A HISTORY OF FRAGRANCE
Much of the ancient history of fragrance is shrouded in mystery. Anthropologists speculate that primitive perfumery began with the burning of gums and resins for incense. Eventually, richly scented plants were incorporated into animal and vegetable oils to anoint the body for ceremony and pleasure. From 7000 to 4000 BC, the fatty oils of olive and sesame are thought to have been combined with fragrant plants to create the original Neolithic ointments. Perhaps fragrant leaves or flowers accidentally dropped into fat as meat cooked over a fire. Somehow, early peoples discovered that aromatic plants preserved and added flavor to food. When mixed into animal fats, these same plants became unguents that healed wounds and smoothed dry skin.
Eventually, fragrant fats—the forerunners of our modern massage and body lotions—were used to scent the wearer, protect skin and hair from weather and insects, and relax sore muscles. And they altered emotions. As civilizations became more advanced, incense and body oils were made into blends to heal body, mind, and spirit. Thus, throughout the world, aroma became an integral part of healing and laid the foundation for our use of aromatherapy today. The earliest items of commerce were most likely spices, gums, and other fragrant plants reserved for religious purposes. Fortunately, gums, seeds, and herbs could be dried, and fragrant plants could be infused into oil or solid perfumes that retained, and even improved, their properties while making them extremely portable.
Early Beginnings: Egypt and the Middle East
In 2800 BC, when the Egyptians were learning to write and make bricks, they already had a word for “incense,” ntyw, and were importing large quantities of myrrh. King Isesi sent an expedition to obtain myrrh and other gums from Punt on the African coast (Pwenet, or modern Eritrea). The great Queen Hatshepsut knew a business opportunity when she saw one. As one of her greatest accomplishments, she sent ships to bring thirty-one myrrh trees back to Egypt. They were planted to line the walkway leading to her massive temple of Deir al-Bahari near Thebes. On the temple walls, you can still see the images of the myrrh trees carved in bas-relief.
Other queens also made their mark on aromatic history. When the Queen of Sheba paid her famous visit to the courts of Israel’s King Solomon, it was to discuss the fragrance trade. Some sources say she was from southwestern Arabia, the land of frankincense and myrrh, but it is more likely that she was a queen of a north Arabian tribe that traded the fragrant terebinth resin from pistachio trees.
On a 1974 archaeological expedition to the Indus Valley (which runs the length of modern Pakistan), Paolo Rovesti, PhD, found an unusual terra-cotta apparatus, displayed along with terra-cotta perfume containers, in a Taxila museum. It looked like a primitive still, although the 3000 BC dating would place it four thousand years earlier than most sources date the invention of distillation. Then a vessel of similar design, from around 2000 BC, was discovered in Afghanistan. Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets from the thirteenth to the twelfth centuries BC describe elaborate egg-shaped vessels containing coils; again, their function is unknown, but they are quite similar to Arab itriz used for distillation much later in the history of the region.
Even if essential oils were available at such an early date, most man-made fragrances were still in the form of incense and ointments. During the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid (c. 2700 BC), papyrus manuscripts recorded the use of fragrant herbs, choice oils, perfumes, and temple incense, and told of healing salves made of fragrant resins. Throughout the African continent, people coated their skin with fragrant oils to protect themselves from the hot, dry sun. This practice extended to the Mediterranean, where athletes were anointed with scented unguents before competing.
From this same era, the Epic of Gilgamesh tells of the legendary king of Ur in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) burning ntyw, incense of cedarwood and myrrh, to put the gods and goddesses into pleasant moods. A tablet from neighboring Babylonia contains an import order for scented ointments; a third suggests medicinal uses for cypress. Still farther east, the Chinese Yellow Emperor Book of Internal Medicine, written in 2697 BC, explains various uses of aromatic herbs.
Trade routes to obtain fragrant goods were established throughout the Middle East well before 1700 BC and were well traveled for the next thirty centuries. The Old Testament describes one group of early traders as “a company of Ishmaelites [Arabs] from Gilead, bearing spicery, balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.” Overland trade meant grueling months, or even years, crossing arid deserts and negotiating difficult mountain passes while being threatened by bandits. But it was the only way to move the precious spice cargo. Then, possibly as early as 1500 BC, monsoon winds began carrying double-outrigger canoes along the cinnamon route. Egyptian and eventually Roman traders took advantage of these same winds to take them to India in the summer and home again in the winter.
Egypt’s penchant for producing unguents and incense was to become legendary. A statue of King Thothraes IV, carved into the base of the Sphinx at Giza, has offered devotional incense and oil libations since 1425 BC. There is little doubt that Egyptian aromas were potent: calcite pots filled with spices, such as frankincense preserved in fat, still gave off a faint odor when opened in King Tutankhamen’s tomb three thousand years later. Egyptians were particularly creative with scent and did not restrict it to religious rites. As depicted in wall paintings, solid ointments of spikenard and other aromatics, called “bit cones,” were worn on the heads of dancers and musicians, where they were allowed to gradually—and dramatically—melt down over hair and body. An individual’s special odor, or khaibt, was represented with a hieroglyphic of a fan and was considered capable of influencing the emotions of others.
The most famous Egyptian fragrance, kyphi (the name means “welcome to the gods”), was said to induce hypnotic states. The City of the Sun, Heliopolis, burned resins in the morning, myrrh at noon, and kyphi at sunset to the sun god Ra. Kyphi had more than religious uses, however. It could lull one to sleep, alleviate anxieties, increase dreaming, eliminate sorrow, treat asthma, and act as a general antidote for toxins. Several recipes are recorded, one of the oldest being a heady blend of calamus, henna, spikenard, frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, cypress, and terebinth (pistachio resin), among other ingredients. Cubes of incense were prepared by mixing ground gums and plants with honey similar to a technique used by the Babylonians and later adapted by both Romans and Greeks.
The Hebrews employed fragrance to consecrate their temples, altars, candles, and priests. The book of Exodus (c. 1200 BC) provides the recipe for the holy anointing oil given to Moses for the initiation of priests: myrrh, cinnamon, and calamus, mixed with olive oil. Although Moses decreed severe punishment for anyone who obtained holy oils and incense for secular use, not all aromatics were restricted to religious use. We learn in the bible’s book of Proverbs that “ointment and perfume rejoice in the heart” (27:9), while in the Song of Solomon (1:13–14) we read:
"A bundle of myrrh is my beloved unto me;
He shall lie all night between my breasts;
My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire (henna)
In the vineyards of En-gedi."
