Turn Breath Mints Into An Unexpected Solution For Your Stinky Fridge

Breath mints are small, minty discs meant to fight odors. One could argue that bad breath and fridge stink are equally offensive, at least sometimes. My husband and I have a chronically overloaded fridge, and there are times when we don't eat its contents in a timely way. Just recently, a puff of unpleasantness met my nose upon opening our refrigerator doors. It's best to get to the source of the stink, but I'd recently learned of a fridge funk-fighting hack involving a breath mint worth trying. The idea is to place a dampened mint on a paper plate on the center shelf to help neutralize odors. I had the supplies on hand and plenty of smells to combat, so it was certainly worth a try!

Many of the best ways to get rid of funky odors in a fridge are kind of resource-intensive. For instance, placing a whole roll of toilet paper on the shelf or sacrificing valuable edibles like potatoes or bread doesn't fit with my frugal leanings. One tiny mint and a leftover paper plate wouldn't be missed. Plus, I could compost the paper plate afterward for even less waste.

I had a roll of peppermint Breath Savers on hand and an unbleached paper plate that was frankly too large for a tiny mint. In the descriptions of this trick, both mentioned setting the mint on a paper plate. If I hadn't seen these specifics, I'd have placed the mint in a small ramekin rather than a single-use item. However, did the paper in the plate somehow help diffuse the scent?

Into the fridge my plated mint went. There was no amount of time mentioned that the mint should sit in the fridge, so I stuck with an hour. Regardless of how long it was meant to sit, the paper plate took up valuable space on my already cluttered fridge shelves. Could the dampened mint be as effective set in a discrete spot directly on the middle shelf?

After just under an hour, I cracked the door and was greeted with much less of a pong. It's hard to quantify a test without a way to measure odor, but my husband also noticed it was less stinky. Considering my experiment finished, I tossed the mint in the trash and the plate onto the compost pile. Without any further thought (or action), we went away for the weekend. Unsurprisingly, our fridge's aging contents continued their stink output. 

This was another chance to delve deeper into the hack. Would a mint alone be as effective in fighting odor, or did the paper plate have something to do with the trick? I ran another mint under the faucet, placed it directly on the center shelf of the fridge, and let it do its work for an hour. The results were hard to tell. I think the yucky smell was a bit less obvious, but it gave me a chance to test whether a paper component made a difference. I dampened the mint again, placed it on a small square of paper towel, and set it back on the center shelf for another hour.

As the last hour of my experiment elapsed, it was time for the ultimate sniff test. As mentioned before, it's pretty hard to gauge smell levels. Opening the fridge doors, the odor did seem less pronounced after the damp mint sat on a paper towel for a while. Even though the original hack of a dampened mint on a paper plate seemed to be effective at combatting fridge smells, my main complaint was the shelf space taken up by a whole paper plate. However, there may be something to having the mint sit on a paper product.

Granted, I know that the best way to keep it from stinking is to keep your fridge clean, but everyone gets busy. The next time my schedule doesn't allow a thorough fridge inventory and scouring, I'll grab a breath mint if I have one handy. I could even see myself purchasing breath mints (in plastic-free packaging, of course) with the express purpose of fridge odor fighting. Since every fridge and its contents are different, it's worth trying this trick if you already have breath mints on hand. Even though Breath Savers might become a staple on our grocery list, the hack might not be as effective on a fridge stocked with fish or cut onions.