How to Make Carpet Powder

Keeping your carpets smelling fresh without bringing unnecessary chemicals into your home is easy to do with a few ingredients. As an added bonus, most of the ingredients for making your own carpet powder are readily available at most grocery stores and fairly inexpensive.

Things You'll Need

• Borax
• Baking soda
• Essential oil, ground or dried herbs
• Plastic or glass bowl
• Wooden or plastic spoon
• Clean shaker, such as a baby powder or cheese shaker container

Instructions

1. Decide if you want your carpet powder to be multi-purpose or just smell great. Many ingredients provide both scent and other benefits. Sweet orange oil is a natural flea repellent. Cloves help deter moths and lavender has a soothing effect. If you're primarily concerned with the scent of your carpet powder, choose any essential oil fragrance you want.

2. Purchase borax, baking soda, essential oil(s) and any dried herbs you want to use, such as ground cloves, cinnamon or lavender buds. Look for essential oils among the other all-natural products in your grocery store, vitamin store or craft stores. Buy dried lavender buds at a craft store or online in bulk.

3. Set a plastic or glass bowl on the counter. Use only non-reactive materials--avoid using metal bowls or utensils while making the powder.

4. Measure out equal parts of borax and baking powder and stir to combine. A cup of each should be sufficient.

5. Add about 40 drops of essential oil or a teaspoon of cinnamon or ground cloves. You can use less or more depending on how strongly you want your powder scented.

6. Stir to combine all of the ingredients until the mixture is free of lumps.

7. Transfer the powder to an empty, clean baby powder bottle or another shaker like an empty cheese container. If your containers aren't already clean, wash with mild soap and water and let air dry before transferring your powder into the container.

8. Shake the powder onto your carpets at let sit for 20 to 30 minutes before vacuuming. You have just made your carpets fresher without adding additional chemicals into your home.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't use ground cinnamon or cloves if you have a lighter colored carpet and you're worried about potential staining. You can use cinnamon or clove essential oil instead of the ground herbs if you still want to incorporate their scent into your carpet powder.