The Classical Ancient World: Greece and Rome
Today cities prosper and fail with the fluctuating price of oil. So, too, did they in ancient times. However, it was fragrant herbs and spices that sparked growth of key cities along the avenues of commerce. With the introduction of camels as pack animals, the city of Alexandria developed into an active trading hub linking several trade routes including one to Arabia that was two thousand miles away. As trade routes expanded, Africa, South Arabia, and India began to supply spikenard, cymbopogons, and ginger to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean civilizations; Phoenician merchants traded in Chinese camphor and Indian cinnamon, pepper, and sandalwood; Syrians brought fragrant goods to Arabia. True myrrh and frankincense from distant Yemen finally reached the Mediterranean by 300 BC, by way of Persian traders. Traffic on the trade routes continued to swell as demand increased for roses, calamus, orris root, narcissus, saffron, mastic, oak moss, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, nutmeg, ginger, costus, spikenard, aloeswood, grasses, and gum resins.
A thriving market developed in Babylon for the solid perfume trade, extensively offering cedar of Lebanon, cypress, pine, fir resin, myrtle, calamus, and juniper. When the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, they brought back a heightened appreciation of fragrance, especially in the form of incense. In the seventh century BC, Athens was a mercantile center famous for the hundreds of perfumers that set up shop there. Trade was heavy in fragrant herbs such as marjoram, lily, thyme, sage, anise, rose, and iris, infused into olive, almond, castor, and linseed oils to make thick unguents and solid incense/perfumes. These were sold in small, elaborately decorated ceramic pots, similar to the smaller jars still sold in Athens today. Phoenician merchants brought Chinese camphor, cinnamon, black pepper, and sandalwood from India. Africa, South Arabia, and India supplied lemongrass, ginger, and spikenard. Astute traders knew which locales produced the best products.
The ancient Greek world was also rich in fragrance. Just one Greek word, arómata, describes incense, perfume, spices, and aromatic medicines. One such concoction, manufactured by a perfumer named Megallus, was the legendary megaleion, which contained burnt resin, cassia, cinnamon, and myrrh, and was used in the treatment of wounds and inflammation. At Delphi, the oracle priestesses sat over smoldering fumes of bay leaves to inspire an intoxicating trance; holes in the floor allowed the smoke to “magically” surround them.
While Socrates heartily disapproved of perfume, worrying that it might blur distinctions between slaves (who smelled of sweat) and free men (who apparently did not), it was not so with Alexander the Great. When he entered the tent of the defeated King Darius after the battle of Issos, Alexander contemptuously threw out the king’s box of priceless ointments and perfumes, but later, after a few years of travel in Asia, he learned to love aromatics. And in his wake, he left the lands he conquered desiring more aromatics. In the fourth century BC, he sent deputies to Yemen and Oman to find the source of the Arabian incense with which he anointed his body and that burned constantly by his throne. To his Athenian classmate Theophrastus of Eresus, he sent plant cuttings obtained during his extensive travels, thus establishing a botanical garden in Athens. Theophrastus’s treatise On Odors covered all the basics: blending perfumes, shelf life, using wine with aromatics, properties that carry scent, and the effect of odor on the mind and body. Alexander’s teacher, Aristotle, organized odors into the classifications of pungent, harsh, astringent, and rich. This was also the time of the Alexandria school of medicine, which drew scholars from Europe and the Middle East. Hippocrates, called the “Father of Medicine,” was a great Greek healer with a school on the Isle of Cos. His Hippocratic oath is still repeated by doctors today, and he is credited with freeing Athenians from the plague by burning aromatic plants in the city. In happier times, he recommended the healthful use of aromatic oils in the bath.
By the first century AD, Rome was going through about 2,800 tons of imported frankincense and 550 tons of myrrh per year. Both men and women literally bathed in perfume while attended by slaves called cosmetae. Three types of perfume were applied to the body: solid unguents, scented oil, and perfumed powders, all purchased from the shops of unguentarii, who were regarded every bit as highly as doctors. The Romans even referred to their sweethearts as “my myrrh” and “my cinnamon,” much as we use the gustatory endearments “honey” and “sweetie pie.” Since ancient times, the wealthy and powerful have been able to drown themselves in fragrance. In fact, one unfortunate Roman literally did die. He was asphyxiated when the carved ivory ceilings in his dining rooms, which had been fitted with concealed pipes, sprayed down mists of fragrant waters on guests below, while panels slid aside to shower guests with fresh rose petals. This was in 54 AD, and Nero had spent the equivalent of $100,000 to scent the party.
The Roman historian Pliny, author of the impressive first-century AD Natural History, mentions thirty-two remedies prepared from rose, twenty-one from lily, seventeen from violet, and twenty-five from pennyroyal. Famous Roman blends of the era include susinon, which served not only as a perfume but also as a diuretic and women’s anti-inflammatory tonic, and amarakinon, used to treat indigestion and hemorrhoids and to encourage menstruation. A similar spikenard ointment was suggested for coughs and laryngitis.
Mention of fragrance occurs, at least symbolically, throughout the New Testament records. The frankincense and myrrh brought to the Christ child were more valuable than the gift of gold (if indeed it was gold; some New Testament scholars speculate that the three wise men (magi) may have been carrying gold-colored, fragrant ambergris). One of the most famous gospel scenes involves Judas Iscariot complaining about Mary Magdalene anointing Christ’s feet with costly spikenard. Even the Greek word for “Christ,” Christos, means “anointed” from the Greek chriein, “to anoint.”
Indeed, the first century AD was a time of accelerated development of aromatherapy’s source sciences. Aromatic plants were one of the five sections covered in the Greek physician Dioscorides’ famous Herbal, which remained a popular medical reference for the next thousand years. In the third century, BC, he had the entire city of Athens fumigated with the smoke of aromatic plants to successfully eradicate the plague, a practice that would later be adopted in medieval Europe. The first written description of a distiller in the Western world is of one invented by Maria Prophetissima and described in The Gold-Making of Cleopatra, an Alexandrian text from around the first century. (Her design was used initially to distill essential oils, but it also proved useful for alcoholic beverages.) Gnostic Christians from the first to the fourth century AD, whose beliefs were deeply rooted in Egyptian philosophy, held fragrance in high regard. Seeking release from the limitations of the material world, they embraced the symbology of essential oils, which represented the soul of the plant.
Orientalia
Distillation of essential oils and use of aromatics also progressed in the Far East. Like the Gnostic Christians, Chinese Taoists believed that extraction of a plant’s fragrance represented the liberation of its soul. Like the Greeks, the Chinese had just one word, heang, for perfume, incense, and fragrance. Moreover, heang was classified into six basic types according to the mood induced: tranquil, reclusive, luxurious, beautiful, refined, or noble.
