DIY Gel Air Freshener: {Smelly Jelly Recipes}
34 Comments 
Recipe:
Make Your Own Color & Smell Combinations With These Easy Air Freshener Recipes
2 cups water
4 packages Gelatin (plain)
15 to 20 drops Essential Oil (adjust to personal preference)
1 to 2 TBS salt
Food Coloring
Directions:
- In a small pot, mix 1 cup water, essential oil and food coloring. As soon as it starts to boil, remove from heat.
- Completely dissolve gelatin and salt in the hot water then add the other cup of water (cold)–stir well (gently so it doesn’t foam).
- Pour into jars and set aside for a couple days before using so the gelatin has a chance to completely set (you can refrigerate to speed up the process). Once cooled, cover with lids that have a few holes punched in them to allow fragrance to escape.
The salt in this recipe is used to help combat mold, please make sure to add it.
Alternate Recipe:
- Follow the recipe above but substitute the 2 cups of water and the essential oil with 2 cups of concentrated liquid potpourri. As above, heat 1 cup first with the food coloring, remove from heat, dissolve the gelatin and salt then add the other cup.
Super Smelly Jelly
- 3/4 cup boiling water
- 1 pkg of 4-serving jelly powder (ie. box of instant Jello)
- 1 Tbsp. vodka
- 1/4 tsp dish soap
- Essential Oil or Fragrance
Combine & set in a jar with holes poked in the top. The vodka is to help prevent the jelly become moldy.
Source: CBC.ca (update: original webpage no longer active)
Optional:
- Add embellishments (embedded items) similar to the gel candles embedded items ideas (listed at the bottom of the page).
- You can layer the colors, simply allow one color to set completely for a few days before pouring the next layer of color.
Jars
- Make sure the jars are completely clean before pouring in the hot liquid.
- You could cover the top with lace or netting instead of jar lids. Tie decoratively with ribbons, raffia, whatever you fancy.
- Any heat proof glass jar will do. Collect jam & jelly jars, mason jars or even baby food jars can be used for the Smelly Jellies.
More ides for homemade air fresheners, see: How To Make A Reed Diffuser, 12 Easy DIY Air Fresheners and 13 Simmering Pot Recipes.
These are wonderful ideas! I love the reeds and smelly jelly. How about using a clean container like the Chef Boy Ar Dee 7.5 oz. microwave foods? (like spaghetti and meatballs, etc., come in.) Their lids already have holes in them and you could decorate the container and the lid!
In my experience, jars that held tomato sauce retain the tomato scent. Maybe it would wash out, or maybe you could use hat to your advantage — mmm, a “Sunday Morning” scent would bring back memories of Mom’s sauce on the stove!
plain Gelatin- is it sugar gelatin, nonsugar, or the packets of gelatin (Knox for example).
Just the regular packets (Knox for example). Hope that helps!
I can’t wait to try this! I hate most of the commercial scents, but love the variety of oils available at my local yuppie-hippie grocery.
Seems like you would want to put the essential oils in after you’ve added the cold water. Boiling essential oils…essentially gets rid of a lot of their potency.
I agree, I would add it just before the setting process as true essential oils are volatile in nature and evaporate quickly with heat.
Now I don’t have to send the empty scented candle jars to the landfill anymore, this is a great help, thanks!
Can we use fragrance (/perfume/aftershave) like a Chanle N°5 as a scent or will it destroy the setting of gelatin, or be dangerous, or not smelling good?
I wish to make my room smell of Hugo Boss perfume…
Do you think I could replace the gelatin with agar agar? Also if you use the recipe with the alcohol you can dissolve the oils in it beforehand so you don’t have to heat the oils in the water. The vodka should break up the oil content.
Just a hint about removing smells from jars; use some baking soda and vinegar and let sit for a hour or so and viola no more smell. The vinegar smell does not stay in the jar
Glad-Ware makes little 4 ounce reusable Mini Round containers that would work quite well.
Won’t these mold?
That’s why there’s a couple spoons of salt in the recipe
What about using alum. That’s what’s used in pickling and in homemade playdough to kill the germs and prevent mold.
I’m going to do this with BaconSalt instead of oils/salt. I want my house to smell like BACON all the time.
How did it work?
would gelatin not go moldy? it is from an animal.. can u use veggie gelatin and would this mold too?
ya can we use veggie gelatin?
Could you tell me for how long the jars usually keep their scent?
Would you be able to place these on a candle warmer or are they to be used room temperature only?
my gel freshener melted.. Why???
Hello There! First thanks for the wonderful site!
When you say 4 pkg of gelatin, how much grams per pkg do you have? I bought one that has 24g is that enough? Also 2 cups of water = 400 ml?
Thanks again!
I wonder if you took this further and added backing soda, if you would have and air-freshers jelly… I’m going to try this as a Christmas gift. Thank you.
This made me really sad. I made a bunch for christmas, and they molded after a short while. I wasn’t even able to give them as gifts, and now I just look like a bad, giftless relative.
I made these for gifts too and they turned out nice. Which recipe did you use? The salt or vodka should be enough to prevent mold, I used the one with the salt.
I made these a few years ago using the vodka recipe and they molded within 2 weeks. I haven’t tried the salt yet, but it should work (in theory).
Can I use these on.a warmer?
if you’re having a problem with the vodka molding, you might try checking the proof of the alcohol content. be sure you use 100 proof, instead of 80 proof. this might be the problem.
Do you think this would work the same if you took a wall flower and used some of the liquid? I found a fragrance I really like from Bath & Body Works but I’m a little skeptical about keeping them plugged in all the time and would rather have something that I can just set out
Can you make ahead, keep lid on tiight and frig or freeze til ready for giving?
What size containers do you use?
Is 8 oz jars too big?
I first made these with 2 Tbsp of salt like the recipe says, but they got moldy within a couple weeks. I tried it again, but added 4 Tbsp of salt the next time and they lasted for months. Eventually the gel will start to shrink up and not smell anymore, but they never got moldy after increasing the salt.
To bad gelatin couldn’t be recycled so you could add a new fragrance and use again.