Confession: I’ve lived two houses down from an actual Christmas tree farm, but still had a fake pencil Christmas tree at home. By using the best Christmas tree scents to give it that fresh pine smell, I didn’t miss a thing.
Scentsicles are Christmas tree ornaments that resemble icicles (except green) and are highly scented so that your tree has that lingering pine smell.
If pine sprays are perfume for your tree which fades quickly, Scentsicles are those little pine tree-shaped air fresheners for your car–but for your tree.
A jar comes with six ornaments and how many you use at a time depends on how large your tree is and how intense you want your pine scent to be. These ornaments produce a strong, festive scent that fades over the course of around a week, so it’s best to ration these out if you can and replace them when they start to fade.
These ornaments are available for 2022 in White Winter Fir, and O Christmas Tree; and some scents from past years, like It’s a Wonderful Pine and Christmas Time Spruce, are also still available online in limited quantities. You may be thinking, how many ways can a thing smell like pine? All the best fragrances are layered. One note scents tend to fall flat or be outright abrasive. So it’s all a matter of what the evergreens are blended with that gives it that Christmas tree atmosphere.
White Winter Fir has a foundation of fir and cedar wood, a heart of scotch pine and fir blooms, and top notes of blood orange zest. O’ Christmas Tree has a woodsy base of moss and musk, heart notes of bright clementine, cedar wood, and juniper berries, with top notes of fir, oak, and pine.
It’s a Wonderful Pine has a foundation of amber, a heart of cedar and cypress, top notes of orange, Siberian fir, and pineapple, and traces of cinnamon. Christmas Time Spruce has a base of oak moss, cedar, and patchouli, a heart of Siberian pine and balsam fir, and herbaceous top notes.
This candle has a heart of freshly cut fir branches with notes of cedarwood and sandalwood for warmth. The layered scent gives the candle more dimension and can make a pine scent feel more realistic. The glass candle holder has a festive fir needle design. Each candle comes in a sturdy gift box.
While they aren’t directly on your tree, candles can make your whole room smell like the holidays. Sure, it’s one tiny extra step to light a candle when you decide to sit and admire your tree, but that also means your candle will last longer than scented ornaments.
For a rustic, vintage approach go with Paine’s incense. The burner is shaped like a little log cabin and when you burn your incense the smoke comes out the chimney and it’s just about the coziest thing to see in the winter.
I’ve had one of these Log Cabin Incense Burners for years (bought with my own money) and I love it.
Paine’s incense logs are made of compressed balsam fir wood–nothing else added, just grounded up balsam fir branches pressed into these little logs. You get authentic, honest-to-goodness pine scent with these, though it’s more of the smokey, fireplace variety than the fresh-cut pine fragrance.
Because they don’t have any sort of igniting chemicals added, these incense do take a little longer to catch so you’ll want to light these over a candle and not a match. Once they do catch though, they burn well. Unless you’re in a large space, I doubt you’ll ever need to burn an entire stick at once. This burner comes with 10 incense logs and replacements are easy to come by and cheap.
If scented ornaments sound good to you, but you’re not into the plain sticks or pine cones, check out these ornaments by Yankee Candle.
They come in either snowflake or icicle shapes and currently, the icicles scented with Yankee Candle’s Balsam and Cedar fragrance are what’s in stock. They’ll give off a fresh evergreen scent for your artificial Christmas tree.
I will say that these, while cuter, are not as strong as the Scentsicles sticks, but if you’re just looking for a light pine fragrance or you have a smaller tree these will work for you.
This 20-ounce bag of Christmas Evergreen Potpourri looks gorgeously festive and smells just as good. The mix of pinecones, birchwood, cinnamon sticks, star anise, juniper branches, nutmug, and more is scented with a natural evergreen and orange zest fragrance.
I like that is made in America and it comes with an extra fragrance vile to re-up the scent when it started to fade. The pinecones have their natural pine fragrance enhanced so they are extra pine-y. Keep some in a festive bowl by the tree or place the larger cones in the tree. Pine cones are some of my favorite ornaments for my woodland-themed Yule tree because they look so natural. You can make your fake tree smell real by adding real pine.
Yes, I know the idea of scented pine cones might bring back terrible memories of rushing into a store to get past the bins of pine cones by the door that has been drenched in artificial cinnamon. These aren’t like that.
Nest does some of my favorite fragrances across the board and their Birchwood Pine is no exception.
It has a base of warm amber and woody musk, a bight heart of white pine and balsam fir, and top notes of chilly birchwood. The diffuser vessel is beautifully patterned to fit in with your Christmas decor.
I have a media sample of a Nest diffuser and can tell you that the scent is present but not overwhelming. You can also control the strength of it by varying how many reeds to insert into the fragrance oil and how often you flip the reeds over.
I love how they look natural nestled into your artificial Christmas tree and because they’re real pinecones, they’ll soak up and retain the oil, releasing the scent slowly.
This fragrance is highly concentrated to start slow so you don’t overpower the room.
This Cedar and Fir Needle Room Sprayis created by The Crown Choice, an American small business. It’s essential oil-based, kid and pet-safe, and doesn’t have any harmful aerosol propellants. It has a bright pine scent perfect for scenting artificial trees.
Room sprays are simple and easy so if you’re not sure what to do, there’s no shame in falling back on something you’re familiar with. The only issue with a spray is that they aren’t long-lasting and will need to be renewed from time to time.
Seeing the items the fragrance is capturing actually soaking in the oils really enhances the whole experience and makes the scent more likely to be thought of as authentic and natural. It’s a fun little psychological trick that also happens to be beautiful.
The oil has a bright head of pine needles, balsam, fir, and deep notes of sandalwood and white patchouli for balance.
I like that it’s made right here in the USA.
If you want to make your artificial Christmas tree smell like a real tree, you've got options. These are the best Christmas tree scent sticks and tricks around.