The Chinese upper classes made lavish use of fragrance during the Tang dynasty, which began in the seventh century AD, and continued to do so until the end of the Ming dynasty in the seventeenth century. Their bodies, baths, clothes, homes, and temples were all richly scented, as were ink, paper, sachets tucked into their garments, and cosmetics. The ribs of fans were carved from fragrant sandalwood. Huge, fragrant statues of the Buddha were carved from camphor wood. Spectators at dances and other ceremonies could expect to be pelted with perfumed sachets.
To facilitate trade, the Chinese adopted the Indian system of counting. By the eleventh century, Arabs were navigating spice-laden ships from India to China with the Chinese compass and balanced stern rudders on their ships. During the next century, the Chinese navy grew from three thousand to fifty thousand sailors to accommodate large vessels that each hauled as much as six thousand baskets filled with fragrant herbs and spices. Jasmine-scented sesame oil arrived from India, Persian rosewater was brought via the Silk Route, and eventually, Indonesian aromatics—cloves, gum benzoin, ginger, nutmeg, and patchouli—came through India.
Numerous texts related to aromatherapy were published in China. The Hsian Pu treatise by Hung Chu, written about 1100 AD, and devoted to making incense, was followed by several similar works. The sixteenth century saw publication of the famous Chinese materia medica Pen Ts’ao, which discusses almost two thousand herbs, including a separate section on twenty essential oils. Jasmine was used as a general tonic; rose improved digestion, liver, and blood; chamomile reduced headaches, dizziness, and colds; ginger treated coughs and malaria.
It was the Japanese, however, who turned the use of incense into a fine art, even though incense didn’t arrive in Japan until very late, around 500 AD. By then, the Japanese had also perfected a distillation process. By the fourth to the sixth centuries, incense pastes of powdered herbs mixed with plum pulp, seaweed, charcoal, and salt were pressed into cones, spirals, or letters, then burned on beds of ashes. Special schools taught (and still teach) kodo, the art of perfumery. Students learned how to burn incense ceremonially and performed story dances for incense-burning rituals. According to this tradition, the scent of incense keeps one both alert and peaceful.
From the Nara through the Kamakura periods (710–1333), small lacquer cases containing perfumes hung from a clasp on the kimono (the container for today’s Opium brand perfume was inspired by one of these). An incense-stick clock changed its scent as time passed, but also dropped a brass ball in case no one was paying attention. A more sophisticated clock announced the time according to the chimney from which the fragrant smoke issued. A special headrest called a koh-makura imparted perfumed smoke to a lady’s hair as her attendant was combing it. Geisha girls calculated the cost of their services according to how many sticks of incense had been consumed.
Clothing was scented by hanging it over a rack that contained sticks of incense inside. The world’s first novel, Prince Genji, written by Lady Murasaki Shikibu in eleventh century Japan, describes the practice of scenting the sleeves of one’s kimonos. Small incense burners were “held for a moment inside each sleeve” so that scent floated about whenever a motion was made with the hand. Japan’s earliest anthology of poems, the Kokinshu from 905 AD, refers to this practice, saying, “Whose scented sleeves have brushed the blossoms in my garden?”
The Middle Ages
The spread of Islam helped to expand appreciation and knowledge of fragrance. Muhammad himself, whose life spanned the sixth and seventh centuries, is said to have loved children, women, and fragrance above all else. His favorite scent was probably camphire (henna), but the rose came to permeate the Muslim culture. Rosewater purified the mosque, scented gloves, flavored sherbet, and Turkish delight, and was sprinkled on guests from a flask called a gulabdan. Prayer beads made from gum arabic and rose petals released their scent when handled.
Following the translation of the Western classics into Arabic in the seventh century, Arab alchemists in search of the “quintessence” of plants found it represented in essential oils. The Book of Perfume Chemistry and Distillation by Yakub al-Kindi (803–870) describes many essential oils, including imported Chinese camphor. Gerber (Jabir ibn Hayyan) of Arabia, in his Summa Perfectionis, wrote several chapters on distillation. Credit for improving (and sometimes, erroneously, for discovering) distillation goes to Ibn-Sina, known in the West as Avicenna (980–1037), the Arab alchemist, astronomer, philosopher, mathematician, physician, and poet. His primary work, Al-Qanun fi’l Tibb, or the Canon of Medicine, became one of the most influential treatises in the Middle East on Tibb medicine and eventually influenced Western medicine, where it was translated at the end of the twelfth century. Essential oils and aromatic herbs were used extensively in his practice, and one of his hundred books was devoted entirely to roses.
A thirteenth-century text written by the Arab physician Al-Samarqandi was also filled with aromatherapeutic lore, with a chapter on aromatic baths and another on aromatic salves and powders. Steams and incenses of marjoram, thyme, wormwood, chamomile, fennel, mint, hyssop, and dill were suggested for sinus or ear infection. Herbs were burned in gourds, breathed as vapors, or sprinkled on hot stones or bricks.
The Muslim ruler Barbur, one of India’s Mogul kings, declared, “One may prefer the fragrance of India to those of the flowers of the whole world.” The twelfth-century East Indian text, the Someshvara, described a daily bath ritual in which fragrant oils of jasmine, coriander, cardamom, basil, costus, pandanus, agarwood, pine, saffron, champac, and clove-scented sesame oil were applied. Participants in Tantric ceremonies were also anointed with oils, the men with sandalwood, the women with the bouquet of jasmine on their hands, patchouli on their necks and cheeks, amber on their breasts, spikenard on their hair, musk on their abdomens, sandalwood on their thighs, and saffron on their feet. In other rituals, women called dainyals held cloths over their heads to capture Tibetan cedar smoke, which would send them into prophetic chanting. Special finger rings held small compartments filled with musk or amber. Indian temple doors carved from sandalwood invited worshipers to enter (and conveniently deterred termites).
In Europe, a shining light of the Middle Ages was the abbess Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), an herbalist whose four treatises on medicinal herbs included Causae et Curae (Causes and Cures of Illness), in which she spoke highly of fragrant herbs—especially of her favorite, lavender (some sources credit her with the invention of lavender water). European nuns and monks closely guarded the formulas for “Carmelite water,” which contained melissa, angelica, and other herbs, and for aqua mirabilis, a “miracle water” used to improve memory and vision, and to reduce rheumatic pain, fever, melancholy, and congestion.
From the ninth to the fifteenth centuries, the Medical School of Salernum (Salerno) in Italy drew scholars from both the West and the East and crowned its graduates with bay-laurel wreaths. Here much Western knowledge, preserved and refined by the Muslims after the fall of Alexandria, was reestablished in the West. The school’s Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum was a kind of medical bible for many centuries.
