Kitchen smells are an unavoidable consequence of a life filled with cooking delicious things. And mostly, itās nice when my house smells like food. Itās hospitable and inviting to walk into an apartment filled with the aroma of banana bread or breakfast sausage. But thereās a moment every so often when a scent just sticks around too long. Salmon cooked on a Tuesday night wears out its welcome long before Iām still crinkling my nose at the smell of it on Thursday.
I used to rely on scented candles to clear day-old cooking odors. Lately, though, Iāve found that they donāt quite cut it. Savory, brothy smells have a way of punching through a candleās promise of a linen breeze, or whatever. In the end, youāre left with an odd combination of both smells, like someone did their laundry near a fish market.
Incense, on the other hand, is highly effective at cutting through all manner of savory, spicy smells. Something about the fumes wafting gently through the air seems to help usher odors out the door. My theory is that it has something to do with the smoky aromatic compounds that lend themselves well to obscuring odors, similar to what happens when you light a match in the bathroom. If lingering kitchen smells are elderly musical legends at the end of their lives, the best incense is like Lady Gaga, doing everything she can to make them feel comfortable before they shuffle off to the sweet hereafter.
To be clear, incense doesnāt totally eliminate smells, but it does help significantly. I like to use them in combination with my air filter to really make short work of particularly strong aromas. And they just add a nice bit of ambiance, as wellāgreat for relaxing after cooking and eating dinner. My favorite scents are woody cedar-based incense cones. They make my apartment smell like an LA sound bath retreatāor at least, an LA sound bath retreat that also sells stew in the back.
