Why other odor eliminator brands use synthetic chemicals

April 1, 2026

At Odor Exorcism, if it’s not natural, it’s not going in any of our odor eliminator products. That’s just how we roll.

We can’t say the same for all other odor eliminator brands. Take Febreze, for example, the odor eliminator category leader and the bane of Odor Exorcism CEO (Chief Exorcism Officer) Father Olor Fresco’s existence.

Febreze could have gone the natural route, but it chose a darker, more devious path. A path filled with fragrance, laced with parfum, and loaded with synthetic petrochemicals.

Here’s a short list of synthetic ingredients found in Febreze odor eliminator sprays. Brace yourself:

• Fragrance (Parfum)
• Ethylene Hydration
• Benzisothiazolinone
• PEG-60 Hydrogenated Castor Oil
• Diethylene Glycol
• Polyamine Polymer (“Duo PSB”)

It didn’t have to be this way, of course, as we prove every day at Odor Exorcism.

It was always possible to create Heaven & Earth’s most naturally powerful odor eliminator spray. But maybe it just took the right exorcists to do it…

So why do other odor eliminator brands use synthetic chemicals when natural is possible?

While we can’t say for sure (because we would never go near the unnatural stuff), we can infer based on chemistry, capitalism, and a little bit of common sense.

1. Fragrances derived from petrochemicals lasts longer than natural alternatives (like premium essential oils)—even when you want them gone

Consumers often judge an air freshener’s potency by how long it lasts. After all, we all want that great smell to hang around forever, right?

Well, maybe not. Take this redditor’s experience trying to escape the all-consuming cloud of Febreze his wife has been crop-dusting all over the couch:

Long story short, my wife’s been spraying scented Febreze from time to time on a couch we have stored somewhere outside the main house.

Now, she brought over that couch to our living room and all I can smell is the fragrance of the Febreze. I’m fairly sensitive to fragrances, they tend to give me headaches and there’s something weird about the Febreze: the scent doesn’t fade away.

It’s just embalming the whole living room and you know how when you’re in a room your brain stops registering the scents and it’s only after you get out of that room and come back that you smell it again? Well the Febreze scent doesn’t stop registering, every breath I take I can smell it and it just bothers me.

Any tips on how to get rid of the scent of Febreze from that couch?

You see, the scent conferred by natural odor eliminators (like Odor Exorcism) doesn’t linger, and that’s kind of the point. A few spritzes smell great while the rest of the formula is deodorizing, but ultimately, the goal of any great natural odor eliminator is to restore the space—or shoes, furniture, or cat litter box—back to neutral. As smell-free as water.

One of the tell-tale signs of unnatural odor elimination products like Febreze? The dang smell just doesn’t go away.

2. Synthetic petrochemical-derived fragrance scents are more intense—and not necessarily in a good way

When too much synthetic fragrance is applied, it can create an olfactory experience which is difficult to escape. Here, we go back to Reddit for another Febreze fable:

We have a game room where the kids and their friends play Xbox. We had a 4 pack of Febreze tucked away in there. Well, I guess one thing led to another and the kids had a Fabreze war with 4 full bottles. I can barely go in that room and it’s been 2 weeks. It’s so strong. Its hardwood and I mopped. Wiped down tables and aired it out daily. Any ideas on what else I should do?

Take if from this tortured Redditor: Febreze should never be stored within reach of children lest an accident should occur.

3. You can make anything you want with synthetic ingredients (even scents not of this world)

When we were originally formulating the delicious, bright, fresh, and uplifting scent of Odor Exorcism’s OG natural odor eliminator spray, the catalog of chemicals we perused was one full of premium, aromatherapy-grade essential oils. If it didn’t occur in nature, it wasn’t a part of our consideration set.

Febreze, on the other hand, has a full team of full-time scent scientists who are limited by no such adherence to natural origins. They can create whatever scent they want, even if what results is about as natural as the faces of the Real Housewives of LA.

Take Febreze’s Ocean scented spray. There is no ocean scent in nature. (Well, there is, but it’s not practically bottleable.) So what did Febreze do? The devised a devious cocktail of synthetic fragrance chemicals that, together, smell like what they imagined the ocean to smell like.

But don’t be fooled by their tricks: just like in life, if the scent seems too good to be true (AKA, natural), it probably is.

4. Synthetic chemicals are cheaper (but potentially more costly for your health)

Take it from an exorcist who’s purchased a lot of essential oils: the natural stuff doesn’t come cheap. Even in bulk, pure lavender, citrus sinesis, and frankincense essential oils are orders of magnitude more expensive than synthetic alternatives.

And don’t even get us started on the fermented radish root Leucidal we use to make the whole formula shelf stable, which is the most expensive ingredient in the bottle. Liquid gold might be cheaper…

But these are the prices we must pay to fill our containers—and your homes—with only natural freshness.

When operating at such a massive scale (like Febreze does), the forces of capitalism are powerful, and they demand efficiencies at every turn. The cost, of course, is natural purity.

5. They don’t want you to know what’s in it

This one specifically applies to the fragrance (parfum) ingredient which is found in every Febreze product, and most other (unnatural) odor eliminators.

You see, in 1967, the US passed a law called the Federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act which established many new rules pertaining to the listing of ingredients on the labels of consumer packaged goods products (like odor eliminators).

The one carve-out? These new rules could not be used to force a CPG manufacturers to disclose ingredients which they considered to be trade secrets, an umbrella which ultimately grew to include the ingredient category fragrance.

Today, that carve-out is used by cologne, perfume, soap, laundry detergent, and yes, odor eliminator manufacturers to conceal the true nature of the fragrance formulations that go into the products we spray on ourselves and in our homes. (We, of course, end up breathing in these concoctions and suffering the consequences of doing so.)

Which begs the question…if you weren’t trying to conceal what was in your product, why would you need to hide behind a trade secret?

Odor Exorcism has no such ingredient opacity. On the contrary, the ingredients that go into all of our products are listed plainly on the back of our labels and on the product pages of our website.

For us, ingredient transparency is a non-negotiable.

Conclusion

Yeah, going the natural route comes with a price: it costs us a little bit more to bring natural freshness to you, and you pay a little more in return.

But the benefit? You can rest—and breathe—easy knowing the fresh aroma emitted from every spritz of Odor Exorcism smells and behaves just as nature intended.

And that’s the kind of peace-of-mind you’ll never get from a bottle of Febreze.