Influence of the Spice Trade
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries AD, Italy monopolized the Eastern trade that had been established during the Crusades. Although certainly not the intention, the Crusades that spanned the eleventh through the twelfth centuries acquainted the European population with Arabian ideas and fostered an appreciation of Eastern aromatics. This was despite repeated warnings by the medieval Catholic priesthood that fragrance was associated with Satan (a stance that later changed as incense became an important feature of Catholic Mass). Crusaders returned bearing gifts of perfumes and fragrant oils and waters. Soon the European elite demanded rosewater, and Italians could not live without the addition of orange water to their sweet confections.
The guilds—grocers, spicers, apothecaries, perfumers, and glovers—controlled the import of enormous quantities of spices used to disinfect cities against the plague and other maladies. Spices were burned in public squares to fight infection. The purpose of Marco Polo’s late-thirteenth-century journey to Kublai Khan’s court in China was to establish direct trade. His merchant family in Italy dreamed of bypassing Muslim middlemen and their 300 percent markup in price by convincing the Orient to trade directly with Genoa. The plan proved so successful that throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Italy monopolized Eastern trade with Europe. Spain was not to be outdone. When Christopher Columbus stumbled on the New World in 1492, he intended to finally make Spain a bigger player in the spice trade by beating out the competition. His route to the East was shorter. Tobacco, coca leaves, vanilla, potatoes, and chilies of the Americas were of great interest to the rest of the world. Columbus kept looking for cloves and cinnamon but never did find these spices.
It was the good fortune of the Portuguese to establish a route around the tip of Africa, or “Cape of Storms,” which was later renamed “Cape of Good Hope.” They had managed to circumvent Alexandria and Constantinople. In 1498, Vasco da Gama’s sailors cheered, “Christos e espiciarias!” (“For Christ and spices!”) as they neared India and her wealth of cloves, ginger, benzoin, and pepper. They returned with so much spice, the streets of London were said to be rolling in nutmeg! (Jealous, Venice persuaded the Muslim traders to fight the Portuguese, who now controlled the spice trade, but they were not successful.) The trade thus shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
India—always prominent in the spice trade, although more as a pawn than a player—offered a rich variety of scents that included seventeen types of jasmine alone. The amazing number of aromatic and medicinal plants there was eventually described when the British published an extensive set of volumes on medicinal and fragrant botanicals titled The Wealth of India. It was the British, following the lead of the Portuguese, who finally attained a share of the action in the seventeenth century. After building forts and exploiting the friction between the Muslims and Hindus, the Dutch then forcibly took control of India and established the Dutch East India Company. Their range also extended into parts of Indonesia. In areas where they couldn’t take control, they simply uprooted spice trees, such as cloves and nutmeg. However, the French did manage to slip some plants out from under Dutch noses. These were planted in the French West Indies and especially on the island of Bourbon, now called Réunion. Essential oils bearing the names of Bourbon or Réunion still come from there.
The Americas
Columbus’s assumptions were correct in one respect at least. The Americas indeed held fragrant treasures: balsam of Peru and tolu, juniper, American cedar, sassafras, and tropical flowers such as vanilla, heady with perfume. Like other indigenous peoples around the world, the Native Americans had a long history of burning incense and using scented ointments. Throughout the Americas, massage with fragrant oils was a common form of therapy.
The Aztecs were as extravagant with incense as the Egyptians, and they too manufactured ornate vessels in which to burn it. Injured Aztecs were massaged with scented salves in sweat lodges, or temazcalli. The Incas made massage ointments of valerian and other herbs thickened with seaweed. In Central America, the Mayans steamed their patients one at a time in cramped clay structures.
Throughout the continent, North Americans “smudged” sick people with tight bundles of fragrant herbs or braided “sweet grass” (Hierochloe odorata), which smells like vanilla. Congestion, rheumatism, headaches, fainting, and other ills were treated with smoke from burning plants, or with a strong herb infusion thrown over hot rocks to produce scented steam. The people of the Great Plains used echinacea as a smoke treatment for headaches; many tribes used pungent plants such as goldenrod, fleabane, and pearly everlasting for therapeutic purposes.
Scents and “Sophistication”
Even after losing control over the spice trade, Italy remained the European leader for cosmetics and perfumes. As Venice became more cosmopolitan, it began to produce scented pastes, gloves, stockings, shoes, shirts, and even fragrant coins. Our word pomander comes from the French words pomme d’ambre, a scented ball made of ambergris, spices, wine, and honey, carried in a perforated container on the belt or on a string around the neck. Dried medicinals were stored in beautiful porcelain pots, and botanical waters were kept in Venetian glass.
The Italian influence swept through France, helped along by Caterina de Medici’s marriage to France’s Prince Henri II. Making the journey with her were her alchemist (who probably made her poisons too, but that’s another story) and her perfumer, who set up shop in Paris. The towns of Montpellier and Grasse, already strongly influenced by neighboring Genoa, had long produced the perfumed gloves that were in high style among the elite. The gloves were most often perfumed with neroli or with animal scents such as ambergris and civet. Apparently, this wasn’t always appreciated. A seventeenth-century dramatist, Philip Massinger, complained, “Lady, I would descend to kiss thy hand/but that ’tis gloved, and civet makes me sick.” These towns took the lead, as France’s growing fragrance trade began to predominate over Italy’s.
England was also influenced by the Italian love of scent. A pair of scented gloves so captured the attention of Queen Elizabeth I, she had a perfumed leather cape and shoes made to match. Sixteenth-century Elizabethans powdered their skin, hair, and clothes with fragrant powders and toned their skin with scented vinegars and fragrant waters. Like the Roman blends, these waters doubled as internal medicines.
The number of plants distilled expanded in the sixteenth century, and many books appeared on alchemy and the art of distillation. In 1732, when the Italian Giovanni Maria Farina took over his uncle’s business in Cologne, he produced aqua admirabilis, a lively blend of neroli, bergamot, lavender, and rosemary in rectified grape spirit. This was splashed on the skin and used for treating sore gums and indigestion. French soldiers stationed there dubbed it eau de Cologne, and Napoleon is said to have gone through several bottles a day—an endorsement that made it so popular that thirty-nine competitors and half a century of lawsuits resulted. Other fashionable fragrances included rose, violet, and patchouli, which were used on the imported Indian shawls made popular by Napoleon’s famous consort, Josephine.
The Modern World
In the nineteenth century, two important changes occurred in the Western world of fragrance. The 1867 Paris International Exhibition exhibited perfumes and soaps apart from the pharmacy section, thus establishing an independent commercial arena for “cosmetics.” Even more significant was the product of the first synthetic fragrance, coumarin (which smells of newly mown hay) in 1868, followed twenty years later by musk, vanilla, and violet. Eventually this list expanded to many hundreds, even thousands, of synthetic fragrances—the first perfumes unsuitable for medicinal use.
