Fragrances Life
Capture plant essences from the garden for long-lasting enjoyment.
BY THERESA LOE
October/November 2004
Always use pure essential oils or absolutes to reap the
greatest benefit.
RELATED CONTENT
Throughout recorded history, the ability of fragrance to induce responses and enhance moods has bee...
Everyone has their own personal favorite herbs, here's a list of favorites from readers and contrib...
Extend your garden to include herbs around the stones of a walkway....
There are many ways to treat your body and lift your spirit with aromatic essential oils....
This natural carpet freshener will take away the musty smell and leave your carpet fresh and fragra...
Since ancient times, scented body products have
been used to seduce, entice, influence and heal. The queen of Sheba
reportedly used aromatics to seduce King Solomon. Cleopatra used
scents to influence the Greeks and Romans. People of many different
cultures wore plant essences in an effort to prevent illness and
plague. Even Napoleon enjoyed herbal scents; he reportedly used up
to 60 bottles of rosemary cologne a month!
For me, making herbal perfumes, powders and oils is a way of
capturing a little bit of my garden to be enjoyed later. Fragrance
is the very heart and soul of my patch of herbs, and wearing that
fragrance is a way of keeping my garden close throughout the
day.
Even if you don’t have a garden of your own, there are many ways
to capture and wear herbal fragrances. Essential oils and a few
ingredients found at the local supermarket can be combined to
create delightful perfumes, powders and body sprays. You can use
just one fragrance note at a time, such as lavender, rose or
peppermint, or you can combine essential oils to create your
personal signature fragrance.
The recipes here are very basic, but if you crave more
information on perfumery, several books teach the fine art of
blending natural perfumes. As you try the different recipes,
remember that you always can experiment and substitute different
oils to suit your taste. That’s part of the fun.
Making your own fragrant products gives you great freedom of
choice. Using the principles of aromatherapy, you can decide how
you want your fragrances to affect you and those around you. For
example, you may want to wear lavender for its calming, refreshing
effects, sweet orange because it is uplifting, or rosemary for
mental stimulation. However, you must use pure essential oils
(distilled using water and steam) or absolutes (essences extracted
with the use of a solvent such as alcohol) to reap these benefits.
Synthetic fragrance oils do not offer the same results.
Some pure essential oils can be very expensive or hard to find.
Attar of roses and oil of neroli can cost about $200 per ounce.
(You may choose to simply omit the neroli from the solid perfume
recipe.) Other essences, such as vanilla, are hard to find in a
pure absolute. From such natural products, however, come superior
fragrance and less chance of an allergic reaction. Expensive
essential oils often are available in very small quantities, such
as 1/16 ounce or 1/2 gram. These tiny amounts are perfectly
adequate, however, because you only need a few drops per recipe
(see sources on Page 30).
Page: 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
Next >>