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The Essentials of Home Fragrance by Sadi Ranson

You know when you are home because it smells like home. Whether we realize it ornot, we are influenced by smell in subtle and not so subtle ways. The science ofaffecting mood and treating illness with essential oils (known as aromatherapy) hasbeen around since the ancient Egyptians where we have found vats of blended oilsand resins, used to treat illness, affect mood, and blends of resins and spicesnecessary for mummification.

When we were children, there were smells in our home or our grandparent’s homeor friend’s home that made us feel safe and that came to signify the very meaningof the word “home”. For me, those smells were smells of making marmalade onSunday morning, of cooking oranges, and smells of baking. Scents of apple piesand cinnamon, and lavender powder in the bedroom, and fruit ripening in the glassbowl in the front room, redolent in the British sunlight.

It is often smells we are unaware of that make us feel safe; things that touch oursubconscious. Then there are the smells of certain essential oils – and we’ll betalking about a few select ones in this article – that have been used in myriad waysto heal us both mentally and physically.

Lavender and rosemary purify the air as well as help soothe and restore a sense ofcalm and well-being. Chamomile soothes children as well as adults and makes awonderful pillow and room spray. Jasmine eases the discomfort and pain ofdepression and sorrow, much like rose as well as works as a subtle aphrodisiac.

Then there are candle blends that are extremely evocative and that for me havebeen a real treat but that are affordable enough to make that treat an every daything. I got tired of saving everything for later: the good china, the good shoes, thegood perfume. I often said that I couldn’t afford those things now, then I realizedthat in so many ways, I couldn’t afford to not enjoy those things now. Life is brief,however long days may seem when one is sad or depressed or in the midst ofcrisis. But it seems to me that perhaps that is when we most need to pull out thegood things – and for me, that means I now burn higher-end candles (or justcandle’s and room sprays that I like). That I can afford twenty or thirty dollars for acandle that burns 100 hours because the end-result is that I feel calmer, more athome in my home, more at peace. I am able to accomplish more because thingsfeel in order and as they should be, not haphazard and like I am just a visitor here.What could be worse than not feeling at home when you are home? And so itfollows what could be better than feeling that home is not just home, but a place of

luxury, relaxation, safety. A place where you accomplish things as well as rest.

To this end, I’ve put together some brief notes about what smells have worked forme: both as pure essential oils that can be easily obtained to diffuse in a candlediffuser or, as candle blends and room sprays that I personally find to be the best onthe market.

A word: don’t go overboard with home fragrance. For a two-bedroom apartment I’vefound that one or two candles is perfect. Don’t mix candle scent and have a diffuserwith another scent at the same time. Same is true for reed diffusers: don’t have oneof those and a candle as well as the smells will clash. If you do have a reed diffuser,get a candle in a scent that goes with it. So if your diffuser is balsam or fir or pine,try a fireplace or autumn leaves or other woody sort of candle. I like to burn afireplace/wood-smoke candle during the winter. Fir is another one that works well. Inthe summer I switch to lilac or lavender or thyme/rosemary. Summer seems bettersuited to plug-in diffusers and essential oils and winter more to the warmth ofcandles and woody scents. Always double-check that you have extinguishedcandles before leaving your house or apartment.

Diffusers

To gently diffuse essential oils you’ll first need a good diffuser. It used to be thatdiffusers came as oil burners. You would put a few drops of oil into a saucer ofwater on the top of a ceramic device, a sort of saucer-like area that was heated by atea-candle. The candle would gently heat the water and oil, thus releasing the scentof the oil and filling the home or area with fragrance.

This method still works but can be a little dangerous. First, most ceramic holdersget very hot and should never be used in a home or area where a child or animalcould tip it over. The open flame can also be dangerous if not watched and it’s veryeasy to leave the home and leave the candle burning. After all, diffusers generallyburn for hours – and its so easy to forget that you have one burning. The waterburns off, the oil burns off, the ceramic saucer gets burned and over-heated andfrom there – fire.

You’re better off using a plug-in diffuser: these come in many price ranges andvarious shapes and sizes, from a free-standing unit to wall-units to diffusers thatlook like thumb drives and can be plugged into your computer’s USB port.

A company called youngliving.com makes some excellent ones, including diffusersthat you can take with you wherever you go and that plug in to the USB port of yourcomputer. I really like this idea a lot: it means you can take them with you whentraveling so your hotel room smells great, or to work every day. Plug-in diffuserstravel easily – allowing any where, especially hotel rooms, to smell like home.Initially, I wanted my home to smell like a fabulous home in the French country side.Now I can make anywhere I go smell like Provence.

Diffusers range in price for about twenty dollars for a pretty good one to over ahundred dollars. Mountain Rose has a really great one (aroma-mist ultrasonicdiffuser) that is professional and sleek looking and not too expensive and is well-

made, priced about $55. I also found some excellent diffusers on Amazon.