France became the leader in reestablishing the therapeutic uses of fragrance. The perfume industry had been divorced from medicinal remedies for fifty years, but slowly began to reclaim its medicinal heritage. The term aromatherapy was coined in 1928 by French chemist René-Maurice Gattefossé. His interest in therapeutically using essential oils was stimulated by a laboratory explosion in his family’s perfumery business in which his hand was severely burned. He plunged the injured hand into a container of lavender oil and was amazed at how quickly it healed.
By the 1960s, a few people, including the French doctor Jean Valnet, MD, and the Austrian-born biochemist Madame Marguerite Maury, were inspired by Gattefossé’s work. As an army surgeon in World War II, Dr. Valnet used essential oils such as thyme, clove, lemon, and chamomile on wounds and burns and later found fragrances successful in treating psychiatric problems. But while Valnet helped inspire a modern aromatherapy movement when his book Aromatherapie was translated into English as The Practice of Aromatherapy, the 1977 appearance of masseur Robert Tisserand’s book The Art of Aromatherapy, strongly influenced by the work of Valnet and Gattefossé, successfully captured American interest. At present, there are many books available on aromatherapy.
Most important, the efforts of pioneers such as Valnet, Maury, Tisserand, and others have turned aromatherapy into a disciplined healing art, rediscovering the uses of fragrance from ancient times and sparking a revival of aromatherapy that has swept throughout the world.
THE SENSE OF SMELL
Sensitivity to fragrance is—to a large extent—culturally determined, and there is no doubt that the culture in which we live influences our perceptions of which scents are “acceptable,” “normal,” or “pleasant.” Individual emotions that are associated with scent can change our perception of what we experience. That’s why different people can have very different emotional responses to the same odor. The reaction to vanilla, for instance, seems to vary among cultures: it is comforting to Americans, but has little effect on most Japanese people, probably because the unfamiliar scent has no link to their childhood memories. At one time, a strong body odor could disqualify men from the Japanese military service. Since Asians have fewer hair follicles, and therefore fewer apocrine glands than Westerners, they are culturally less accustomed to body odor. In a 1991 address to Summit 2000: Preparing for the First Global Civilization, Susan Schiffman, MD, a psychology professor at Duke University in North Carolina, speculated that exposing people to the smells from clothing, foods, and other items of different cultures engenders tolerance for others and promotes world peace. She suggests that children purposely be exposed to multicultural scents so they grow into tolerant adults. We do know that unidentified odors tend to make a person anxious.
Because our reactions to different scents are influenced by our personal experiences, a culture’s general attitude toward certain scents can change over time. For example, the clean scent of lemon, and especially lemon eucalyptus, reminds many people of furniture polish, cleaning products, or bug repellents. Monell Chemical Senses Center’s Susan Knasko says that everything is scented, which affects her research since people are learning to recognize scents out of context and not from their true origin. She found that subjects who are eighteen to forty-five years old often think the woodsy scent of pine is a cleaning product or mistake it for lemon since the two are so commonly used in these products. Young people are more accustomed to synthetic, chemical smells that are replacing natural ones.
Whatever your personal perceptions and preferences, there is no denying that the impact of odor is profound, if subtle. In her book Scent, Annick LeGuerer wrote the following:
"Humans produce a characteristic odor in the air around them that reflects their diet and/or health, their age, their sex, occupation, and race. It can be argued that because of the physiology of the olfactory apparatus, the most direct and profound impression we can have of another person is his (or her) smell. Indeed, smell bypasses the thalamus in the brain and penetrates directly to that organ’s oldest part, the rhinencephalon, known to the Greeks as the “olfactory brain,” where it produces, willy-nilly, pleasure or repugnance."
Smell is our most direct means of communication with nature. We smell with every breath we take, constantly monitoring the world around us, although we are not always conscious that we are doing so. (Just eight molecules of a substance can trigger an electrical impulse in a nerve ending, whereas roughly forty nerve endings must be stimulated before we become conscious of any smell.) In the words of twentieth-century writer, philosopher, explorer, and anthropologist Laurens Van Der Post, “Scent … is not only biologically the oldest but also the most evocative of all our senses. It goes deeper than conscious thought or organized memory and has a will of its own which human imagination is compelled to obey.”
To fully understand aromatherapy and the effects of essential oils, we must arrive at a basic understanding of two physiological processes: how the olfactory apparatus works and how essential oils are absorbed into the body.
How the Brain Processes Odor
Odors are the effects of volatile molecules that float through the air, rushing through our nostrils as we inhale. There are three stages in the process of smelling: Fragrance begins with the reception of odor molecules, which, as they are inhaled, travel inside the nose to dissolve in the mucous within a membrane called the olfactory epithelium (receptor cells that contain, in all, some twenty million nerve endings). Odor transmission occurs when a message is fired to the right and left olfactory bulbs, located above and behind the nose at the base of the brain, each about the size and shape of a small lima bean. At this point, a variety of cells and neurons interpret, amplify, and transmit the message to the limbic system. This system contains the hypothalamus, Proust’s hippocampus, olfactory cortex, and amygdala. Perception takes place when the message is received by the hypothalamus. Acting as a relay station, the hypothalamus sends information to other parts of the brain, such as the pituitary gland, which sends chemical messages into:
• the bloodstream
• the olfactory cortex, which helps distinguish odors
• the thalamus, which helps connect odor messages with higher thought functions
• the neocortex, which finely analyzes odor messages, relating them to the other senses, as well as to the higher brain functions that stimulate conscious thought.
All this happens in less than a second. Columbia University researchers isolated, for the first time in medical history, what they believe to be odor receptors. This large family of genes—perhaps numbering as many as one thousand—is much more complex than the three types of receptors the eye uses to distinguish a few thousand colors. The average adult can process about ten thousand different odors in an area of the brain about one square inch.
The ability to detect so many different odors is also crucial to our sense of taste. While the tongue’s receptors distinguish only a few tastes, all other sensations perceived as taste are in fact odors. Taste is usually described as only the basic four: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. However, in his book Sensory Neurophysiology, former University of Texas taste physiologist James C. Boudreau, PhD, said he believes that there may be more than twenty distinct human taste sensations. Some that he adds to the basic four are two types of sweet, insipid, metallic, pungent, burning, warm and cool (as in menthol), astringent-dry, and astringent-tangy. Even so, it is estimated that about 80 percent of taste sensations rely on our sense of smell. Just about everyone has experienced a cold that deadens the sense of smell, resulting in a loss of taste.
Smell is the only sense with receptor nerve endings in direct contact with the outside world, providing a direct channel, as it were, to the brain. The “blood-brain barrier” is a lipid-rich (that is, oil-rich) membrane that sheathes and protects the brain. Oxygen and some nutrients can pass through this membrane, but large molecules, such as those of most therapeutic drugs, cannot. Because the olfactory nerves evolved before the brain, they are not protected by this sheath.
