There’s nothing as comforting as coming home to a pleasantly smelling house. Your home’s fragrance can soothe, comfort and even energize, depending on the scent you use. Here are some tips to help you choose a fitting fragrance for your abode.

1) Square Footage

The size of your home is going to play a major factor in determining what scent you should use and how much of it is appropriate. In smaller houses, less is more, both in terms of scent as well as how many rooms you use the scent in. Think breezy florals as opposed to heady oriental fragrances. Or, if you are going to use spicy orientals – like ones peppered with vanilla, clove and cinnamon – use it sparingly. In bigger homes, on the other hand, you can use more of a fragrance in more rooms, since you are less restricted by scent intensity.

2) Your Motif

A country cottage would be more suited to earthy scents than a downtown condo. More oceanic scents would be more ideal for a beach house than a ranch. Fragrance is a wonderful way to play up your home’s feel and decor, since it can reflect style – especially if you invest in a high-quality product, like the scents from Glasshouse Fragrances. Cheap scents will often smell chemical and overpowering. You want your fragrance to compliment your home, not take it over.

3) Scent Sensitivity

Scent sensitivities are very real, and they can severely impact the health of your home’s inhabitants and guests. Symptoms can range from sneezing to mild headaches to difficulty breathing. Before you use a fragrance, make sure no one in your home has a sensitivity. Same goes for guests. If you want your home to smell like apple pie for company, but know a visitor is sensitive to scents, then bake a pie and pass on the fragrance.

4) Personal Preference

Here’s the big one. The ideal scent for your home will depend on what sorts of scents you like. Perhaps you find fougere fragrances (like the kind you’ll often find in men’s colognes) too dense and prefer lighter, greener scents like the one’s found in nature. Perhaps you love invigorating citrus smells. Perhaps it depends on your mood.

The great thing about house fragrances is you can change them up as often as you’d like, creating new sensory experiences to suit the mood and occasion.