If you’re someone who frequently hotboxes or smokes in your vehicle and you’re now wondering how to get the weed smell out of your car, we’ve got you covered!
Some of the ways we will discuss are super fast and easy, while others require a little more work but are very effective.
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List of Ways to Get Weed Smell Out of Your Car
The smell of burnt marijuana might be something that consumers like to smell, but these pungent aromas are often highly undesirable odors that will get you into trouble in several ways. Cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, and therefore smoking in your rental apartment will get you in trouble with your landlord, nosy neighbor, or possibly worse — the police.
On top of the above-mentioned trouble you can get yourself into while smoking weed in your car, public consumption of cannabis, even in legal states, is typically not permitted. At the very least, smoking weed in public is typically frowned upon.
With all of this in mind, here are 17 great ways to remove the smell of weed from your car.
1. Sprinkle Baking Soda
Using baking soda is yet another age-old method of absorbing nasty smells. To get the weed smell out of your car using baking soda, simply sprinkle a little bit all over the interior and you can rub it in with a moist towel. Using baking soda is especially effective for carpeted areas and can help reduce stains and remove odors. Also pay close attention to where you sit on the driver’s seats, back seats, and headrests.
Smokers will be able to attest to the fact that lighting one up in your car frequently can and will, over time, stain the interior of the roof of your vehicle.
Once you’ve sprinkled the baking soda around the rest of your car, you’ll probably want to crack the windows if it’s not going to rain.
Just leave the baking soda scattered around throughout your car overnight, then return in the morning and vacuum it up thoroughly. This is simple and easy to do and costs a few bucks or less.
Baking soda is, without a doubt, one of the best ways to get weed smell out of cars.
2. Essential Oils, Perfume, or Cologne
Another classic method of concealing marijuana smoke is using essential oils like patchouli. This way of masking weed smoke is most certainly nothing new, but there’s a reason it has been around for such a long time.
Hippies have been using patchouli oil since the 1960s, as a way to conceal both their body odor and the smell of marijuana smoke. Weed smokers also will spray themselves and their area with cologne, body spray, deodorant, and other body scents to mask their smells.
This is another potentially sketchy way of doing things, but if you dose yourself in perfume or cologne, you essentially remove the stink of weed from your body, but not your car. While this might help get you out of any potential trouble, it still doesn’t do anything long-term to prevent or improve the stench of hotboxing with weed.
3. Air It Out / Windows Down While Driving
One of the simplest things you can do is leave your car windows down while you’re not in it. You can also drive with your windows down if you’re about to pick someone up and want to make sure your car doesn’t smell like weed when you get there. This strategy, combined with air fresheners and other ideas on this list will definitely get the weed smell out of your car.
4. Common Air Fresheners
Another way to rid your car of the smell of weed smoke is to use air fresheners and sprays. Car air fresheners have been around for decades and come in a variety of pleasing scents. The most common of these scents happens to be the tree-shaped ones that smell pleasant.
These tree-shaped, pleasantly smelling products have been improving the aromas of vehicle interiors for decades. Why not put one to work in your vehicle? On top of this, car air fresheners can help your vehicle smell nice all the time, not just when you want to get the weed smell out of your car.
Additionally, products like Febreze and Glade bathroom spray have been used to rid furniture and restrooms of unwanted bodily odors for many years now. The same can be utilized on the smell of unwanted weed smoke when it comes to your car, truck, or any other vehicle.
Just keep in mind that these sprays will only mask the smell of weed in your car for an hour or so before their scents dissipate, and you have to find yet another solution.
5. Wipe Hard Surfaces With Vinegar and Water
Vinegar is a great thing to use when cleaning the surfaces of your car. You can wipe down the inside doors of your car, the steering wheel, and the dashboard to make sure any marijuana reside and other small particles that smell are completely out of your car. Use a 1 to 1 ratio of vinegar to water to get the perfect cleaning solution.
After using vinegar on hard surfaces, if you have carpet seats, use a fabric-safe cleaner to clean the seats so all surfaces of your car are clean.
6. Deep Clean Your Car with Vacuum and Upholstery Shampoo
One of the best ways to get the weed smell out of your car and keep it that way is to give your car a nice, deep cleaning. This means taking the floor mats out of the interior and vacuuming them, and even shampooing the carpets. Give your car the spa treatment that it deserves. But, we get it, doing this takes a lot of work, and this is tedious and can be a drag. So if you can afford it, maybe you’ll want to consider hiring a professional car detailer.