No one actually knows how the olfactory receptors react. Their response could be related to the scent molecule’s shape, size, or electrical charge, or a combination of all of these. For many years, biophysicist Luca Turin, PhD, former University College London lecturer and author of The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell, has worked on the theory that smell receptors act like switches tuned to different frequencies. This would mean that when a molecule of odor with the correct vibration binds to a smell receptor, it throws the switch and allows electrons to flow. This signal is then amplified and sent to the brain for interpretation. Since each molecule has a distinctive vibration pattern, it would relate only its own unique smell to the brain. Turin has no doubt that this is why scent has such a strong impact on emotions. He explains, “We don’t smell with our noses, we smell with our brains so we shouldn’t be surprised that fragrance has a direct effect on our moods.”
The idea that something as noninvasive as natural odors can directly affect the mind is quite exciting. Medical researchers hope someday to be able to use this pathway to access specific areas of the brain with fragrance to treat various disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease. For now, studies suggest that essential oils directly affect the central nervous system, modifying the brain’s reactions. In 2006, Richard Axel and Linda Buck won the Nobel Prize for Science for their research on the popular lock and key theory that each odor has its own shape that fits into specific receptors.
The brain’s response to a change in odor may be influenced by our thought patterns. Certain brain waves, called “contingent negative variation” (CNV), are very sensitive to emotional changes and are activated by particular fragrances. Aromatherapist Robert Tisserand, author of several books including Aromatherapy: To Heal and Tend the Body, thinks that “euphoric” odors such as clary sage and grapefruit stimulate the thalamus to secrete neurochemicals called enkephalins, natural painkillers that also produce a general feeling of well-being. Odors that stimulate the endorphin-secreting pituitary gland include the aphrodisiac scents jasmine and ylang-ylang. The pituitary also releases chemical messengers into the bloodstream to regulate other glands, such as the thyroid and the adrenals. Sedative odors such as marjoram stimulate the area of the brain called raphe nucleus, triggering the secretion of the neurochemical serotonin, which helps us sleep.
Essential Oil Absorption through the Skin
As with their journey into the brain and central nervous system, the absorption of essential oils through the skin is quick and easy due to their lipid-solubility, their extremely small molecular size, and to the natural oiliness of the skin itself. Essential oils also enter the bloodstream through the lungs and small capillaries; they affect the nervous and lymphatic systems when they contact with these vessels in the dermal layer of the skin.
Studies show that after a full body massage with a 2 percent dilution of lavender essential oil in vegetable oil (about 10 to 12 drops of essential oil per ounce of carrier oil), detectable amounts of linalol and linalyl acetate, the main chemical constituents of lavender, are found in the blood. Concentrations are highest after twenty minutes and diminished to undetectable levels within ninety minutes. The study concluded that not only are essential oils lipophilic (oil soluble) by nature, but also that massage with a vegetable oil accelerates absorption of essential oils by the skin. You can experiment with this theory at home: garlic rubbed on the feet can later be smelled on the breath.
Fragrance and Health
During the Black Plague in seventeenth-century Europe, stench was linked, quite naturally, to disease, decay, and death. (In France, the term peste described both the disease and the odor associated with it.) People sniffed pomander balls and boxes containing cedarwood and used hollow-topped walking sticks containing aromatic substances to warn off the plague. Nosegays were used for the same purpose; they were so popular that a London Bill of Mortality for 1635 gave precise instructions for their preparation (the recipe included vinegar, rice, wormwood, and rosewater). “Strewing herbs” were spread upon the floor, their fragrance rising when crushed underfoot.
Many perfumers—and glove makers who perfumed their products—escaped the plague. We now know that their secret was antibacterial properties of the essential oils to which they were exposed in their daily work. It is said that Bucklersbury, England, was spared from the plague because it was the center of the lavender trade, and even today the French city of Grasse, where so much perfume is produced, is known for having very low rates of respiratory illness.
Still, negative symptoms traceable to synthetic colognes and perfumes are increasing. These range from sinus pain to anaphylactic shock and seizures. The problem is a result of the increased strength of fragrances today, coupled with a rise in the use of synthetic chemicals. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration estimates that four thousand different chemicals are currently used in fragrances, with a rise in the use of single perfumes that often contain several hundred chemicals. There is particular concern about synthetic musklike fragrances that have been associated with damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems.
The sense of smell has a time-honored role in the diagnosis of disease. Typhoid fever is said to smell like freshly baked bread, diabetes like sugar, the plague like apples, yellow fever like a butcher shop, and nephritis like ammonia. Chemist John N. Labows, PhD, well known for his work on pheromones, has cataloged odor profiles to help identify numerous types of infections at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. The Center has been working on multidisciplinary research on taste and smell since 1968.
Finally, specific odors provide a pathway through the central nervous system that activates the immune system’s protector cells. The way the immune system and the central nervous system operate is only vaguely understood, but researchers know that they do communicate with one another. Current research suggests that it may be possible to teach the body to jump-start its own immune response through aromatherapy, although exactly which odors should be used is not yet clear. However, new evidence indicates that we may exercise direct control over health and disease through the hypothalamus.
Olfactory Deprivation
It is estimated that two million Americans have anosmia, the inability to smell or taste, a condition traceable to a number of factors. Still more people experience a partial loss of their sense of smell, or hyposmia, and a few people are born without a sense of smell. Curiously, the inability to smell is often associated with depression and decreased sexual drive. Another smell disorder is parosmia, when a scent is perceived although none exists or a familiar odor smells different. Researchers believe that most adults are “odor blind” to at least one group of chemical compounds.
Hormonal changes, such as menopause, diet, exposure to radiation, and the natural process of aging, may also damage the sense of smell, as can head injury, some surgeries, pharmaceutical antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, and exposure to toxic chemicals. The University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, found the ability to detect odors, distinguish between different smells, determine the strength of a scent, and even to identify it begins to decline around age sixty. The sense of smell also decreases after menopause. Gradual reduction of the ability to smell, as well as taste, is associated with several illnesses, including viral infection, neurological disorders, brain tumors, multiple sclerosis, Bell’s palsy, Alzheimer’s disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and liver and kidney diseases. Probably everyone has experienced the temporary loss or distortion of smell that results from having a cold, sinus infection, or other type of upper respiratory infection; infected teeth or gums can likewise cause a loss of taste and smell.
