Neutralize Paint Odor During Your Kitchen Makeover With This Simple Onion Hack

We've all been there. You're standing at the cutting board, with the blade of your knife poised just above the onion, and you apply just enough pressure. Within seconds, you feel that sting in the corners of your eyes as the scent of the onion settles into your nostrils. You power through, slice after slice, and soon you're squinting as your eyes water. You wonder why nature cursed the onion with these terrible fumes! But it turns out those fumes have a purpose after all. They may be able to neutralize the unpleasant smells in fresh paint.

This gets a little sciencey, but let's try to cover the basics. When you use fresh paint to brighten up your dark kitchen, it smells strongly because of compounds called aldehydes. Humans are very sensitive to these compounds and can smell even a tiny amount, which is why paint odor is so strong. Onions, when cut, release several compounds. The one that makes us cry is called Syn-propanethial-S-oxide. That compound reacts with aldehydes, effectively muting them for you.

Syn-propanethial-S-oxide is only released when you first cut into an onion. Onions also produce compounds called thiols, which can be released for over an hour. Thiols also react with aldehydes.

In real-world experiments, people have had mixed success with using onions for this task. You're dealing with small amounts of invisible, volatile compounds in an open space. If you have a window open, as you should when painting, then airflow can really disrupt how this may work. But to have greater success, you may need to use more than one onion. It would also help to cut up the onion and place the pieces around the room so the thiols spread out more. An onion produces more thiols than there are aldehydes in the paint fumes, so the odds are on the onion's side.

How do you know if you have enough onion? Keep cutting onions until the average person can enter the room and smell the onion before you start painting. Dr. Bryan Quoc Le, a food scientist who specializes in onions, suggests cutting them 30 to 60 minutes ahead of time.

With the thiols already circulating, that should be enough to keep the nasty paint fumes under wraps as you start painting your cabinets. But keep in mind this is far from a perfect science. If you are more sensitive to chemicals and odors, you'll still probably notice the paint smell, but hopefully not as much. Likewise, the airflow from that open window or a fan could disrupt their ability to work. Finally, the compounds won't work forever, so depending on how long you're painting, you may need more onions.