7. Hire a Professional Car Detailer
Most mechanics will recommend that you get your car professionally detailed once a year or so. This involves a full detail of the interior and a wash and wax. What better time to do this than when you need to get rid of the smell of weed from your ride? Just be sure to find a car detailer that’s 420-friendly and will understand that your primary goal in hiring them for their services is to get the weed smell out of your car.
8. Burn Incense
Burning incense is an age-old way to get the weed smell out of your car. Masking the smell of one kind of smoke with another kind of smoke is a bit sketchy, sure, but it is effective. One of the most popular scents of burning incense is that of Nag Champa. Nag Champa dates back centuries in India and other Asian cultures. In these cultures, incense was used as a tool for spiritual and worship purposes in Temples and other religious locations.
What gives Nag Champa its distinctly pleasant smell are sandalwood and the champak flower. Champak is an evergreen tree. Asian cultures have thought that Nag Champa helps to relieve stress and provide a calming effect, and lighting can help to get the weed smell out of your car. There is, of course, a myriad of other incense scents available for purchase, but Nag Champa is one of the most popular.
When you go to buy incense, you will typically do so in either stick or cone form. The good news about using incense to get the weed smell out of your car is that you’re not doing so in your house. This doesn’t mean that smoking weed and driving any better, but lighting incense indoors comes with a host of its own problems that can and will cause domestic problems. These include setting off a fire alarm, which is a dead giveaway that you’re doing something in your apartment that you should not be doing.
9. Use Smoke Filters (or Air Purifiers)
Manufacturers are making smoke filters primarily with the tobacco smoker in mind, but cannabis consumers can easily use these devices as well. Many smoke filters are affordable, replaceable, and portable, so you can take them with you anywhere. Some of the best smoke filters can make a large volume of smoke disappear with ease. These filters are proving themselves invaluable to those of us who are looking to keep our consumption private and leave no trace of smoke.
Some devices label themselves as smoke filters, but in general, you’ll find more products available that call themselves air purifiers. Air purifiers are much more common and can help improve the air quality of your living spaces noticeably. While using air purifiers without the need to get rid of the weed smell in your car is preferred, this is one of the safer and longer-term ways to do so.
While these devices are more appropriate for your apartment than your car, they can be utilized to get the weed smell out of your car as well. A pollutant-destroying air purifier can be pricey, but a quality one should last you at least a month or two before you need to change the filter. For under $100, this is one of the most effective ways to get the weed smell out of your car.
10. Air Fresheners like Ozium
Ozium is a brand name of a heavy-duty air freshener that comes in either spray or gel form. It is typically utilized in industrial workplaces that need freshening up. The science behind this product is that it supposedly has microscopic particles that attach to the particles in the smoke smell. You can either spray the Ozium around your vehicle or use a little bit of gel around your car’s seats.
11. Smoke Tobacco
Masking marijuana smoke with tobacco smoke is a pretty unhealthy decision for your lungs and respiratory system, but it can be an effective one. The most pungent form of tobacco tends to be a cigar. This is a cheap and easy way to quickly get the weed smell out of your car, no matter where you are or what you are doing.
Most gas stations and convenience stores sell cheap cigars, typically for as little as $1 or less. Lighting up a stinky cigar after hotboxing your car will mask the smell of your joints or weed pipes that you and your friends have been passing around.
On top of this, lighting up a cigarette or a cigar to get the weed smell out of your car is super quick and convenient. It takes only a few seconds to do and all you need is a cheap Swisher or Philly and a lighter to do it.
12. Use a Spoof
Maybe the oldest trick in the book when it comes to concealing weed smoke or cannabis odor is using a “spoof.” This method simply involves an empty toilet paper roll, a rubber band, and a dryer sheet. Put the dryer sheet over the roll and tighten it with your rubber band. You’ll be amazed at how great your otherwise stinky smoke can smell.
When you smoke weed in your car, somewhere around three-quarters of the smell that lingers after hotboxing is from all of the smoke that you exhale, this is because weed smoke that comes out of your lungs tends to make the smell of weed more undesirable than how it smells when it comes straight from the blunt or joint itself.
Using a dryer sheet when you exhale your weed smoke will not only get rid of the smell of weed in your car, it will make your vehicle smell like a delightful batch of fresh linens. While you might have seen or heard someone call it something different than a spoof, it’s a cliche for a reason, and that’s because it simply works.
13. Check Your Car’s Air Filter
Your car’s air filter is vital in ensuring the air you breathe while driving is fresh. Good air filters will also remove small particles that carry odors. This is one of the more expensive options on this list, so we recommend trying less expensive alternative options first.
