The Scent of Clean

I hate cleaning my house, but I do it because doing anything else means living in a house where the best tool for cleaning becomes a shovel and I cannot become that person. Since I feel so strongly about not living in a rat's nest, I read a lot of articles, blogs, and books about keeping your house tidy when you're only about a hair's breadth off of preferring to saw off your own arm. Most of these articles focus on the same things: legacy cleaning, and dashing to pretty up your house when company comes to call.

Personally, I prefer legacy cleaning and then just letting the chips fall when people come over. I do X amount of cleaning each day and if that's not good enough then <insert raspberry>. However, one aspect of speed cleaning for company really astonishes me. Each of these authors, bloggers, big fat know-it-all-ers, talk about how you have to do something after you clean to disguise the smell of your cleaners. I'm like, “Why would your house smelling clean be shameful?” They explain you don't want your visitors to smell the cleaners. I'm still confused.

Then I start thinking about the human body. What is not pleasing about the way a person smells when they get out of the shower? They have the mild smell of shampoo, maybe one or two other products. Personally, I never think the following thought about someone who just got out of the bath: “Ew! You smell like body wash. Get it off! Get it off! Go stand over a Scentsy until you smell like melted wax.”

I don't know about you, but loads of my different cleaners actually smell like a green apple or what someone imagines a mountain stream smells like. That aside, loads of these cleaning gurus clean everything with baking soda and vinegar, so again, what are they trying to hide from their guests? The smell of things they probably eat regularly?

There is also something curious I see on Pinterest regularly. It is the practice of putting vanilla in the oven on low heat to make your house smell heavenly. If I ever took to doing this, I can picture the outcome in my mind so clearly it's a bona fide prophecy of the future. My husband would come in the back door. He would breathe (because most men do that). His face would light up like it was Christmas morning and the biggest present was for him. He'd come up the stairs and enfold me in an embrace that let me know I was treasured beyond price. He'd say, “Whatcha making?” I'd open the oven to show him a bowl of hot vanilla. You would be able to freeze frame the exact moment his heart broke.

Long story short. When you are done cleaning, don't spray your house down with something that makes it smell like you were baking. Maybe don't make it smell like anything. Clean = Good.