Essential Oils to Diffuse For Home, Healing, & HealthWorking with single notes is very simple and most oils can be readily found at localshops or online. Start with the basic notes (I've listed some of the most popularnotes below). You might also try some common blends. I've found aromatherapykits online that have "starter oils" - with blends like Relaxation; Concentration;Aphrodesiac; Sleep; etc. You want to be sure that the oils are all 100% pureessential oils. If it doesn't say that, odds are the product is not pure essential oil inwhich case you don't want it and you certainly don't want to put it in your diffuserbecause it will become saturated with synthetic oils and with a yukky fake smell. It'seasy enough to put a few drops of two of the oils below to create a good blend. Trycamomile and lavender, rosemary and lavender, jasmine and rose (though I preferboth of those as single-notes, personally and I think a lot of people who have goodnoses do). Rose is particularly nice in the home and i like to have jasmine in thebedroom. So take a read and see what you think, then get yourself a diffuser andlive better...

Camomile

Properties: soothing; carminative; headache and migraine; insomnia; nausea;depression; irritability

Essential oil of chamomile and chamomile infusions (especially teas) have beenused for centuries to treat the infirm. The same way that chamomile tea calms usdown, the properties of the chamomile flower when used in pure essential oil formare used to calm us down, instill a sense of well-being and security, relax and makeus sleepy, and helps to cure headache and migraine (and seizures). You’ll often findchamomile in blends with other oils that have similar sedating effects, such as oil oflavender and oil of lemon, both of which are soothing.

You can make your own chamomile spray by buying the real essential oil andputting a few drops in a spray bottle with water. Shake well before use as the oil andwater do not naturally mix so the mixture has to be shaken every time. Make achamomile-lavender spray to mist onto your pillow or your child’s pillow beforebedtime. You’ll rest more easily and have a better sleep.

Chamomile candles are generally found in blends with other scents. You can find iteasily online or through most candle shops. Try Yankee Camomile Tea candle.

Jasmine

Used to relieve stress, a great antidepressant. Worn by men in India and theMiddle-east, Jasmine has long been considered one of the great smells of love,much like it’s counterpart Rose. Men have worn it as a single-note fragrance,distilled from the real jasmine flower. To understand the true worth of essence ofjasmine one must first understand the great number of blossoms required to

produce even a small (quality) amount of jasmine essence. Take a look at thefigures below:

• One pound of jasmine oil = 1,000 pounds of jasmine = 3.6 million unpackedblossoms!

• One pound of pure jasmine oil = therapeutic quality = up to $4,500 per pound!

• One pound of synthetic jasmine oil = perfume quality = $3.50 per pound!

I used to have real jasmine plants in my home that would scent the air, particularlyat night (jasmine has been called Queen of the Night and with good reason). Theblossoms are headier in the evening and in the dark releasing more of the oil thatmakes jasmine so fantastic.

You can purchase pure jasmine oil (just make sure it is not the synthetic, you wantpure essence of jasmine as the synthetic won’t have any of the medicinal effects ofthe real oil and might very well give you a headache). Oil can be purchased easilyonline or, I just go to Whole Foods or a good health food or vitamin shop where youcan usually find it at a reasonable price. The candle company Votivo makesexcellent candles and carries a Jasmine-Neroli blend.

Lavender

The word lavender derives from the Roman word lavare - “to wash”. Lavender haslong been used as an air-purifier and was sprinkled on floors to help freshen the airand the lavender flowers were and still are used in linen sachets to scent drawersand wardrobes. I often use a few drops of essential oil of lavender when doinglaundry to lightly scent sheets and clothes.

The essential oil of lavender is a proven sedative. It has been used for centuries totreat migraine, epilepsy, anxiety, insomnia, headache, nausea, and to soothe andcalm infants and children. It works well in concert with essential oil of chamomileand lemon.

Lavender has long been used in perfumery – I like Penhaligon’s “Lavendula”fragrance, which is unisex, made from the real oil and smells like the Frenchcountryside and has that great French country smell of bundled fresh lavenderstalks drying in the sun.

Rose

Properties: antispasmodic, antidepressant, headache, insomnia, nervous tension

Like jasmine, rose oil requires a great number of fresh blooms to create a verysmall amount. One single drop of Bulgarian rose otto requires approximately thirtyfull blooms of Damask rose. The damask rose is also grown in Turkey and Moroccoand used in essential oils sold under the country name: Turkish rose: Moroccanrose. Each has a distinct and unique smell. The same principal that accounts fordifferent tastes in the wine grape (the soil, the PH of the soil, and even the wind and

the rain) will all account for subtle differences in smell. I’ve found that as a generalrule, whenever I’ve seen “English Rose” for sale it has been a synthetic oil used andnot a natural oil so read the label carefully.

