SIMPLE PRIMITIVE AIR FRESHENERS

SIMPLE PRIMITIVE AIR FRESHENERS
A Step-By-Step Tutorial

Always cover your workspace to prevent staining and to simplify cleanup. Here, we have covered it with a sheet of parchment paper.

Gather your materials – air freshener blanks, fragrance oil, liquid candle dye (BC Coffee / Caramel liquid was used here), brush and or a fragrance oil dropper, mixing container

Weigh or measure out your fragrance oil into the mixing container. Here, we used ½ ounce by weight, which will be enough for approximately five air fresheners.

Carefully add liquid candle dye to the fragrance oil. The amount needed will depend on the desired level of color – here, we have added less than a drop by dipping the tip of a metal skewer into the dye and shaking off the excess back into the bottle. This fragrance oil was already a dark color, so very little dye was needed. If your chosen fragrance is clear or lighter colored, you will need more dye. To achieve even a very dark shade, you will not need to add more than 1-2 drops per ounce of fragrance oil. Take careful notes of how much fragrance and color you use, so you can duplicate the exact shade in the future!

Apply the dyed fragrance oil to the air freshener blank. The two easiest and least messy ways to do so are by brushing it on with an inexpensive wide paintbrush, and dotting it on with a fragrance oil dropper. Don’t worry about getting the layer of fragrance perfectly even – the material will distribute the liquid evenly over a period of a few minutes. Most shapes will accept approximately 1/10 of an ounce of liquid, depending on their size, and if you apply more than it will absorb, simply blot the excess with another blank.

Here is the finished air freshener, with fragrance lightly dyed and brushed on. This gives the same basic look as dying them with tea or coffee, but with the convenience and speed of a single step!

A slightly more mottled effect can be achieved by adding more dye, then drizzling it on with a dropper. The fragrance/dye mixture will spread out, but slightly darker patches will remain in the spots where it was applied.

Here is the finished air freshener, after adding more dye and applying with a dropper.

And here is the range of looks you can achieve with this technique – not just on prim shapes, but also on other shapes and using different colors of dye. From left to right, a fresh blank, the lightly dyed and brushed air freshener, and the more deeply dyed and droppered air freshener.