14. Purchase a Vaporizer
One of the best ways to get the weed smell out of your car is to never actually smoke it in the first place. When you vaporize, you are eliminating smoking because there is simply no combustion whatsoever. You can buy a vaporizer for weed flower, concentrates, or both, depending on what your preference is.
Not only do vaporizers produce zero smoke thanks to high heat levels and no combustion, but vaping can also possibly be better for your health than smoking. Combusting and subsequently inhaling any burning plant matter is almost certainly dangerous to your lungs as well as hazardous to your delicate respiratory system.
For these aforementioned health reasons and the interest of discreteness, more and more weed smokers are opting to use a vape rather than smoking at all. We most certainly won’t be judging your decisions either way, but vaporizing your weed, in general, is something you might want to consider doing more of.
Now, this is not to say that vaporizing your weed completely masks the smell of cannabis. Truly, the only scent-free way to consume cannabis in public is with edibles. And even edibles can bring a smell along with them. We are offering you ways to get the weed smell out of your car, and not smoking at all in the first place is probably the easiest way to do so.
15. Light Scented Candles
Lighting candles is more effective and appropriate to get the weed smell out of your apartment. However, you most certainly won’t be the first person to light candles in their car to get the smell of weed smoke out of it. Scented candles can help get the weed smell out of your car, but doing so is also one of the more dangerous methods of doing so on this list.
We recommend against doing this at all. However, if you do decide to go this route, you’ll want to make sure that you only light candles in your car when you have the vehicle in park. Definitely do not light candles in your car when you are driving. This is a fire hazard and could result in a serious accident or bodily harm.
16. Order Potent Takeout Food
Another way of masking the scent of weed smell in your car is to order smelly takeout food. This is temporary and will typically only last for one evening. Some of the smelliest take-out food can also be the most delicious. This includes but is not limited to, Chinese, Mexican, and pizza. Any kind of fried food tends to be pretty noticeably smelly.
Ordering pungent flavorful food can kill two birds with one stone. First, it is one way of temporarily solving your problem of how to get the weed smell out of your car. Second, when you’re smoking weed, you can tend to get the munchies, and ordering tasty Chinese food can hit the spot when you’ve got a craving.
17. Smoke Outside Going Forward
As previously mentioned, many of these ways we’ve described how to get the weed smell out of your car involve basically masking the odor. One of the best ways to not have your car smell like weed smoke is to not smoke in there at all. One way you can do this is to smoke outside. Instead of smoking in your car or hot boxing every day, consider taking a nice walk outside in nature if the weather cooperates.
Smoking your weed outside not only removes the need to get rid of the smell of weed in your car, but it removes the illegality of what you’re doing from your vehicle altogether. The best way to do this is to roll one up before you head to your nature spot and then just get out and enjoy the natural world and hopefully some sunshine.
Just always be sure to leave no trace behind in nature that you have been there, meaning don’t litter and do your best to not disturb ecosystems and wildlife. Not only will littering draw potentially unwanted attention to yourself, but it gives bad vibes and kind of makes you look like you don’t care about our natural world. On top of all of this, you could even catch a pretty hefty fine for littering in some places, up to $300! Please keep our earth as green and clean as possible. We only get one!
TLDR: Getting Rid Of Marijuana Smell In A Car
- First is first: Avoid smoking and driving because it’s illegal in every state and dangerous.
- The smell of marijuana in your car can cause problems with the police and even landlords if they catch a whiff.
- Quick ways to get rid of marijuana smoke in your car include using air vaporizers, scented candles, perfume, and incense. These are stronger than the smell of marijuana.
- Alternative methods to get rid of marijuana smoke are to spoof the joint, use baking soda, deep-clean the car, or use potent takeout food (Indian, Mexican, Chinese, etc).
- The best way to get rid of the smell in your car might be to just smoke outside the car and hop back in once you’re done.
In conclusion, there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to concealing the smell of smoking weed. As you can see, there exists a plethora of choices for you to help get the smell of weed out of your car and hopefully keep it that way. Naturally, these aren’t the only ways that you can get the smell of weed out of your car, but they do tend to be some of the most effective and easiest.
We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating because it’s very important. Please always consume cannabis responsibly, and don’t ever drive under the influence of weed. If you do this, it perpetuates the negative stoner stereotype and makes us all look bad. Not only that, but it confirms some of the age-old prohibitionist myths that cannabis consumers are irresponsible people that just want to break the law. Don’t be that guy. Always consume responsibly, and never drive stoned.