A fragrance expert reveals the secret way she scents every room in her home - and it's not with a diffuser

You can pick them up in most craft shops

Built-in living room shelves displaying lit scented candles and other decorative objects
(Image credit: Future PLC / David Brittain)

Diffusers, candles and room sprays are brilliant ways to scent a home, but there is another way that fragrance experts swear by that we recently discovered and it involves using ceramic discs that you can pick up for £1 in craft shops.

Recently when we were chatting about the best home fragrances and how to scent your home with award-winning fragrance writer, and co-host of @onthescentpodcast,  Suzy Nightingale as part of a campaign with toilet cleaning expert, Bloo, she revealed that she loved to use ceramic discs to scent her home. It's a method we've heard many fragrance experts recommend, so it's definitely one to add to your home scenting tool kit.

How to use ceramic discs to scent your home

'What I like doing is using ceramic discs which you can often get from craft shops, or buy them cheaply online, and hanging those on little ribbons around the house,' explains Suzy. 

'So you can hang those from curtain poles, or radiators is a great spot, and you can change up the scent, and some of them are really pretty as well. I love it because it's sort of invisible, but even if you do notice it's still pretty.' 

Suzy points out that it is also a great method to scent your outdoor dining space. 'If you're having a dinner party or you're you know you're going to be sitting in the garden for a while it's quite nice to hang those ceramic discs off the back of chairs or you can dot them around the fence if you've got fairy lights,' she explains.

Like Suzy says you can pick up ceramic discs from craft shops, or you can pick up 10-piece sets from £13 on Amazon. You can then scent these with a couple of drops of fragrance oils and essential oils or even a spritz of perfume. In fact it's a smart way to get more expensive scents into your home in an affordable way, for example, you can pick up three of The White Company's signature fragrance oil scents for £30, which will last you for months compared to one of the candles.

Some brands even sell ceramic discs in sets with fragrance oils or already pre-infused with the scent in large sizes. However, these will cost a little bit more and usually only come with one larger ceramic disc. 

It's a lovely discreet way to scent your home, which is a key part of turning your home into a wellbeing haven. But it's not the only method Suzy uses to scent her home. 

Of course, she is a fan of candles in the living room and a diffuser in the entranceway. In trickier spaces to scent like the bathroom she also relies on scented cleaning products. 'Cleaning products are really important in your bathroom,' she explains. 'I like to have a lovely smelling shower spray.' 

Built-in living room shelves displaying lit scented candles and other decorative objects

(Image credit: Future PLC/Richard Gadsby)

Method and Bloo spa moments are her top scented cleaning picks for the bathroom. But overall her advice is to opt for citrus notes or things like eucalyptus. ' It projects well so it will fill the space And yet it doesn't feel too dominant.'

The best way to scent your home is in layers, ceramic discs and a cleaning spray are the perfect invisible base layer upon which to build an incredible-smelling home. So follow the expert's lead and start stocking up.

Rebecca Knight
Deputy Editor, Digital

Rebecca Knight has been the Deputy Editor on the Ideal Home Website since 2022. She graduated with a Masters degree in magazine journalism from City, University of London in 2018, before starting her journalism career as a staff writer on women's weekly magazines. She fell into the world of homes and interiors after joining the Ideal Home website team in 2019 as a Digital Writer. In 2020 she moved into position of Homes News Editor working across Homes & Gardens, LivingEtc, Real Homes, Gardeningetc and Ideal Home covering everything from the latest viral cleaning hack to the next big interior trend.