Out! Out! Damned Smells.. (Ambi-Pur)

Member Name: salgirl

Product:	Ambi-Pur
Date:	09/04/01 (218 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see opinion

Disadvantages: see opinion

Smells abound in our household, and thankfully, due to the introduction of Ambi-pur After Tobacco, at least they're nice ones.

Walking into the front room is an absolute delight first thing in the morning. This product has the clean, crisp fragrance of a gentleman's cologne, and many people have commented on it. That sounds great except that I now wonder what they thought my house smelled like BEFORE I found the little beauties. Still, probably best not to ask.

These room frgarances work using the "plug-in" method. You have to buy the plug-in holder (usually about £5, but I've bought two on offer at Sainsbury's last week (April, 2001) at £3 each) and then you can choose which of their range you'd prefer.

There are some heavily scented Pot Pourri types that go under the title of 'relaxing', but the scent was soooo strong it gave me a headache after just one sniff. How do I know?? The clever little marketing people have put scratch and sniff pads on the packaging.

Then you have their Sandalwood perfume. This is fantastic, although harder to find than the other types. The scent was noticeable but not overpowering, and kind of sensuous. Very gentle, very relaxing, but as I say, not that easy to find.

There's also Vanilla, but this is very sickly and sweet. It would smell nice for a little while, but I can imagine that I'd fall asleep dreaming of drowning in a vat of Ice-cream. Could be worse I suppose.

The Anti-Tobacco is my current favourite. It's very effective, and seeing as how I have a largeish L-shaped living room, that's no mean feat. As I've said before, this smells clean, almost soapy, but very much like an aftershave. Guess what I dream about......!

The also do a fragrance designed to reduce the pet odours that can linger after our beloved furry pets have brought attention to their existence in the house. Sadly, I can't comment on
how well these work as our cats are no longer with us, and I actually think they'd have been extremely miffed at the idea that we obviously thought they smelled.

They have also produced a range of car-fresheners, so please take care when choosing your next refill pack that you don't pick up one of those instead as the packaging is quite similar.

The plug-in holder has a control release mechanism (posh, huh?) that allows you to set the level of perfume that is released into the room. It goes on a scale of 1(min) to 5(max), and really does work. If you use the lowest level, you can expect to go a couple of months before it runs out. And with the little glass bottles that are used, you can easily see how fast you're using the product, which means that you can replenish your stocks before your house goes back to smelling like an ashtray. Or worse.

I prefer these to the glade plug ins that I've used in the past, as these are real fragrances and add a certain ambience to the rooms as opposed to that obvious and plastic smell that other room fresheners have.

Each refill can cost between £3-£4 - keep your eye out for special offers - and after the initial expense of buying the holders, this works out to be a cost effective way of keeping the gaff smelling very pleasant and a rate that you prefer.

Read the packaging however, before handling the perfumes, as they can damage furnishings if spilt and should be handled carefully. I haven't yet had a holder go hot on me, but this too is possible, so again, fingers beware!

Now, I'm just going for a snooze in the front room.....

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