How to Make Your Home Smell Like Thanksgiving Without Baking: 5 Easy Ways

Around 10 AM on Thanksgiving, homes all over the country start to smell amazing. Usually that happens because somebody got up at dawn to bake. If that somebody is you, and you would rather spend the morning in pajamas with a second cup of coffee, here is the good news: you can get the cinnamon, clove and warm orange smell without turning on the oven.

Below are five ways to do it. One costs nothing. A few use the Thanksgiving diffuser blends we would actually run in our own homes. One involves your guest bathroom, because that room has been ignored at every holiday since 1987.

If you are starting from zero, a simple ultrasonic diffuser from our home diffuser collection covers most of what follows. And if you already celebrated Thanksgiving in Canada back in October, keep reading anyway. These same blends carry you straight through the rest of the holiday season.

1. Run a Thanksgiving diffuser blend before anyone rings the doorbell

This is the easiest way to fill a room with fall scent and the one that asks the least of you. An ultrasonic diffuser uses water and a few drops of oil to send out a fine, cool mist. No flame, no heat, no pie crust.

Three Thanksgiving diffuser blends to try

These drop counts are for a medium diffuser that holds roughly 200 to 300 ml of water. For a small 100 ml diffuser, cut each number in half and round down.

• Pie Without the Pie: 3 drops sweet orange, 1 drop cinnamon leaf, 1 drop clove. Warm, sweet and familiar, the closest thing to dessert you can make with zero dishes.
• Cider Stand: 3 drops sweet orange, 2 drops ginger, 1 drop clove. Bright and a little spicy, good for the afternoon when the house fills up.
• After Dinner Fireside: 3 drops cedarwood, 2 drops sweet orange, 1 drop clove. Woodsy and calm. Many people find this one feels relaxing once the dishes are (finally) done.

A word about spice oils: they are loud. One drop of clove is a guest. Three drops of clove is a guest who brought a trumpet. Start low, give it ten minutes, and add more only if you still cannot smell it from across the room.

How many drops of essential oil go in a diffuser?

A common starting point is 3 to 5 drops for every 100 ml of water. Your diffuser's instructions come first, though, since tank size and mist output vary. Run it for 30 to 60 minutes, then give the room a break. If your diffuser has an intermittent setting, this is the day to use it. Scent tends to fade into the background after a while (your nose gets used to it), so short cycles keep it noticeable without turning the living room into a candle shop.

Where to put the diffuser

Put it in the entryway or the living room, where guests form their first impression. Skip the kitchen. Between the stove, the steam and the actual turkey, your diffuser will lose that fight anyway. Start it about 30 minutes before people arrive, and switch it off when dinner hits the table so the real food gets the spotlight.

If you need oils to get started, browse our essential oils collection and check each product page for the scent options available.

2. Make a Thanksgiving simmer pot (the free option)

We sell diffusers, and we are still going to tell you about the method that costs nothing. A simmer pot is a saucepan of water and fall ingredients kept at a low simmer on the stove. It smells like the inside of a bakery and uses things you probably already have.

What goes in:

• 1 orange, sliced into rounds
• 2 or 3 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tablespoon whole cloves
• A handful of fresh cranberries
• Apple peels from whatever you were already peeling
• A sprig of rosemary, plus a star anise pod if you have one

How to do it: Cover everything with about two inches of water, bring it to a boil, then turn it down to the lowest simmer your stove allows. Check the water every 30 minutes and top it up so the pot never runs dry. Never leave it alone in the house, and set a phone timer if you tend to forget things on the stove (no judgment, it is a busy day). A slow cooker on low with the lid off works too, and frees up a burner.

The honest catch is that a simmer pot needs the stove, and on Thanksgiving the stove is the most fought over spot in the house. That is where a diffuser earns its place.

3. Use fragrance oils for the dessert notes

Here is the awkward truth: there is no pumpkin essential oil. Nobody is steam distilling pumpkins. When a product smells like pumpkin pie, apple crisp or vanilla bean, it is a fragrance oil, blended to smell like the real thing. Essential oils come from parts of a plant, like orange peel, clove buds or cedarwood, so their scents are limited to what the plant gives you.

That is why many people use both. Essential oils give you the spice and citrus. Fragrance oils fill in the bakery notes.

Essential oil vs fragrance oil: which one fits your Thanksgiving?

You can explore both in our fragrance oils collection and the wider oils collection.

4. Put a portable USB diffuser where the big one cannot reach

Your main diffuser handles the living room. Then a guest opens the bathroom door, and the room smells exactly like a bathroom. A small USB diffuser fixes that. It plugs into a laptop, a power bank or a car charger, and it is small enough to sit on a sink counter or a shelf by the coats.

Two drops of the Cider Stand blend is plenty for a small room. If you are the one driving to someone else's dinner, it also works in the car, so you show up smelling like fall instead of like the gas station coffee you drank on the way. Find one in our portable USB diffuser collection.

5. Wear the scent with an aroma bracelet

If you are hosting, you will spend most of the day in the kitchen, nowhere near the diffuser you so carefully set up. An aroma bracelet keeps a little of that scent close. The beads are designed to hold a drop or two of oil, so you get a soft hint of orange or cedarwood every time you lift your hand to stir the gravy.

Put the oil on the beads, not on your skin, and let it dry for a minute before you put the bracelet on. It is also handy on travel day, since Thanksgiving week is one of the busiest stretches of the year for airports and highways, and a familiar scent can help create a calming mood when you are stuck in line. Take a look at our aroma bracelets.

Keep it safe for pets, kids and the turkey

None of the fun above matters if it causes trouble, so here is the short list.

• Cats and dogs: Vets generally advise extra caution with essential oils around pets, especially cats, and spice and citrus oils come up often. Keep diffusers out of rooms where pets sleep, leave a door open so they can walk away from the scent, and ask your vet before diffusing if you are unsure.
• Kids: Keep oil bottles capped and up high. Set diffusers on a stable surface away from table edges, and tuck the cords away from small hands and excited dogs.
• The kitchen: Store your oils away from the cooking area. Clove oil and vanilla extract are both small brown bottles, and nobody wants to find that out at the dessert table.
• Guests: Some people are sensitive to strong scents. Keep it light, crack a window if the room feels stuffy, and turn the diffuser off if anyone seems bothered. A good host can tell.
• Simmer pots: Never leave one unattended, and turn off the burner before you leave the house.

Why shoppers come back to Aromatics Plus

We would rather let customers say it. Daniel Carter, a wellness coach, told us, "AromaticPlus has completely transformed my relaxation routine." Olivia Green, a travel consultant, put it simply: "Their essential oils are pure, the diffusers are beautiful." You can read more about who we are on our About Us page.

Your Thanksgiving, minus the 6 AM pie crust

You do not need to bake to get that Thanksgiving smell. Run a spice blend in the entryway, keep a simmer pot going if the stove is free, add a fragrance oil for the dessert notes, tuck a small diffuser in the bathroom, and wear a little scent yourself while you cook. Pick one or try all five.

Ready to set it up? Pick your diffuser and pair it with oils from our essential oils collection. Orders over $100 ship free in the US, and new arrivals drop every Thursday at 7 PM CST.