How to Get Rid of Paint Smell: What Works & What Doesn’t

Wondering how to get rid of paint smell after a fresh coat? The short answer: ventilate the room properly, keep it cool, and give the paint time to cure. Everything else, from onions to coffee grounds, either helps a little or just covers the smell up. In this guide, we’ll walk through what actually removes paint fumes, how long the smell hangs around, and when it’s worth paying attention to how you’re feeling in a freshly painted room.

Why paint smells in the first place

That distinct odour comes from solvents evaporating as the paint dries. These are volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, and they keep releasing into the air until the paint has fully cured. Water-based paints give off far less than oil-based enamels, which is why a freshly glossed door from an interior painting job lingers in the air longer than a wall of acrylic. Understanding this matters, because it tells you the goal isn’t masking the smell. It’s getting those paint fumes out of the room. 

How long does paint smell last?

For most water-based interior paints, the smell fades noticeably within a day or two and is gone within the week. Oil-based paints and enamels take longer, sometimes a couple of weeks, because they cure slowly even after they feel dry.

That’s the catch worth knowing: touch dry is not cured. A wall can feel dry within hours while still off-gassing underneath. Trims, doors and feature walls painted in enamel are the usual culprits when a room smells fine by day but noticeable again after being closed up overnight. Warm, humid or poorly ventilated rooms stretch these timeframes out. Cool, well-aired rooms shorten them.

How to get rid of paint smell fast: what actually works

Plenty of guides list every trick as though they all work equally well. They don’t. If you want to know how to get rid of paint fumes rather than just disguise them, here’s the honest ranking, starting with the methods that remove paint odour rather than hide it.

Cross-ventilation

Nothing beats moving air. Open windows on opposite sides of the room, then set a fan in one window facing outwards so it pushes air out while fresh air gets drawn in from the other side. One fan pointed at a wet wall does very little. You’re not trying to dry the paint faster, you’re trying to exhaust the fumes. Wait until the coat is touch dry before switching fans on, and keep the airflow going as long as practical, overnight if you can.

An air purifier with an activated carbon filter

This is the detail most advice skips. A standard HEPA purifier catches dust and pollen, which are particles. Paint fumes are gases, and gases pass straight through a HEPA filter. If you’re buying or borrowing a purifier for a newly painted room, it needs an activated carbon filter to do anything useful. With one, it genuinely helps, particularly in winter when leaving windows open all day isn’t realistic.

Activated charcoal

The same principle in loose form. Trays of activated charcoal placed around the room will slowly adsorb odour molecules from the air. It works, just gradually, and it’s most effective in a room that isn’t being constantly flushed with new air. Think of it as the overnight option once you’ve closed the windows.

Baking soda

Baking soda absorbs odours, but it earns its keep on soft surfaces rather than open air. Sprinkle it over carpet, rugs or a fabric sofa that has soaked up the smell of paint, leave it overnight, then vacuum. Bowls of it scattered around the room won’t hurt, but don’t expect them to clear a whole room on their own.

Onions

Yes, this one comes up constantly, and there’s a kernel of truth to it. A cut onion releases compounds that can neutralise some of the odour in the air, and plenty of painters swear by it. In practice it’s a minor helper, not a fix, and you’re trading one strong smell for another. If you try it, quarter a couple of brown onions, place them around the room and bin them in the morning.

Candles

A scented candle masks the smell rather than removing it. The old claim that the flame “burns off” the fumes doesn’t hold up, and we’d rather you didn’t leave an open flame in a room with solvent vapour in the air, especially with kids around. If you like a candle burning once the room is aired out, go for it. Just know what it’s doing and what it isn’t.

Coffee grounds, vanilla, peppermint and bowls of water

All maskers, to varying degrees. Fresh coffee grounds and a few drops of vanilla or peppermint oil on cotton balls will make the room smell nicer while the fumes clear on their own. Bowls of water absorb a small amount of vapour. None of these remove much, but none of them does harm either. Just don’t mistake a nicer-smelling room for a cleared one: how to get rid of paint odour and how to cover it are two different questions.

Are paint fumes bad for you?

For a healthy adult in a ventilated room, short-term exposure to modern interior paint is a nuisance more than a danger. That said, are paint fumes bad for you in higher concentrations or over longer stretches? They can be. Poorly ventilated rooms, oil-based products and long exposure are where problems start.

Paint fume symptoms to watch for

The common ones are a paint fume headache, dizziness, watery eyes, a scratchy or sore throat, and mild nausea. These usually ease quickly once you get into fresh air. If symptoms persist or you feel disoriented, take it seriously.

What to do after inhaling paint fumes

Get outside or into a well-ventilated space, drink water, and rest. Most people feel normal again within the hour. If you’re unsure what to do after inhaling paint fumes in a bigger dose, say after working in an enclosed space, call the Poisons Information Centre on 13 11 26 for advice, and see a doctor if symptoms don’t settle.

How long do paint fumes stay in your system?

The compounds you breathe in are processed and cleared by your body fairly quickly, generally within hours to a day for a typical exposure. So when people ask how long do paint fumes stay in your system, the honest answer is: not long, provided you remove yourself from the source. Lingering symptoms are usually a sign the room itself still needs airing, not that anything is building up inside you.

Can you sleep in a freshly painted room?

Best practice is to wait at least one night, longer for oil-based paint. The room might smell fine in the evening and still be off-gassing while you sleep with the door closed, which is exactly the low-ventilation scenario you want to avoid. If you have no other option, use water-based low-VOC paint, air the room all day, and sleep with a window cracked open. It’s exactly the scenario professional painters plan sequencing around when a household can’t vacate the property for a repaint. 

Painting around babies, kids and during pregnancy

Little lungs and developing bodies deserve extra caution. Keep babies and young children out of freshly painted rooms until the smell has cleared, and don’t set up a cot in a room painted that week. If you’re pregnant, the safest approach is to let someone else do the painting, stick to low-VOC products, and have a chat with your GP if you’re unsure. We’re painters, not doctors, and this is one area where it’s worth asking the right professional.

Avoid the problem: choose low-VOC paint first

If you’re planning ahead rather than fixing a smell that already exists, the best answer to how to get rid of paint odour is to produce less of it in the first place. Modern water-based acrylics dry fast and carry a fraction of the smell of older formulations, and most major brands now offer low-VOC or ultra-low-VOC ranges suited to bedrooms and nurseries. Save oil-based enamel for the surfaces that genuinely need the durability, like trims and doors. And if you’re doing the work yourself, a proper respirator rated for organic vapours beats a dust mask, which does nothing against fumes.

When the smell isn’t just paint

If a strong odour hangs around well past the normal curing window, something else may be going on. Persistent smells can point to trapped moisture behind the new coat, painting over mould that was never treated, or paint that had spoiled in the tin. A sour or musty note rather than a solvent one is the giveaway. That’s worth a professional look rather than another round of onions. 

Need the job done without the lingering smell?

A good painter plans for this: low-odour products matched to each surface, rooms sequenced so you’re never locked out of the whole house, and proper ventilation before handover. If that sounds like the experience you’d prefer, get in touch, and we’ll talk through your project.