The Olfactory Experience, or….What’s that Smell? March 7, 2008
Without exception, smell has a powerful effect on us people. Smells can make your mouth water, or, likewise, make you gag. Smells can be seductive, invigorating, calming, or irritating. But for all of us, scent, more than anything else, brings to memory people, places, and events in our lives and revives the full array of emotions surrounding those memories. No other sense; sight, sound, touch, or even taste, can evoke memories and emotions quite like scent does.
Some people, like me, are really into smell – I happen to be one of those who loves incense and fragrance oils. So much so, that as owner of Salish Winds Incense, I now make my living by making my own fragrance oils and incense and other stuff that smells good.
I was one of those kids who was always coming home with enormous heaps of flowers which I had ripped up in bunches from alongside roads, pastures, and out of peoples gardens (oops…sorry….Hey, I was just a kid, and I did finally get that lesson from an old guy who came at me with a cane and hollerin’).
That love of fragrances has carried through into my adult life.
So, that’s what I do now. I make incense and fragrance oils, blend essential oils and make perfumes and body oils and bath oils. I used to scent bath salts and even made lip balms once. If things continue well, I plan to do lots of product line expansion. I have tons of ideas.
Crafting with Essential Oils and Fragrance Oils March 3, 2008
Over the past dozen years I have learned a lot about blending and crafting with oils, both essential oils and fragrance oils, pretty much through the process of trial and error. While there are a few really good books out there on the subject of blending (hmm, we should have a book discussion later), for the most part the available literature tends to focus on the properties or qualities of individual oils — Aromatherapy — the “what they’re good for” end of things. And while this is an important and popular subject, there are also a lot of folk out there who want to know how to use the oils to make stuff that smells nice.
I’m hoping this will be place where we can talk about ideas and suggestions for crafting with essential oils and fragrance oils. What and how much to blend for all kinds of potions, lotions, and things that smell pretty in general. Candles, Incense, Pot-Pourri, Scented Oil for warmers/diffusers, Bath Salts, Bath Oil, Body Lotion, Massage Oil, Personal Oil, Oil for Reed Diffusers, Perfume, Cologne, Linen Spray, Room Spritzers…the list goes on. How do we make these things? How much of what do we use? Where do we get the stuff to make it all? That’s what this blog page will be about — Well, that’s my intention anyway.
Post a reply and let me know if you’re interested in this? Let me know what you want to talk about. I have a pretty good library of knowledge in my noggin, and my file cabinets and book shelves too, but I am far from being any kind of ultimate authority on the subject. I’m hoping to learn from people here as well as share my knowledge.
So, I’ll just leave it at that for now. I’m off to a roaring start….uh, well, a start anyhow. I’m putting a blessing on this post, and it will be what it will be. I’ll check back tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll find it….arghh.
Peace ~ Marta
