Is there any sure-fire way of entirely removing the smell of cigarette smoke from our apartment? My husband and I both smoke, but when we have guests over who don’t, we always try to air it out really well and spray OUST or some other air freshener. Now it smells like a spring breeze, with strong smoky undertones (good in a wine, not in an apartment!) Does anything REALLY work? Thanks!
Years and years ago, when hotel rooms were never exclusively nonsmoking as they are today, I worked one summer as a maid for a Holiday Inn, and the secret ingredient was Windex with ammonia D.
However, I should note that any given room might or might not be smoked in on any given night. And that nonsmokers might have noticed a lingering odor. But wiping all the glass down with Windex seemed to be a big help.
Probably won’t completely do it for your place since you smoke in there all the time. But worth a try. Consider that it builds up on your walls, in your draperies, in your carpet, and this is a lot to ask of Oust.
Other things I’ve heard of: a bowl with vinegar in it, a saucer with a few drops of vanilla in it. A dollop of wintergreen oil on a piece of cotton in a corner of the room, if you can find wintergreen oil. I haven’t been able to find it for years.
You may just be stuck cooking something that will smell delicious when they walk in and make them forget all about the smoke.
I bought my SUV at auction and got a good deal on it. I think part of the reason was that it looked at smelled like a Phillip Morris company vehicle. The front and back ashtrays were overflowing and the smell was unbearble and even worse with the eye burning. As soon as I got it, I vacummed it out and then got two bottles of Fabreeze. I sprayed the hell out of them all over the car for a few minutes. Within hours, all of the smoke odor was gone and stayed that way.
I think the first thing you need to realize is that the lingering smoke odor isn’t in the air, it’s in the carpet and the furniture and the draperies. Spraying air-freshner in the air doesn’t do much for that.
My vote is to get some Febreeze and spray down the drapes, the upholstered furniture and the carpeting. It really does a good job getting rid of odors. (I once used it to get cat pee smell out of a leather sofa)
I stayed in a hotel once where the non-smoking room I was promised had been occupied by a smoker. So the hotel ran an ozone generator in the room for a couple of hours to clear the air.
I do know some industrial-type ozone machines are used for taking smoke smell out of homes when there’s been a fire, and it has worked very well IME.
There’s the practise of fresh coffee placed in a shallow container. Fresh coffee grounds, not yet brewed. That’s worked for my stinky microwave.
However, the real solution is to smoke outside. Tobacco smoke is amazingly pervasive. If I smoke in the house, it’s with all the windows open and a bathroom fan running, to boot.
I found a tip in the back of an old cookbook that belonged to my grandmother (“Sugar & Spice & Lots of Advice”, published by some rural church group in about 1937 or so), which said to set out a bowl of ammonia overnight to clear the odor of stale tobacco smoke. It does work, but I wouldn’t recommend this if you have small children or pets.
Another vote for Febreze. I hosed my old Windstar down with it before I traded it in. Worked like a charm. The trick for my next car was to quit smoking. 
mangeorge
I’m not sure if it’d work on large areas but my Mom used to smoke and used this spray called Banish (Banish - Reduce Acne Scars Naturally | Shop Organic Skincare) and it worked to the point of me not knowing she sneaked a smoke every now and then without me ever being the wiser (until I found the Banish bottle).
I got a Lampe Bergere that does an amazing job of well, neutralizing the air as well as scenting it, if that is what you want. Most cigar shops use them. As a matter of fact, the cigar shop I got mine from uses them exclusively. They are a cigar bar. It was the first time I ever went into a tobacco shop and wasn’t overwhelmed by the smell.
They aren’t like regular air fresheners, they sound kind of woo-woo, but I was really amazed at how well it worked.
I had to Google this. How come I never knew these existed? It seems like I would have known about this from somewhere. I think I might get one!
I just heard about them not that long ago. They rock. Unlike candles which are a fire hazard, and have iffy at best smells unless you luck out, or overly fake-scented crap that gives me a raging headache…They don’t burn an open flame, I forget what the little mechanism is called, but once the lampe is out of fuel (they burn alcohol) it just goes out. It does put out a small bit of heat, but is in no danger of catching fire. (Catalytic maybe?) It’s pretty wacky, but darn, it’s effective. Even burning plain alcohol (91%) improves the smell. You can dilute their scents if you find them too strong, or mix up your own. Most pharmacies sell 91% alcohol.
Yes, these work very well. Slightly dangerous, do use them when you are not home then air out the room.
Try Ozium . Back in the day, no hippie pad was complete without a can. More recently, it cleared the air in my apartment after a minor microwave mishap. (Well, not that minor, really–I needed a new microwave after the incident.)