“It literally leaked all over my car.”
Air fresheners are supposed to make a car smell fresh and clean—even if it’s kind of a mess in there.
One driver says her air freshener left behind more than just a pleasant lingering scent. She says it actually damaged her vehicle.
Now she wants to know what was inside the product and if there’s any way to undo the damage, ideally before her spouse finds out. If you commonly use the kind of car air fresheners that go in your air vents, this one’s for you.
In a TikTok with more than 20,000 views, content creator Dani (@itsnickanddani) shows the disaster that she purportedly found in her car after putting air freshener in it.
Dani explains that she got in the car to steal a quick reprieve from parenting.
“I just wanted to sit in my car because my kids are gross and there’s always food in here,” she says, adding that at least it was a quiet place to get away for a bit.
Then she noticed the screen on one of her car’s control panels was melted and had a weird residue on it.
“My husband’s gonna kill me,” she said as she examined the damage.
Dani shows that she had a plastic Scent Theory air freshener attached to her car’s air vent which seemed to have leaked onto another component of her car.
The liquid appears to have dripped from the vent onto a plastic screen below it. Dani says she tried everything she could think of to scrape the residue away.
“Scent Theory, what did you put in this thing? Because it literally leaked all over my car, and I have done everything to scrape it off. And it seems like it, like, melted the plastic a little bit,” Dani says.
Then she takes another look at the screen.
“Oh my God. It literally did melt the plastic,” she says.
In the caption she added the following: “Nick, if you’re watching this… please keep scrolling. @ScentTheory I fear I’ve made a very expensive mistake. What happened here, and HOW do I fix it?!”
Via email, Dani added that“the damage is permanent.”
Most of us probably don’t consider air freshener a product that comes with any risk unless you ingest it or get in your eyes or any other sensitive areas. But these products can damage your vehicle. It depends on what’s in the fragrance and the type of material it gets on in the event of a leak or spill.
Bottle Source Corporation says some of the compounds in essential oils can act like aggressive solvents. So instead of sitting harmlessly on top of plastic, they can work their way into the surface and cause softening, swelling, distortion, or cracking.
It calls out citrus oils as a common culprit. These often have limonene, which can attack certain plastics, though it depends on the concentration. A diluted room spray and a concentrated fragrance oil would have very different impacts.
The other thing to take note of is the plastic. High-density polyethylene and polypropylene generally hold up better against essential oils, while polystyrene and PVC can be more vulnerable, Miller Plastics explains.
And then there’s the temperature element. Warmer conditions can speed up the chemical reaction, while longer exposure gives oil more time to affect the surface. So something that might have been a manageable spill when it first leaked can become a much bigger problem after sitting in the sun or a warm space.
Some people in the comment section saw the video as less of a PSA and more as a problem to commiserate over.
“Bath and Body Works did this my friend’s car, she made them pay to replace the damage,” one commenter alleged.
“This happened to me with a Febreeze air fresher.. melted the plastic to the radio.. I refuse to have anything other than the cardboard trees now,” a second claimed.
“The scented ornaments (air freshener sticks) they make for fake Christmas trees will also melt things. RIP my whole bin of Christmas ornaments,” another warned.
Someone who identified themselves as an expert in the industry said this is far more common than most people realize.
“Yeah any liquid air freshener is a no no. I try to tell everyone I can,” he wrote. “I’ve detailed cars for almost 10 years and you wouldn’t believe how common this is.”
Motor1 reached out to Scent Theory via email for comment. We’ll be sure to update this if the company responds.
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motor1.com?
– The Motor1.com Team