You can purchase rose oil and rose attar almost anywhere where essential oils aresold. It burns well in a free-standing diffuser and requires only a few drops. Somepeople do mix rose oil with other oils – often lavender or, a good combination isrose and patchouli or rose and sandalwood. Use the diffuser to both scent thehouse and relieve you of any stress/tension. To my mind, rose is best, however,when used alone without any other notes.

In candles, Yankee Candle makes an excellent rose candle called Fresh Cut Roses,which really does smell like fresh cut roses (this is a hard smell to find. How theymake it I do not know – it might be synthetic but in this case it actually smells goodand not headachey.) For candles made with 100% pure essential oil check outWayOutWax.com and aromatherapy candles made by the company Top 6,available online through Amazon.com.

Rosemary

Properties: antiseptic; stimulant; headache; carminative; anxiety; colds; hysteria

Rosemary used to be burned and hung in bunches to dry to disinfect and keep theair clean in sick rooms and bedrooms. It cleans and deodorizes the air naturally,leaving a sort of herbal piney scent that is an excellent alternative to chemical-ladenantiseptic sprays.

Eco-Candles at Luli Boutique, Providence Rhode Island

Source: sadi ranson

Candle selection display: Eco-candles; Soy-based wax candlesSource: photo by Sadi Ranson

Best Scented CandlesYou can burn rosemary oil (the pure oil always) in a room diffuser to clean the airand to treat any of the above listed conditions – and it really will work. I like to usean aromatherapy candle. A good one and my personal favorite is made by acompany called Candle-Lite. Their proprietary blend is called “Renew” and thecandle is a green color. It is a blend of essential oils of rosemary, thyme andpeppercorn. As it burns it leaves behind a clear, complex chord that is reassuringand refreshing and smells the way I think home should smell. It has a restorative

quality to it, rather like a spa treatment so I think of this candle as a real treat and agood find. You can find Candle-Lite products at CVS drug stores and probably anynumber of places. I found it at my local CVS with other blends by the samecompany. Votivo also makes an excellent rosemary-infused candle.

Votivo

Votivo makes some of the best long-burning candles I’ve ever found. They come ina thick, glass jar that has rounded edges and they seem to be oil-rich. A singlecandle burned only for fifteen minutes or less scents up a whole room, if not awhole floor of a house. One of my favorites by Votivo is its “Red Currant” blend –which smells fresh and dewy and sort of green with a red currant top-note that is notsweet or cloying at all and brings to mine a fabulous country home with lots of greatfabrics and cedarwood beds and side-tables and Manet-like gardens, redolent ofhay and raspberries and cassis and fresh-cut grass.

I also really like Votivo’s “Honeysuckle”, and “Teak”. Check out their “Velvet Night”,“Speakeasy”, and my very favorite, “Deep Clover” which smells like a clover-covered, grassy hill, all without being overly green. The strength of this candlecompany is the high concentrate of oils, their particular blends which may as well beperfume or cologne as you can tell right away they are made by someone with areally highly attuned nose, and the incredible long-burn time.

This company also sells fragrance reeds (also known as “reed diffusers”. Reeddiffusers are made up of a bunch of fragrance sticks in a decorative jar that draw upfragrance oil that scents the room. They are a very safe alternative to candles,provided you put them out of the reach of young children and animals who mighteat them or knock them over. “Deep Clover” comes as a fragrance reed, as does“Lavender”, “Clean Crisp Linen”, “Smoke On The Water”, and “Tobacco” to name afew. You can find these at select boutiques (try Ricky’s beauty stores: I found it at

Ricky’s near West 11th on 6th Avenue in New York City). Try other, select higher-end boutiques. You can also find Votivo products readily online.

Eco Candle Company & Montserrat

The best jasmine-scented candle I found was by Eco Candle Company (ofWisconsin). Their pungent blends come in simple mason jars with screw top lids.The candles are all eco-friendly and made of a soy blend. I found these at LuliBoutique on Hope Street (Providence, Rhode Island).

I found an excellent jasmine candle by this company. All of their candles are set inmason jars with lid (to keep the smell fresh). The jasmine candle has a high-concentrate of jasmine, that when lit fills the room with the heady but gentle aromaof real jasmine flower.

Other blends include Lavender-Lemon, which has a really nice, smooth, somewhatsherbety scent that would be great for bedrooms (just be sure to extinguish thecandle) as well as for the side of the bathtub for a real treat. “Spa Day” is also verygood and smells fresh and herbal like a spa should smells, leaving you feelingrefreshed, clean, and slightly more virtuous.

