Best car air fresheners in 2021 – Roadshow [CNET]

Personal preference often figures heavily when looking for the best car air freshener to suit your vehicle. But since the Roadshow garage sees a lot of vehicles, we’re experienced in giving cars a fresh scent and can humbly offer some guidance.

Most importantly, you should enjoy the fragrance of the car air freshener itself — you’ll be miserable if you don’t like the way it smells, even if the air freshener eliminates a bad odor. Luckily, there are lots of different scents out there, so you’ll definitely be able to find something that smells good to you. We know that what makes up a pleasant scent is entirely subjective, but we think the air freshener picks below all smell amazing.

5 things to consider when choosing an air freshener

No, you can’t get a “true” new-car scent: We all want that new-car smell to last forever, so it helps to understand why new cars smell so good, and why it’s tough to mimic that particular scent. The “new-car smell” actually comes from a combination of materials used inside a vehicle’s cabin. The chemicals included in the various pieces and parts, such as plastics and vinyls, emit volatile organic compounds, which creates the scent so many of us adore. This also makes it difficult to capture for a proper air freshener, but we’ll get into that below.

Covering up an unpleasant odor versus eliminating it: Numerous air fresheners won’t actually act as a foul odor eliminator, but instead, you may notice the scent sits atop a preexisting unpleasant smell. If you have a serious car odor problem that won’t go away, it’s best to start digging into the potential problem rather than covering it up. Then you can truly enjoy a nice scent without it mixing with a bad smell.

Sprays and stationary air fresheners tend to work differently: Again, this boils down to personal preference, but there tends to be performance gaps between sprays and fresheners that remain in your car at all times. Also, we want to mention that we avoided essential oil air fresheners in this list. While your favorite essential oil may have a fantastic aroma, the risk of spillage is too great in a car and we don’t want to overdo our attempts at odor elimination.

Cleaning your car improves a fragrance: Think of your car as a blank canvas. If it’s full of brush strokes to start, adding more won’t necessarily create a pretty picture. Even if you don’t want to apply dressings and chemicals to interior panels, wiping the cabin down every so often removes dust, dirt and other things that tend to pile up while driving. A blank canvas gives a car fragrance more room to breathe.

Try to avoid big messes altogether: We’ve all been there. Maybe a dog has an accident or a passenger spills a drink. It’s important to try and avoid the mess, or since most of the time it’s unavoidable, clean it up immediately. Seats and carpets soak up messes quickly. If you leave them be, no car air purifier will extinguish the odor.

Ready for an odor eliminator that gets rid of that foul smell or smoke odor that plagues your car’s interior? Or are you in need of a fresh scent that greatly improves your driving experience? Read on to learn Roadshow’s top picks for the best car air freshener.

Not all air fresheners are equal

Remember, a fragrance is highly personal, so some scents may delight some and appall others. The length of time you smell them can also vary based on use, temperature and so many outside factors. We worked to choose the right air freshener for the right instance, but you may find one works better in a different situation.

Nevertheless, rest assured that any auto air freshener on our list will have your car smelling quite good, all the time.