In some instances, a deficiency of the mineral zinc has been implicated in smell disorders—as well as in some cases of infertility. Zinc sulfate supplements sometimes help bring back the sense of smell, even when no deficiency is apparent. However, nutrients are most effective in restoring an impaired sense of smell—as well as taste—when there is an existing deficiency. Taking supplements of vitamins A (as beta-carotene) and the B complex, especially B3 (niacin), may also be helpful. Eliminating infection or inflammation, when this is the source of smell loss, also helps restore the sense of smell. The most drastic measure is intranasal cryosurgery, a procedure used to surgically restructure the inside of the nose when smell is inhibited by structural problems.
Several research centers have received funding from the National Institutes of Health to explore how the sense of smell works. The University of Pennsylvania Smell and Taste Center tested 638 people for their smell acuity. Not surprisingly, those who smoked had a decreased perception of smell that directly corresponded to how many cigarettes they smoked a day. On the other hand, the construction company Shimizu Corporation claims that the scented air they pump into their workplace reduces workers’ urge to smoke. To prove their point, they did a study in which habitual smokers were deprived of cigarettes. Sniffing various scents reduced their cravings to light up. Curiously, the odors that the smokers rated as unpleasant decreased their cravings the most.
The largest database of clinical chemosensory information in the United States is at the Connecticut Chemosensory Clinical Research Center, which is exploring how the sense of smell relates to smoking, as well as aging and diseases such as diabetes. Their researchers also evaluate patients with smell and taste problems to discover how to use fragrance to reduce side effects from chemotherapy, kidney dialysis, and radiation therapy. At Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, the Integrative Medicine and Cultural Care Clinic uses essential oils in palliative care for kids undergoing stressful medical procedures. They have conducted two clinical studies showing that gender and ethnicity preferences do exist in children.
It is possible to increase your ability to smell through “scent exercising.” In doing research for Johns Hopkins, Robert Anholt, PhD, professor of zoology genetics at North Carolina University, found that most people have the potential to detect subtle differences in smell, but that it takes practice. Test subjects exposed themselves to as many natural odors as possible, thereby training their noses to recognize more scents.
Dieting, Aromatherapy Style
People who lose their ability to smell often gain weight. Alan Hirsch, MD, head of Chicago’s Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, wondered if the opposite was true, that scents could help weight loss. They gave over three thousand overweight individuals aromas to inhale. These longtime dieters had tried just about everything since they were in their twenties; a total of sixty-six different diet programs were represented. They were instructed to simply take six sniffs of an aromatic blend whenever they felt hungry. In six months, those sniffing sweet smells lost almost five pounds a month. It is thought that aromatherapy tricks the satiety center in the brain’s hypothalamus into thinking the body has eaten enough. There’s probably a lot of truth to this. We have noticed that we often overcome the cravings of a certain food by being satisfied simply by the odor or even by sniffing another pleasant aroma.
ODOR AND EROS
Each of us has a unique personal odor as individual as our fingerprints and influenced by diet, gender, heredity, health, medication, occupation, emotional state, and mood. Personal odor communicates something about who we are and—instinctively and unconsciously, for better or for worse—is one of our criteria for choosing our friends and lovers. According to Susan Schiffman, MD, psychology professor at Duke University in North Carolina, “People who don’t like each other’s smell don’t make it as a couple.” North American cultures, however, may be too acutely aware of body odor. Given our constant attention to removing odor with deodorants and replacing it with synthetic scents, researchers speculate that we may have lost our innate ability to respond to natural sexual attractants.
The odoriferous substances manufactured by the apocrine glands—found in the axillae (armpits), face, nipples, anal and genital regions, and to a lesser extent in the ears, eyelids, and scalp—are called pheromones, from the Greek words pherein (to carry) and hormon (to excite). They become active at puberty, after which they play an interesting role in sexual behavior, puberty, menstruation, and menopause. (Before puberty, perspiration has no odor, which makes perfect biological sense: there is no need to signal or attract the opposite sex before we are able to reproduce.)
In Elizabethan times, lovers exchanged peeled “love apples,” which were kept in the armpit until saturated with sweat, then presented to the lover so he or she could inhale the fragrance when they were apart. A similar custom was observed in parts of the Austrian Tyrol, where it was fashionable for a young man to dance with a handkerchief in his armpit and later wave it under the nose of the girl he admired to excite her sexually. Members of a tribe in New Guinea still say good-bye by putting a hand in each other’s armpits, then rubbing themselves with the other’s scent. In a similar custom in Australia, the Gidjingali people of Arnhem Land, upon departing, rub sweat from their own armpits on each other. To enhance their own scent, the Kallaway tribe of Bolivia boil the vanilla-like balsam of Peru in water to use as an underarm wash.
Humans cannot detect the scent of pheromones the same way we might notice a familiar perfume, but we may well sense them, and they may have an impact on how we act. One informal study found that when identical twins sat at a bar, the twin wearing (non-fragrant) pheromones attracted three times as many interactions from strangers over the course of an evening. Another study took manufactured pheromones and sprayed them on a chair in a doctor’s waiting room; that was the chair consistently chosen by patients that day by more than four to one.
As far back as 1974, Lewis Thomas, PhD—who advanced the theory that mate selection can be traced to individual odor prints generated by a sequence of genes—suggested that a cluster of animal genes known as the “major histocompatibility complex” (MHC), which generates antibodies for protection, might be the key to the olfactory code. Immunologist Ted Boyse later proved the link between the sense of smell and the immune system by performing an experiment that demonstrated how MHC is influenced by smell. Working with strains of inbred mice, he was able to show that mice sniffed out genetically different mice with whom to mate, thus keeping the gene pool more diverse and establishing a more adaptable immune system. Mice even showed a preference to mate with those whose genetic makeup differed by only a single gene. A high variability in MHC is now thought to be essential for disease resistance.
Scents That Turn on Women
13%licorice or cucumber
11%lavender or pumpkin pie spice
4%baby powder and chocolate
1%women’s perfume
Scents That Turn on Men
40%lavender and pumpkin pie spice
31.5%licorice and doughnut
20%pumpkin pie spice and doughnut
19.5%orange
18%lavender and doughnut
13%licorice and cola
13%licorice
12.5%doughnut and cola
11%lily of the valley
9%buttered popcorn
2%cranberry
(Courtesy of Alan R. Hirsh, MD.)
Women’s Sexuality
There have been many interesting studies on how the sense of smell affects women’s menstrual cycles. One study, for example, showed that girls who had been separated from boys during adolescence (in a boarding school situation) generally started menstruating later than girls in a coeducational environment. This suggests that contact with boys’ pheromones triggers a hormonal response that signals girls to become fertile. Studies also show that women produce a pheromone that causes their menstrual cycle to synchronize with that of nearby women after three or four months. Women’s sensitivity to odor peaks at ovulation, when olfactory receptivity increases a thousandfold. Conversely, women’s sense of smell is least keen at menstruation.
