How to bring wellness into your home this Spring
Last year I wrote a blog article on how to give your home the scent of wellbeing. What a year it’s been and now sales of home fragrance at an all-time high and there’s even global wax shortages as demand outstrips supply due to us spending so much time at home for work, rest and play. We’ve even got a new virtual live workshop with kit to design a home fragrance but more on that later.
With spring on the horizon we can invite the scents from nature into our homes. Did you know, you are more likely to remember a smell over what you see, hear or touch? We all have our own individual scent profile based on our life experiences with scent. Smell, memory, emotions and experiences are interlinked. Take a moment to step back in time as you think of a perfume your grandma used to wear or of a walk in nature on a fun family holiday.
Seasonal influences play a role in our scent choices and here are the popular ones for spring. Green and fresh notes – hyacinth, freesia, cypress, grapefruit and lemon scented aromas. Our personal scent profile subconsciously steers our decision-making process and we naturally gravitate towards the ones we enjoy the most.
This links the sciences of aromachology (the study of psychological effects of natural and fine fragrance) and aromatherapy (with physiological and psychological effects) impacting our mood and wellbeing. Always choose the scents you love. Before COVID I would have recommended you sniff before you buy and now it’s difficult to touch scented products let alone sniff them so we now have to rely on the product descriptions and our precious memories of scent when it comes to buying decisions.
When it comes to spring cleaning, there’s an abundance of air and carpet fresheners, floor cleaners, laundry powders and fabric conditioners to choose from. Contrary to popular belief, most perfumers are not creating the next fine fragrance but instead spend most of their time creating scents for household cleaning products. As consumers, we’ve never had so much choice.
If your preference is to be fragrance-free, you may find products already have scent molecules included in them for functionality. For those with allergies and sensitivities always check the ingredients lists on products (there are different regulations for listing these on cleaning products, candles and cosmetics) as you may find naturally occurring linalool and geraniol found in Lavender and Geranium could be present. If in doubt, ask a professional clinical aromatherapist who will be familiar with these compounds.
It’s always important to be aware of who is sharing your air space especially when pets, children and other members of your family live in your home. If you love strong scents, only use them for a short period of time e.g. 20 minutes max instead of using an electric diffuser whizzing scents around your living space all day long. For safety reasons, candles should burn for set periods of time. Always check the safety instructions.
When it comes to mood boosting scents for wellbeing here’s our clients top uplifting and refreshing natural scents:-
- Grapefruit (Citrus pardisi)
- Juniperberry (Juniperus communis) – think Gin!
- Lime Distilled (Citrus aurantifolia)
- Peppermint (Mentha piperita)
- Rosemary Cineole CT (Rosmarinus officinalis)
With sales of home fragrance at an all-time high and as a provider of bespoke scents and scent experiences, we’ve launched monthly virtual live workshops so you can design a happy scented reed diffuser for your home. Costing £59 per person, the reed diffuser workshop lasts approximately 1.5hrs. https://www.ladieslovefragrance.com/design-your-own-home-fragrance/
The most popular natural essences with participants are May Chang (Litsea cubeba) which is lemony-fresh and Sweet Orange (Citrus sinensis) reassuringly recognisable and a hug-in-a-bottle kind of scent.
The workshops are a super way to connect with friends, family, work colleagues and customers no matter where you are in the UK. Gift Vouchers are always popular for birthdays and special occasions and you may even start a new hobby.
Enjoy bringing the scents of nature and wellbeing into your home this springtime.