Check out the full range at Luli or find online, though I prefer to smell the blends firstand Luli has an excellent range. Eco-Candle also makes a nice soothing lavender-lemon blend that has a nice fresh but sherbet smell that would help almost anyonerelax (available at Luli Boutique). You can also diffuse lavender oil (either alone orblended with another oil) in a simple diffuser, or there are excellent room spraysavailable.

While your there you might also check out the range of 100% pure essential oilblend candles made by Montserrat. These all-natural candles come in healingblends as well as formula’s traditionally used to bring luck, good fortune, gooddreams, and arouse states of peace and tranquility. Some blends include; “Peaceon Earth”; “Good Fortune”; “Prayer Wheel”; and“Mystic Rose”. Each candle is hand-made and comes with explanatory label and good-luck bauble.

Penhaligon’s

As with everything made by Penhaligon’s, their candles are nothing short ofexceptional. All are made with real essential oils and are long-burning. My favoriteamong the Penhaligon’s scents is their “Blenheim Bouquet”, which comes as acologne (unisex but made for men) and as a candle. A good way to try out thecologne is to purchase the candle first: this way you’re not wearing the fragrancebut you get to sit with it for a while, though keep in mind that a fragrance burned asa candle and one worn on the skin are likely to smell slightly different. Fragrancealso changes on the skin and so varies from person-to-person. If I could, I wouldhave Blenheim scented everything, frankly – in candle, on my skin, on my sheets.

Blenheim derives its name from the Blenheim Palace, a large, fabulous countryestate in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England and one of the oldest non-episcopalpalaces in Britain. The cologne was developed in 1902 by Walter Penhaligons.

For a lovely home fragrance I also really like “Samarkand” which reminds me ofwinter nights in New York City and days in the countryside near the ocean on colddays. It has a warm, rich smell – something you would expect to find at a five-starhotel where the brass is polished daily and the patrons still know how to dress. Thisis the smell of a special night out, maybe even black-tie. I like to burn it every day.

Also check out “Quercas” which also comes as a spicy, rather opulent cologne thatsmells like a fabulous spice cabinet with a dry top-note. Other candles include“Malabah” and “Elixir”. Penhaligon’s products are sometimes available throughother retailers (if they are not, you might suggest to your retailer that they carry thisproduct). Saks Fifth Avenue often has Penhaligons as does Newton,Massachusetts’s very excellent store, Colonial Drug.

Yankee Candle Company

I’ve always counted on Yankee Candle Company for good scents. There are manycandle-makers but few are as concentrate and offer the offered by this company.

I am a big fan of winter smells, so I like Balsam Fir, Snow is Glistening”, andanything that smells like a real fire (check out “Dream By The Fire”). Burning a

fireplace scent makes you feel like you have a fireplace even if you don’t, or it doesfor me. I burn this in the wintertime and feel almost instantly calmer, warmer, moreconnected with my neighbors who have those wonderfully fragrant woodfiresburning that send light plumes of smoke to the grey winter sky. Perfect on a snowyor cold day. Check out “Autumn Leaves” as well. The company Website has over 49pages of candles listed, ranging in price from $17 to approximately $28. I’ve foundthat most Yankee scents are true to their name. So, if it says it smells like afireplace odds are it does. If it is called “Autumn Leaves” it smells just like Autumn.Same for Lilac, Lavender, etc etc. I’m not sure whether or not Yankee uses allnatural scents. I sort of doubt that they do. That said, their candles never smellheadachey or fake. They are well-crafted and generally not overly sweet, but youcan generally tell by the name in this case. Some to check out in the Winter season:“Autumn Lodge”; “Balsam & Cedar”; “Camp Fire”.

Votivo candle (classic).Source: Votivo

Source: photo by Sadi Ranson. Eco-Candle Company at Luli Boutique, Providence

Some Other Notable ProductsClaire Burke

I really like the smell of good pot-pourri – the way it used to smell which was ofdried rose leaf and wood smells and slightly spicey. My favorite in this genre isClaire Burke Original. Unlike a lot of fragrances (for home or body or candle) thathave changed their formula, Claire Burke has remained remarkably steadfast. Theoriginal smells like it always did – which is a good thing because the original wasand still is great. You can find Claire Burke on Amazon (which has a great manycandle types, essential oils, diffusers etc) or you can find it on the Claire Burke Web

site, or, you might find it at a local retailer. I’ve noticed that coastal towns often carrythis product. Check out the candles by this company as well. They have the samegreat scent blends and all have a wonderful lasting quality. I tried to find out whatoils and herbs are used to create this wonderful fragrance but had no luck. To guardit, they must keep the formula secure. It is a complex scent and I had trouble evendetermining the top note. Suffice to say it is slightly spicy (but not too), slightlyincensey, and with a very dry rose note. It is never cloying.

Nature's Fusions - Eye of the Storm Therapeutic Essential Oil Blend - 15 ml.

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Last updated on October 27, 2014