The male underarm scent can also regulate women’s cycles, although merely being in prolonged, close proximity is not enough to trigger this effect; there must be intimate physical contact. Other studies show that women who have sex with a male partner at least once a week have more regular menstrual cycles, are more likely to have cycles of normal length, have fewer infertility problems, and experience a milder menopause than women who are celibate or who have sex in a “feast or famine” pattern. Scientists are trying to isolate the chemicals responsible for these phenomena to produce nasal sprays for scent-based birth control and cycle regulation.
Women have, in general, a keener sense of smell than men, even as infants. Research by Hilary Schmidt, PhD, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, while suggesting that the same odor preferences occur in both children and adults, noted definite gender differences. Baby girls preferred a large selection of scented rattles while baby boys just went for the most pleasant scents.
Whatever the cause of these gender differences, it carries into adulthood. Women recognize scents, especially food-related ones such as cinnamon and coffee, much more readily than men. One study showed that women could guess the sex of a person more accurately than men just by sniffing a shirt the person had worn for twenty-four hours. In still another test, when puffs of fragrance were monitored by subjects, men performed better at simple mental tasks in unscented rooms while women did best in scented rooms.
Women take time to consider their preferences and label scents in much more detail. They can use a variety of different color hues, most often correlating pleasant scents with the color yellow and unpleasant ones with purple. Men, on the other hand, tend to automatically like or dislike a smell, but can offer little in the way of description. It’s no surprise that researchers found that when women were given the male hormone testosterone, their ability to smell declined. Following menopause or a hysterectomy, women also begin to lose their ability to detect musk odors. The scent of musk is very close to human testosterone and can normally be detected in amounts as little as 0.000000000000032 ounces. (Twenty-five percent of people with smell disorders lose interest in sex; as part of their sex therapy, Masters and Johnson have helped couples learn to enjoy touching each other using scented lotion.) The ability to detect musk odors returns in women who go on hormone therapy. Fertile women who were exposed to a musk odor have shorter menstrual cycles, ovulate more often, and conceive more easily.
The effects of various aromas on sexual arousal have been measured in clinical studies by Alan R. Hirsch, MD, director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation. In a 1997 study, he used the increase in blood flow to the sexual organs as an indicator. What turned women on the most was the smell of either cucumber or licorice, as in the candy Good & Plenty.
Curiously, men’s cologne lessened the women’s sexual response (-1 percent). Even less appreciated were the scents of cherry (-18 percent) and barbecue smoke (-14 percent). However, maybe it’s the type of cologne used in the study. The Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Indiana, found that inhaling a traditional, ultra-masculine men’s cologne did tend to increase physical stimulation in women.
Men’s Sexuality
Although sex pheromones are produced in both men and women, the male sex pheromones seem to function mainly as aphrodisiacs for the female, whereas the female pheromones serve chiefly to announce her readiness. We found one reference to a scientist who lived in isolation for long periods on an island. By taking the dry weight of the hairs trapped by his electric razor every day, he discovered that his beard grew faster each time he returned to the mainland and associated with females.
Scent helps determine how you perceive other individuals. One group of male interviewers rated scented female applicants as less intelligent, albeit more attractive; when interviewed by women, fragrance-wearing female applicants were judged friendlier and more intelligent than those who wore no scent. When they sniffed a floral and spice combination, the men estimated that the women they viewed each weighed about four pounds less than the women who were viewed by men in rooms with no scents at all. Men who found the combination pleasant perceived women to be a full twelve pounds less than their actual weights.
Scent can also change how we perceive ourselves. A study at the College of William and Mary in Virginia showed that men and women who wear personal fragrances daily tend to perceive themselves as better than people who don’t wear fragrance. They maintain higher self-esteem, self-acceptance, and social competence, and are more willing to take a stand on important issues. Men who frequently use cologne regard their body as more appealing than non-perfume wearers.
Napoleon was keenly aware of how scent affects sexuality. It is reported that he once sent a message to Josephine that read, “Home in three days. Don’t wash.” Goethe carried around the unwashed bodice of his lover so he was never without her fragrance. Studies done with men who smell the natural aroma in women’s clothing have found that they tend to be most attracted to clothing that was worn by women described as “shy and retiring” compared to clothes worn by more dominant and aggressive women. It is assumed that men subconsciously associate the smell of testosterone with too much aggression. Conversely, most women prefer the clothes of men who are testosterone-rich.
All of the thirty scents presented to thirty-one men sexually aroused them, but it was a combination of lavender and pumpkin pie that they found most aphrodisiacal. Next in effectiveness were the scents of licorice and doughnuts. Yes, it’s true that almost all of the top ten scents that aroused men are food! We can’t help but wonder if the pumpkin pie and cranberry cancel each other on Thanksgiving—no matter, the tryptophan in the turkey will put them to sleep anyway. The most effective scents did vary according to the man’s age. For instance, older men tended to respond strongly to vanilla more than the younger men.
It is really no surprise to learn that sperm smell their way to the egg, which researchers say could lead to advances in contraception and fertility treatments. Science magazine reports that German researchers, trying to work out how sperm find their way to their intended destination, have identified an odor receptor in testicular tissue, usually found in the sensory nerve cells of the nose. If successful, this could help fertility doctors identify the most mobile sperm, increasing the chances of conception.
Aphrodisiacs
Scents that have age-old reputations as sexual stimulants are jasmine, musk, patchouli, sandalwood, ylang-ylang, rose, and vanilla. Studies show that jasmine, musk, and ylang-ylang are both relaxing and stimulating to the brain. Although it may seem that these actions would cancel each other, they actually combine to produce a very enjoyable mood. The combination of relaxation and stimulation is probably one of the secrets behind most aphrodisiac scents. The state of being completely relaxed, yet at the same time stimulated, offers the perfect combination for an aphrodisiac, since stress and tension are strong deterrents to passion. Other aphrodisiacs include the stimulants cinnamon and coriander, which is the aphrodisiac mentioned by Sheherazade in the famous story The Arabian Nights. Aphrodisiacs are useful as part of a program to help overcome sexual dysfunctions.
APHRODISIAC BLEND
Lavender is not an aphrodisiac but is added to make the fragrance more mellow. It can be a relaxing and emotionally uplifting scent. If you love patchouli, try it in place of ylang-ylang.
4 ounces sweet almond essential oil
10 drops lavender essential oil
10 drops sandalwood essential oil
2 drops ylang-ylang essential oil
2 drops vanilla essential oil
1 drop each cinnamon and jasmine essential oils
Combine ingredients.
Written by Kathi Keville and Mindy Green in "Aromatherapy- A Complete Guide to the Healing Art", Crossing Press (an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.), 2009, excerpts chapters 1-3. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.