Simple simmer pot to fragrance your home

This post is about how you can make a simple simmer pot to fragrance your home. If you aren’t keen on using synthetically produced ingredients in your home, this simmer pot is a great option.

Moving away from a chemically based home has been something we’ve been working on for many years. As with most things that we do for ourselves and for our home we don’t ever take an all-or-nothing approach, instead preferring to take our time and figure out what works. Before we started using simmer pots we didn’t use anything to fragrance our home.

Chemically based fragrance

We’re surrounded by chemically based fragrances and before starting to make our own simmer pots, instead we didn’t use fragrance in our home. Fragrance has always been a big issue for me, from contributing to my migraines to aggravating an ongoing ear problem I have had since my teens. Even a quick spray of synthetic polish, or any kind of air freshener, and my ear would immediately hurt.

When I started to look into it, because I was curious as to why, I found a whole heap of evidence to back up that air fresheners and many cleaning products contribute to human exposure to primary and secondary air pollutants.

Air freshener exposures, even at low levels, have been associated with a range of adverse health effects, which include migraine headaches, asthma attacks, breathing difficulties, respiratory difficulties, mucosal symptoms, dermatitis, infant diarrhea and earache, neurological problems, and ventricular fibrillation.

Recent population studies have investigated the prevalence and types of health effects associated with air fresheners. In a survey of the US population [39], in a nationally representative sample (n = 1,136, CL = 95%, CI = 3%), 20.4% of the population report health problems when exposed to air fresheners and deodorizers. Specific health effects include the following: 9.5% report respiratory problems, 7.6% mucosal symptoms, 7.2% migraine headaches, 5.7% skin problems, 4.7% asthma attacks, 3.2% neurological problems, 2.7% cognitive problems, 2.7% gastrointestinal problems, 2.6% cardiovascular problems, 2.4% musculoskeletal problems, 1.8% immune system problems, and 0.7% other health problems.

Ten questions concerning air fresheners and indoor built environments, Building and Environment
Volume 111, January 2017, Pages 279-284, by Anne Steinemann

Given our generation’s obsession with cleaning our homes with all the Mrs. Hinch-inspired products under the sun, I have to say I felt incredibly grateful to physically not have been able to fall into this trap. My good old ear saved me from myself because let me tell you, I always loved a good scent.

I also found this particularly concerning:

Air fresheners are not required to disclose all ingredients [41], and typically do not. For example, in a comparison of declared and undeclared substances for six air freshener products [46], found high percentages of the number of undeclared substances (greater than 90%) and high percentages of the concentrations of undeclared substances (greater than 75%), relative to the total number and total concentration of declared and undeclared substances.

Ten questions concerning air fresheners and indoor built environments, Building and Environment
Volume 111, January 2017, Pages 279-284, by Anne Steinemann

I also found this concerning, as a mother of two very small children:

Children of the 90s (ALSPAC), which has followed the health and development of 14,000 children since before birth, is the first study to investigate the effects of VOCs on infants.

The researchers found that frequent use of air fresheners and aerosols during pregnancy and early childhood was associated with higher levels of diarrhoea, earache and other symptoms in infants, as well as headaches and depression in mothers.

Farrow A, Taylor H, Northstone K, Golding J, ALSPAC Study Team. Symptoms of Mothers and Infants Related to Total Volatile Organic Compounds in Household Products. Archives of Environmental Health. doi: 10.3200/AEOH.58.10.633-641

There is a lot of research out there about the damage these synthetic fragrances can do, and for someone with very much physical symptoms for most of her life, it has always made sense to avoid anything with synthetic fragrances like the plague.

The best thing about simmer pots is how natural they are

Health is wealth as far as I am concerned, and while I cannot control many aspects of my health (a work in progress for someone with health anxiety, but CBT has helped me make massive strides) there are many I can. I can’t control fragrances, dioxins and pollutants as I move through life outside of my home and therefore I don’t even think about that, but inside my home I am more careful about what we use.

What do I need to make a simmer pot

Here is the great thing, you can pretty much make up any kind of pot and experiment with what you love. Today I am sharing one of my favourites, but feel free to be creative and find what you love.

All you need is:

• Saucepan with lid
• Hob/Stove top
• Natural ingredients

Making an autumnal apple simmer pot, that you can make any time of year

If you’re wondering whether these kind of simmer pots fragrance your home as well as chemical frangranced items such as plug ins or air fresheners, the answer is yes. Every time I fragrance my home this way (usually when we have guests) I always get so many comments about how good it smells. It is not only a wonderful smell but is comforting and warming too.

If you give this a try be sure to let me know, by either leaving me a comment here or tagging me over on Instagram.

Until next time,