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.