How To Make a Sploof:
That Actually Works

While marijuana acceptance is at an all-time high in the Western world, many still live in unfortunate living arrangements or even entire neighborhoods not sympathetic to marijuana use. Even those who have nothing to lose as far as police or landlords go can find themselves wanting to do the respectful thing and keep the scent of their toking as discreet as possible.

The simplest method to muffle indoor smoke is to just blow it out the window.

Anyone who's tried this knows that it is inconvenient to have to stand near the window the whole time and on top of all of that you usually need to put your entire head outside to ensure none of the smoke comes right back in due to how air pressure works.

As usual, necessity is the mother of all invention. There are many commercially available options like the SmokeBuddy in which the cannabis smoke is exhaled into and activated carbon then absorbs all of the pungent chemicals that give away the fact you've smoked long after you've done the deed. These options frequently run into the $50 range and have to be replaced semi frequently. I'm a huge proponent of DIY work and prefer to make my own solutions to my problems instead of paying someone else a premium for the same end result.

A home made "smoke muffler" is affectionately referred to as a sploof. The simplest sploof is simply a dryer sheet fashioned to the end of a toilet paper roll that is supposed to help mask the smell. Such a simple design usually results in the room smelling like laundry as well as weed as opposed to just laundry. They also do very little to change the intensity or staying power of the marijuana scent. Cardboard is porous so the smell stays with it and a single dryer sheet really doesn't do much. Not only do they not really help the smell, now you have another piece of stinky contraband to hide/dispose of.

So, here's a couple recipes to make a proper sploof.

Activated Charcoal Sploof

The activated charcoal sploof is hands down the most effective method for masking weed smell, while most sploofs seek to hide the smell of smoked cannabis, the use of activated charcoal eliminates smell entirely by absorbing the smoke as opposed to hoping it picks up enough lemon scent on its way through a dryer sheet to mask it's herbal beginnings.

For this sploof, you'll need some activated charcoal, a paper towel, a plastic bottle with a mouthpiece you can easily blow into (water bottles with nipples work best for an airtight seal), and a way to poke a fairly significant hole into said bottle. Activated charcoal can be purchased at pet stores since it is commonly used in fish tanks to absorb unwanted materials. Enough to make your sploof last 3-4 months can be purchased for around twelve dollars, so if you spend more than twenty dollars making this sploof you went wrong somewhere.

First, rinse the charcoal in water. Not enough to completely soak the charcoal, but just get everything nice and damp.

Next, make some small holes in the bottom of the bottle. All you need is enough holes to ensure you can exhale air through the bottle relatively easily.

To make sure the charcoal doesn't go through these holes, add some paper towel to the bottom of the bottle to act as a screen. This is an alright time to blow through the bottle to see if enough holes were made.

Now, fill the bottle with the charcoal.

That's all there is to it. This is the exact same principle employed by the SmokeBuddy, just without all the fancy materials and branding. the amount of charcoal used ensures that it will be effective for several months. This sploof eliminates smell, so as soon as you start getting a whiff or two of dank you know it is time to swap out charcoal.

The Water Bottle Sploof

While activated charcoal is the cream of the crop for scent elimination, it isn't something everyone has on hand or even easy access to. When waiting to make a trip to the pet store or for your Amazon shipment to come in, a water bottle sploof can be an effective way to help mask your nightly relaxation activities so you can enjoy your high without paranoia bringing you down.

This sploof requires a plastic water bottle, scented dryer sheets, a rubber band or other way to secure the sheets in place, and a knife or scissors.

Start by cutting off about 3/4ths of the bottle, you only need the top with the mouthpiece. Just cut where the bottle finally becomes it's widest after the tapered beginning.

Now fill the water bottle with dryer sheets. About three or four is satisfactory, too many will make the airflow less than ideal and hamper the efficacy.

Cap it all off by placing another dryer sheet over the open end of the bottle and securing it in place with a string or rubber band.

The downside to this method is that the dryer sheets should be constantly replaced, even after a single session you will be able to notice the dryer sheets have became very brown. This method is also not as effective as activated charcoal, but I'd say it is somewhere around 70% to 85% as effective at accomplishing a discreet smoke.

The Toilet Paper Roll Sploof

This is hands down the last thing I'd resort to, and I would only do so if you don't have the items required for the above two methods.

However, if you absolutely need a sploof and are running low on supplies, you're almost guaranteed to have the following laying around:

An toilet paper roll, dryer sheets, and an elastic band.

It should be pretty self explanatory based on the picture above, but essentially you just stuff the empty toilet paper roll with a few dryer sheets, then take another 2-3 sheets and place over the end of the toilet paper roll, and secure them with the elastic band.

This will work, but definitely not as good as the other two methods listed above.

Important Notes

A sploof will only function well if you are smoking from a device that allows you to combust all of the marijuana in a single breath. For instance, for joints or huge bong bowls there is a period where there smoke is coming from the cherry that isn't going into the sploof, this is going to make all of your efforts to conceal the smell worthless. For this reason I highly recommend packing "snappers" in a bong or pipe so all of the smoke goes from your device to your lungs and finally through the sploof in a single pull.

With all that said, either of these two methods will service a cannabinist quite nicely. I would be weary of simpler designs because having a sploof that just adds a pleasant after tone to your marijuana smoke is hardly desirable. While the second sploof can be upgraded by adding a bit of charcoal, it tends to do a fairly good job at just leaving the smell of the dryer sheets which goes away faster than the smell of marijuana alone.

Phantom smokers, your time is now.