Although more colleges than ever have moved to ban on-campus smoking in recent years, there are plenty that still allows students to smoke in their dorm rooms. While there's something to be said for the personal freedom of allowing adults to be adults, your roommate – not to mention the other people living on your floor – might not enjoy the smell of tobacco quite as much as you do.
Whether you want to be a better neighbor to your classmates – or you simply don't want to come home to a stinky room after classes each day – you've got to do what you can to keep the smoke smell out of your dorm room. The good news is that keeping your room smelling smoke-free is both easy and cheap. Get the smoke smells out with these 6 simple tips.
1. Get A Window Fan
The easiest way to stop your dorm room from smelling like smoke – aside from not smoking at all, anyway – is to keep the smoke out. Install a window fan and use it as an exhaust. When you exhale the smoke, blow it through the fan. Since most of the smoke will travel straight out your window, it'll be easy to take care of any unpleasant smells that remain in your dorm room.
If you can, place a second fan near your door and direct it toward the window. You'll create a moving column of air that never stops pushing unwanted smells outside.
2. Switch To Vaping
As we've just said, the easiest way to keep the smell of smoke out of your dorm room is by not smoking in the first place. Maybe you've already tried to quit smoking, though. You might have tried substituting your cigarettes with nicotine gum or patches, only to find that the low doses of nicotine simply weren't satisfying enough to enable you to quit. If that's the case, you've got to try vaping instead.
The pod-based e-cigarettes developed by companies like JUUL deliver almost as much nicotine to the body as tobacco cigarettes, making it easy to swap one habit for another. The best part is that vaping leaves absolutely no odor within a room. Any smell present in the room when you're actively vaping fades quickly. You can even find flavorless vape juice with no scent at all.
JUUL seller Kevin Mooney of Premium Vape NZ says that college students make up a significant portion of his customer base. He says, "I'm happy to do my part in helping to make college campuses smell just a bit better!"
3. Use An Air Filter
Installing an air filter in your dorm room is a great way to purify the air and eliminate any smoke smells. The best part is that a good air filter doesn't have to cost a fortune. There are, however, two types of air filters that you should avoid. Don't buy an ionizer. Ionizers emit ionically charged molecules that attach to the particulate matter in cigarette smoke, causing the particles to drop to the floor. They don't, however, do anything about the smell – and ionizers may even emit enough ozone to be harmful. Likewise, ultraviolet air filters – which use UV radiation to kill germs in the air – are ineffective in eliminating the smell of cigarette smoke.
When it's time to choose the right air filter for your dorm room, look for a filter that combines HEPA technology with activated carbon. HEPA filtration removes most of the particulate matter in cigarette smoke, and activated carbon removes the smell while absorbing many of the harmful compounds in the smoke.
4. Buy Bags Of Activated Carbon
Real HEPA filtration is more affordable than ever, but that's not going to be much comfort for you if you have almost no room left in your budget after paying for your books. Want an alternative? Get a bag of activated carbon. You can find them online for as little as $6.00.
A single teaspoon of activated carbon has about the same surface area as a football field. The incredible surface area of activated carbon allows it to absorb and trap smoke particles within its millions of tiny pores. Once a month, place the bag in direct sunlight. The sun's UV rays purify the carbon, allowing you to use it again. After two years, discard the bag or use the carbon to enrich your garden at home.
5. Use An Air Freshener With Propylene Glycol
Air freshener technology isn't just about masking offensive odors anymore. Some air fresheners, for example, have cone-shaped molecules that actually catch particulate matter and send it straight to the floor. If you really want to get the smoke smell out of your dorm room, though, you need to use an air freshener with propylene glycol. Propylene glycol is antimicrobial, and it sanitizes the air.
Ozium is probably the most popular propylene glycol-based air freshener; hospitals use it to kill airborne germs. Hotels and rental car companies also use it to clean up after smokers. If you need something that can instantly remove a powerful smoke smell from your dorm room, you're not likely to find anything more effective than Ozium.
6. Use A Reed Diffuser
Air fresheners like Ozium are extremely effective. Even as a smoker, though, you might want to minimize the extra chemicals that you inhale on a daily basis. If that's the case, you'll want to avoid chemical-laden sprays and plug-in air fresheners. Try a reed diffuser instead. Reed diffusers use natural essential oils to gently scent rooms. To use one, you'll fill a small bottle with oil and place reeds inside the bottle.
Through capillary action, the reeds draw the oil up from the bottle. When the oil reaches the tops of the reeds, you can smell the scent of the oil throughout the room. A reed diffuser isn't quite as effective at removing the smell of smoke as a more powerful solution such as Ozium, but it's also completely harmless and doesn't add chemicals to the air.
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