My apartment smells like a gas-station restroom? Glad you NOTICEed!
Written: Jan 20 '06 (Updated Jan 20 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Whether or not you want to smell the air freshener, you'll smell the air freshener.
Cons: You won't want to smell the air freshener! NOTICEables verges on sensory assault. Polarized plug.
The Bottom Line: Unless Febreze releases subtler and more natural smelling scent oils for this device, avoid it. The scents are overwhelming and nearly sickening.
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| bkalafut's Full Review: Febreze NOTICEables |
In Chemistry class, back in high school, we made pentyl acetate, methyl butyrate, and other esters: strong-smelling organic chemicals that, in the case of the first, smelled like a banana, if the banana in question was a computer's simulacrum and (as in the Bugs Bunny cartoon) smellovision replaced television as the output medium.
Dozens of such chemicals are known and they're used to flavor candy, imitation rum or maple extract, and to scent many of the commercially available air fresheners. Rarely subtle, the two words that best describe their odor are "strong" and "fake."
Just like any other plug-in "air freshener", Febreze NOTICEables heats up a neutral oil that undoubtedly contains some of these artificial scents (called, e.g. "Morning Walk" or "Cleansing Rain" or other names more catchy than hexyl somethingate), vaporizing the ester molecules so that they will make their way to your nose.
Ordinarily, the nose or the brain becomes accustomed to all but the foulest smells and, after a while, we stop smelling something even as strong as artificial air freshener. This is a good thing--if it didn't happen nobody would ever put manure on fields, cook liver, or diaper a baby.
Febreeze NOTICEables circumvents this by changing scents every so often. A two-chambered glass bottle of scented oil, with two plastic-fiber wicks on top to prevent spillage, snaps into a white plastic warmer with a timing circuit built in, which switches scents every few hours. An LED indicates which side is being heated. Two settings are available: high and low. One double bottle of scent oil is supposed to last thirty days on "low."
Assembly is a no-brainer, obvious immediately out of the package; one need only uncap the wicks, snap the bottle into the heater, and plug the device in. The overall look is utilitarian but not ugly. One minor flaw is that the plug is polarized, no doubt so the timer circuit doesn't get toasted. Since mounting the device upside down will cause a slow leak of the scent oil, having a polarized plug means not all household outlets will acommodate the device and that you may not be able to place it where you want.
The intensity--and the scents themselves--leave much to be desired. Febreeze NOTICEables reeks even when it's shut off; it needs to be double-bagged to keep its smell from permeating it surroundings, and one needs to wash hands after handling the device, its box, or open or closed bottles. My bottles weren't leaky; the oil is just that strong. The low setting is like trying to order a truly small drink at a burger joint; low is a euphemism for "high but not as high as the other". On low Febreze Noticeables made my apartment smell like a gas station toilet, flooded with air-freshener and filled with the strongest urinal cakes available, two to a stall, to make one forget, long enough to do one's business, that gas station restrooms are gross. On high the scent was unbearable.
My unit shipped with the Morning Walk/Cleansing Rain scent bottle, the effect of which is to make you think that you're drowning in cheap fabric softener. The Calypso Breeze/Hawaiian Paradise refill, also shipped with the sample, was no better. Both were sickeningly strong tropical fruit and coconut scents, one like being ball-gagged with a lychee and the other like wearing piņa colada extract as a perfume. I mean sickening literally; I unplugged the device and opened the doors because I was feeling slightly nauseated, and I am not "chemically-sensitive".
Given that most Febreze products, including the deodorizing spray for which they are best known, are very neutral-smelling, the overwhelmingly and sometimes sickeningly strong scents of the NOTICEables were a disappointing surprise.
That's a shame; the device itself is a real convenience, taking away the trouble of heating potpourri over a candle, herbs in a saucepan, or scented oils in a warmer, and better for indoor air quality than burning incense sticks, which is what I usually end up doing when I accidentally leave nasty dishes soaking in the sink.
If Febreze added a true "low" setting to this and stuck to more gentle scents, perhaps taking their cue from the aromatherapy oils available at dirty-hippy-without-the-dirt supermarts like Wild Oats and Whole Foods, I'd consider buying this for the times I funk up my apartment. Seeing that I don't run a gas station or a fast food restaurant, the only two settings in which such a strong air freshener might be appropriate, my triply-bagged sample will be given away on Freecycle. Air fresheners are supposed to be the solution, not the problem.
For promotional purposes, Hass MS&L sent me a Febreze NOTICEables kit and a refill to review in a fair and impartial manner.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
bkalafut
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 in Restaurants & Gourmet |
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Member: Bennett Kalafut
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA
Reviews written: 255
Trusted by: 42 members
About Me:
Stretching single molecules for fun and profit.
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