fragrances which are not just clean, but more understated than you would usually consider. You’re looking for a “sense” of neutrality and subtlety. Here are some of our favorites:

  • Lavender – A perennial favorite, lavender is known for providing a calming influence to its environment. Look for scents which contain clean notes rather than floral, and consider a blend with one of the other scents below. Try our favorite, Almost Heaven (Lavender and Pine). 
  • Peppermint – Mint provides a sense of freshness for mental acuity, which can be helpful when that 2:30 nap comes calling. For your home office, mint is best when blended with a light floral or citrus. A popular favorite is our custom blended Refresh (Lavender and Mint). 
  • Rosemary – Rosemary is one of our favorite blenders. It’s undeniably clean, yet brings woody notes which can provide a sense of home to help keep you grounded when Zoom meetings get a little rough. A favorite of ours is Day at the Spa (Rosemary and Mint). 
  • Grapefruit – Often overlooked, grapefruit is strong citrus which knows a clean like no other. While it can be a bit strong, consider adding a blend. Our favorite is bergamot, which provides a sense of warmth and cozy and works in unisex environments. We love this custom blend of Grapefruit and Bergamot
  • Orange – Often a bully of a fragrance, orange is simply citrus sunshine. For a neutral scent, consider adding a hint of patchouli for a more masculine option. Try our Hippy Mickey

The effects of fragrance are beneficial, regardless of whether you choose to use essential or fragrance oils. For options on how to use these scents, see our blog post How to Use Fragrance in Your Home Office.

 

Learn how to save with every order - check out our VIP membership program

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Introducing the Americana Collection

Introducing the Americana Collection

One of the things we love most about fragrance is the ability to reconnect with a favorite time, place, or event. And we also love to travel. We've brought these two interests together with our Americana Collection - celebrating and scenting the American Spirit!

Born in Ohio and raised in Indiana, I'm a Midwestern girl at heart. Give me an OH and an IO, and I'll give you some Buckeyes to take you back home. And if you're from Indiana, you know we love our "pinies" (Peonies) in the spring! Now living in Maryland, you can take me On the Chesapeake any day!

 And we love the Eastern Shore!  The fresh scent of Beachwood Vetiver gets us every time we walk over the dune. Our travels take us into Connecticut, where we just have to play Into the Mystic when we enter the city, or western West Virginia, where the spas and forests inspired our Almost Heaven fragrances. 

Other scents in our Americana Collection include:

Gift or give the fragrance of your favorite memory. More scents coming soon, but let us know if there is something you need now! 

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Using your home fragrance oils

Now, with so many options on the market, home fragrance has never been so popular. No longer do we only have the option of candles or potpourri (remember that?), but we have a plethora of alternatives in the forms of sprays, waxes and oils.

Boosted by the current interest in essential oils, home fragrance oils are gaining popularity. 

We're frequently asked, "What's the difference between your home fragrance oils and your reed diffuser oils?" Simply put, the reed diffuser oils are lighter and more viscuous, which allows the fragrance to travel up the length of the reed before being released into the environment. 

Home fragrance oils are a bit heavier and should not be used with reeds. However, home fragrance oils are extremely versatile in their ability to scent your home or personal space. We recently asked our customers in a Facebook post how they most liked to use these products:

"I use it on wool dryer balls to make clothes smell great. I have also used it on wood clothespins and then placed them around the house-makes the house smell fresh." - Stephanie

Home fragrance oils can be used with warmers traditionally used for melts. We've found these to work better in smaller rooms for lighter scents. 

"I use the Walt's Wonderful World on my light bulb ring on my desk! I am in the most magical place even while I'm sending work emails!" - Hillary

Quite often we're asked if our fragrance oils are compatible with essential oil mist diffusers. And the answer is yes! Actually, this is the method we use to scent our home (when we're not testing new candle scents).

Our recommendation is to use up to ten drops of oil with every full vat of water. You may need to test the strength of the scent to see what works best for you. It's also best to use distilled water which should not leave behind any residue or sediment. We recommend cleaning your diffuser in between scents, or about once a week. Try using witch hazel in place of water for one cycle and gently wipe with a Q-tip. 

You can also take your favorite fragrance in the car. We're partial to the GreenAir diffuser shown in white because it functions similarly to the essential oil mist diffusers. Admittedly, they can be a little messy, and it's best to pour your water and oil before you start your trip! We also use these diffusers when we travel - they're a great way to make your hotel room feel like home, if you're not staying somewhere with a signature scent.

Alternately, the smaller diffusers plug into your charging port and do not require water to carry the scent. However, they do have pads which may require replacement after a few uses. 

Other uses include drizziling oil over the filter in your furnace to allow air flow to circulate through your ventilation system. Or, refresh that potpourri. 


 

 

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Using your reed diffuser fragrance oils

Using your reed fragrance oils

One of the questions we are often asked is, "What is the difference between your home fragrance oils and your reed diffuser oils?" Great question! Simply put, our both oils can be used in most home fragrance applications, but the reed diffuser oils are specially blended for use with reeds, or "sticks" as they are more commonly known.

With reed diffusers, the "sticks" are pourous pieces of reeds which carry fragrance throughout the length of the reed. The oil is more viscous, allowing the oil to carry to the top of the stick and evaporate into the air. To get the most use out of your reed diffusers, we recommend turning the reeds at least once a week. In practice, I turn my reeds daily. The fresh oil which was recently soaked is now on top, so not only the fragrance which has pulled through the reed but also the fragrance oil on the reed is now available to evaporate into the air.

It's also a good practice to make sure your reeds are spread as far apart as possible. This allows for better air circulation around the scented reeds, which can then carry throughout your room. Evaporation of the oil may also depend upon the humidity of your environment. 

Having a decorative, small vase can bring a pretty element into your room, but I also use the reeds straight in the bottle at my desk. 

Reed diffusers are best used in smaller spaces, like a bathroom, small bedroom, office, or cubicle. As with any fragrance, scents with heavier bottom notes will carry more than lighter, ozone and top notes. 

I'm also often asked why we don't sell our reed diffuser oils in larger sizes. I've found that with my personal use of turning the reeds daily, my oils last approximately three months. Also, the reeds become clogged with oil and become less effective over time. Selling oils in larger sizes would yield you product you would end up not using.





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