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Air Freshener vs. Odor Eliminator vs. Fabric Refresher
Friday, July 19, 2024
air care
Air Freshener vs. Odor Eliminator vs. Fabric Refresher
No one wants a bad-smelling facility, but to choose the best solution for you, you need to get to the root of the odor. Is it coming from the trash? An old piece of furniture? Stale air? Are you more interested in adding a pleasant scent than eliminating a foul one? With different goals, it can be difficult to know where to start.
Here at State Chemical, we manufacture and distribute chemical solutions for hundreds of problems, including odors. It’s easy to just buy Febreze to treat your problem, but it’s important to know what options you have.
To give you a better idea of what kind of odor control applies best to what situations, we’ve compared air fresheners, odor eliminators, and fabric refreshers. After reading, you’ll know what will best solve your facility’s problem.
What is an Air Freshener?
When you hear the term “air freshener,” your mind will probably jump to an aerosol product like Febreze. And this is correct. An air freshener is usually a handheld can that you spray into the air to emit a pleasant fragrance, but it can also come in the form of a liquid spray, solid, gel, and more.
If odor elimination is not claimed on the label, air fresheners are usually odor maskers—not odor eliminators. When you notice a bad smell in your lobby, for instance, and decide to spray down the area with your cinnamon-scented air freshener, you may think you’re getting rid of the odor. After all, now you only smell cinnamon.
If this works, that’s great, and you may not need a stronger product. However, without odor elimination technology, this is a temporary solution since the air freshener is only masking the odor. Because of this, odor-masking air fresheners don’t fully get to the root of the problem, which may cause issues when you have severe odors.
What is an Odor Eliminator?
Meanwhile, an odor eliminator does exactly what its name suggests: eliminates odors. There are several ways they might work, but they often work in one of two ways:
- An odor eliminator might neutralize odors by changing the odor’s chemical composition. This way, the nose no longer recognizes it as a foul odor.
- An odor eliminator could also work by physically eliminating the malodor from the air.
Odor eliminators come in aerosol cans, ready-to-use cans and bottles, and large fragrance systems. In this way, they are more adaptable for the size of your space, last longer, and are more comprehensive solutions than odor-masking air fresheners.
However, odor eliminators are not always cost-effective. In order to work, they must come into contact with malodor particles. If you have an outdoor space you’re looking to treat, for example, it may not be feasible to use an odor eliminator because it just won’t interact with enough malodor particles. In this situation, you’d have to use a high amount of product to see results, which can be expensive.
What is a Fabric Refresher?
In contrast, a fabric refresher is a form of odor control specifically intended for fabrics and textiles. Typically, it uses both odor elimination and air freshening technology to eliminate fabric odors while also adding a pleasant fragrance, though there are generally fragrance-free options too. It usually comes as an aerosol or a liquid spray.
Fabric refreshers can be particularly useful for old furniture, bedding, towels, curtains, and more. For example, if you’re running a hotel, you might need to quickly eliminate smoke odors from a room. While these odors could be lingering in the air, it’s probable that they’re clinging more so to the drapes, for example.
In this situation, rather than buying and installing new drapes, it would be quick and cost-effective to spray them with fabric refresher. This way, the smoke odor will be eliminated, and a clean aroma will enter the air for the next guest.
Fabric refreshers work especially well because they linger on the surfaces they’re applied to. This way, they keep your fabrics and textiles smelling fresh in between treatments.
What Kind of Odor Control Should I Use?
Now you know how each product category works, but which option should you use for your facility’s odor problems?
It depends on what kind of area needs treatment, the source of the odor, the size of your space, and your goals for odor control.
As previously mentioned, an outdoor area will be harder to comprehensively treat than an indoor area. So, for an outdoor location, an odor-masking and odor-eliminating air freshener in problem spots is your best option. However, in an indoor space, an odor eliminator will be contained enough to fully eliminate malodors, so it could be a good solution here.
If your furniture has an odor, you’ll use a fabric refresher to eliminate odors directly. But if your trash room has an odor, you’ll probably want an odor eliminator that also masks odors.
With a bigger space, you’ll need more product, so you might want a fragrance system (which eliminates odors while also masking them). Meanwhile, with a smaller space, maybe you don’t need a system and would rather use an odor-masking air freshener or odor eliminator instead.
But most important are your fragrance goals. Do you aim to eliminate odors or simply to add personality to a space? If you don’t have odor problems, it can be more effective to use a masking air freshener to liven up your facility. Meanwhile, if you’re only interested in eliminating a malodor, odor elimination is for you. If some of your facility users have allergies or sensitivities, low-fragrance or fragrance-free odor elimination will treat the space without causing reactions. But if you find scentless spaces eerie, you can use an air freshener that masks and eliminates odors at the same time.
All in all, what product to use comes down to your individual situation and personal preferences, and if it works for you, no product is the wrong solution.
Learn How SE-500 Works
A foul-smelling facility is unpleasant for staff and customers alike, so it’s important to get to the root of the odor and recognize your odor control goals. Knowing the differences between air fresheners, odor eliminators, and fabric refreshers, you’re ready to choose the right product for your facility’s needs.
To learn more about how you can eliminate odors in your facility, consider learning about how SE-500 works in State Chemical products.
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