The science of scent is quite amazing. You’ll catch a whiff of perfume or something baking, and it will strike a chord in your memory. The sense of smell is fully developed at birth, and will be the dominant sense until sight matures as a child ages. Scent and emotion are often intertwined. Taste and scent are fully integrated as you determine flavour as much through your nose as you do with your mouth.
Scent is personal, with connotations unique to each individual. An odour is just a smell until we associate it with something. Smell a skunk, and you carefully check your back yard before letting the dog out. Open a box you’ve stored your late mother’s jewelry in, and the memories are instant. Smell bacon cooking, and try not to be happy! And newborn babies smell like newborn babies, a soft, heart-tugging scent.
We like nice smells, such as florals, spices, natural scents like salt air or the woods. That’s why scent producers work so hard to make fragrances we want. Sometimes we want a scent that will cover up or disperse a bad smell. That’s how room deodorizers work, cleaning up the air. And it’s why I burn a citrus candle while cooking fish.
The company known as ‘Retellings of Classic’ offers a number of ways to pleasantly scent your home or work space. It starts with the packaging which uses classic William Morris prints on the labels. It’s an elegant look. Then the fragrances themselves are traditional and familiar, maybe in new combinations. How about Shea Butter, Coconut & White Floral, or Peony, Peach & Musky Vanilla? The citrusy Grapefruit, Musk & Heliotrope is very fresh, and the Clean Cotton, Cyclamen & Cedar puts you in mind of a wooded garden.
There are several ways to enjoy ‘Retellings of Classic’. The most passive is with a reed diffuser. The fragrant oil is in a glass bottle, with reeds ready to insert. Once the reeds are placed in the oil, the scent is absorbed and released into the air. It’s a gently process. Even more subtle is the bottle with a spongy flower that goes into the top. The same thing happens with the scent travelling up the ‘stem’ and releasing into the air.
One of the quickest ways to scent a room is by spraying a couple of spritzes. ‘Retellings of Classic’ has two sizes available, a 60ml purse size (perfect for bathrooms) and the larger 240ml with a trigger spray. One trick is to spray once or twice onto a light bulb, before turning it on. Once it’s on, the heat from the bulb diffuses the scent into the air. Make sure your bulb is cold before spraying!
As we go into fall, our windows are closed more often and there is less ‘freshness’ to our indoor air. A spritz of scent or a passive release of fragrance can make our space feel better. Remembering that scent is connected to what we feel and think, this can improve moods and uplift our spirits as the days grow shorter.
Did you know? Using scent, or aromatherapy, goes back over 5000 years, to the ancient Egyptians. They used fragrance in many rituals, as did ancient China and Greece.