The Best Scents for a Bedroom

Which fragrances suit a bedroom best: soft, clean and warm scents that feel calm rather than loud, and how to scent a bedroom without overdoing it.

A bedroom should smell like the best hotel room you've stayed in: clean sheets, soft and quiet. It's the one room where less is more.

What works in a bedroom

• Clean and soft: white tea, linen-like musks, gentle florals.
• Warm and cosy: sandalwood, amber, soft vanilla, for winter and evenings.
• Avoid: sharp citrus, strong spices and heavy smoky scents right beside the bed.

Our favourites for bedrooms

• Thé Blanc: white tea, aloe, ginger and cedar with a soft vanilla and musk base. The "fresh hotel sheets" scent.
• Velours Rose: mandarin, rose and orange blossom on vanilla and tonka. Soft and warm.
• Santal Vellum: sandalwood, cardamom, iris and a little leather. Cosy, grown-up, great in winter.
• Fig & Cashmere: green fig softened by a cashmere musk. Light and enveloping.

How to scent a bedroom

• Put the diffuser on a dresser or shelf, not the bedside table, so the scent is soft rather than right by your face.
• Use five or six reeds, not the full bundle.
• In a small bedroom, a 100 ml travel reed diffuser is often enough.
• Keep it out of reach of children and pets.

Want to try before you choose? The Complete Hotel Edit includes Thé Blanc, Velours Rose and Santal Vellum as samples.

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More from the Journal

• The Best Holiday Scents for Your Home — Warm, elegant holiday scents for your home: amber, sandalwood, cedar and incense, plus how to make the house smell festive without a single candle.
• The Best Scents for a Bathroom (and Where to Put the Diffuser) — Which scents keep a bathroom smelling fresh and hotel-like, the right size of diffuser, and where to place it for the best result.
• The Best Scents for a Small Apartment (and How Not to Overdo It) — How to make a small apartment or condo smell clean and inviting: which scents work in small spaces, where to put a diffuser, and how strong is too strong.