Definition of Air Freshener
Air fresheners are designed to reduce, mask, or eliminate undesirable and unpleasant odors in your house, basement, attic, bathrooms, garage or even in your car.
History of Air Freshener
Air fresheners have been used for centuries to create pleasant scents and odors and to eliminate bad and unpleasant odors using fragrances, mostly natural products with sweet or delicate odors such as fresh flowers, pine trees, or perfume.
In 1939, the first commercially available air freshener was launched in the United States by Air Wick and since then, the global air freshener market was valued at $10 million in 2017 and is expected to garner $13 million by 2025.
Conventional Air Freshener
Most conventional air fresheners depending on the brand contain a variety of different ingredients, mostly water, odor absorber and eliminator, solvents (alcohol), emulsifier, stabilizer, and preservatives. Although these air fresheners do what they are supposed to do, to remove unpleasant odors and to disseminate fresh and clean scents, these air fresheners contain natural products only to a certain degree and the majority of ingredients are chemicals. Some of these conventional air fresheners even contain ingredients that provoke allergy and asthma, and toxicity. The composition and major ingredients of conventional air fresheners is shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Composition of Conventional Air Fresheners
Dr Hermann’s Essentials air fresheners we call Bio Air Freshener, the German word for organic. As essential oils are insoluble in water, Dr Hermann’s Essentials air freshener requires a unique formulation to suspend and keep the essential oils in solution.
In contrast to conventional air fresheners, Dr Hermann’s Essentials air fresheners are chemical-free and only contain natural products including essential oils, a small amount of alcohol as a solvent, lecithin and saponin as emulsifier and stabilizer, and the majority is purified water. The composition and major ingredients of Dr Hermann’s Essentials air fresheners is shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Composition of Dr Hermann’s Essentials Air Freshener
At the moment, 4 different air fresheners are available on Dr Hermann’s Essentials (drhermannessentialoils.com) website including attar rose oil, bergamot oil, lavender oil, and sandalwood oil/cedarwood oil air fresheners. Additional air fresheners can be prepared upon request.
| Ingredients | Purpose | Nature Class |
| Nitrogen | Propellant | Natural product |
| Water | Solvent | Natural product |
| Cyclodextrin | Odor absorber | Chemical |
| Alcohol | Solvent | Chemical |
| Hydrogenated Castor Oil | Emulsifier | Chemical |
| Dialkyl Sodium Sulfosuccinate | Oil and grease remover | Chemical |
| Citric acid | Stabilizer | Natura product |
| Benzisothiazolinone: | Preservative | Chemical |
| Fragrance | Odor eliminator | Chemical, nature product |
| Ingredients | Purpose | Nature Class |
| Essential oils | Odor improvement, antimicrobial | Nature product |
| Ethanol | Solvent | Nature product |
| Emulsifier | Emulsify essential oils | Nature product |
| Stabilizer | Stabilizes solution | Nature product |
| Purified water | Solvent | Nature product |
