make your own: deodorizing disks.

Deodorizing disks. There’s a romantic name. Sexy, even.

No matter. We’re going for effectiveness not romance and that’s the name that best fits these hard-working little suckers. When it comes to keeping a diaper pail fresh, a deodorizing disk (otherwise known as a little cake of hardened baking soda) is what we’ve needed. They’re easy to make and equally good for stinky closets, trash cans, or bathrooms, in case you don’t find yourself with a bucket full of dirty diapers.

Before I go on, let me just say that I get it. Some of you are probably suppressing a smirk. Meanies are probably straight up cackling. Cloth diapers + a tiny apartment apartment + no air conditioning + Brooklyn summer heat? It’s a perfect recipe for me to lose my cool in a fit of olfactory overload. Yes, the diaper pail has been pungent lately. Happily, kept closed the pail does a good job at keeping odors under wraps. Less happily, the pail needs to be opened roughly 8 million times a day in which case the odoriferous little bugger stinks up the whole joint in .2 seconds flat.

So, I borrowed bits and pieces from these two tutorials. I opted to make mine in parchment paper wrappings which can be kept in place and plunked right into a can whose contents are getting dumped anyway, or removed so that the disk can be plunked right into the wash with the rest of the pail’s contents should that be how you roll.

In either case, here’s what you need to make your own:

2 cups baking soda
1/2 cup water
Parchment paper
Essential oil of your liking
Dried flowers for effect, as desired

1. Mix baking soda and water into a thick paste. This process may or may not give you a feeling akin to nails on a chalkboard. If it does, I’m sorry. It’ll be over soon.

2. Spoon the mixture into a muffin tin lined with parchment paper. (If you have silicone muffin trays, you can try forgoing the paper.) I filled each tin about 1/4 of the way.

3. Pop the tray in a 350° oven and bake for 20 minutes or until dry and firm.

4. Allow the disks to cool and top with 3-4 drops of essential oil of your choosing. I used a blend of sweet orange, lavender, rosewood, and geranium. Sprinkle with dried flowers if you like your utilitarian things to look pretty.* Tuck your stash into an airtight jar.

5. Use disks as needed around the house; wherever foul odors lurk.

*If dried flowers cross the twee line for you, scrap ’em. Shove the cooled and oiled disks into whatever air-tight container you have laying around and forget I even mentioned flowers.
{Water + baking soda + heat (or time) + essential oil = deodorizing disks.} {The baking soda and water paste.} {This recipe makes enough for 12 small disks.} {Add essential oil (and flowers if you’re up to it) after baking.} {Store in an airtight jar to retain the good smells until they’re ready to be used.} {You can leave the disk wrapped in parchment paper, or remove the paper and pop it into a pail that’s going to go through the wash.} Should you have neither stinky garbage, nor stinky trash cans, place a disk in the shower (opposite the drain) and let the essential oils fill the room as you shower. Call them “shower tablets” and pretend that you’re at the spa.

Other projects.