Just as our eyes love to rest on a varied landscape or never gets tired of watching the ever-changing waves, our olfactory system prefers complicated smells over simple ones. It can be compared to the difference between a leg of lamb with only salt, or one that has some pepper, cloves and coriander added to it.
A rich combination of smells and tastes awakens the senses - more than what a single smell or taste does - to a multitude of emotions and a deeply satisfying experience.
Becoming aware to possibilities
If you are new to combining essential oils in a diffuser or massage blend, I encourage you to start with a few simple principles.
1. Become aware of the parts of the plant that are used to obtain the essential oils – leaves and twigs, flowers, spices, rind or peel and resin. Begin to establish your preferences.
2. When leaves are used to extract the oil, respiratory conditions often benefit, and citrus peel is in all cases uplifting. Flowers often treat emotional imbalances. This is a very rough guideline but gets you thinking and creates some awareness.
3. It would also be useful to decide if you are treating an illness, or an emotion. When you treat an illness, it could be more important to get the work done, than to be overly concerned about the fragrance. If the treatment works well though, a positive link will still be created between the smell and feeling better.
4. An example:
If you are blending a bronchitis treatment, you could use Niaouli, Thyme linalool, and Atlas Cedarwood in a diffuser. This would have a very medicinal smell, but still fresh and pleasant for most people.
5. If you are treating an emotion such as lethargic depression, you would use Grapefruit, Rosemary and Frankincense which create a very pleasant aroma while relieving the depression.
6. An important aroma-therapeutic principle is that the client should always have a positive olfactory connection to the treatment.
7. Aromatherapy is used to balance, relax, rejuvenate, restore or enhance the psychological, anatomical and physiological health of an individual and discordant aromas won’t help!
8. Blending for certain conditions should be discussed with an aromatherapist to work out the best treatment. You can book an appointment here
Balancing your blend
This is science as well as art.
To know which oil will assist with a persistent cough requires research into the chemical composition of the oil. To balance the blend, takes some practice and intuition.
Just as you would cook with orange zest and ginger in winter, a blend of sweet orange, ginger, and clove bud oil will give your home a warm smell.
Romantically spoken, flowers are always a promising idea, and so one drop each of rose, ylang ylang and jasmine blended on a few drops of cedar wood or cypress will create joy, and a sense of mystery.
A few blends to try
General stress
Sweet Orange 10 drops
Rose Geranium 15 drops
Lavender 5 drops
Blend 5 drops on 10ml carrier oil and use as massage oil or use 3-5 drops neat in a diffuser.
Hot flashes blend - menopause
Peppermint 2 drops
Cypress 2 drops
Clary sage 10 drops
Spearmint 4 drops
Geranium 6 drops
Lemon 6 drops
Blend 5 drops on 10ml carrier oil and use as massage oil or use 3-5 drops neat in a diffuser.
All these oils are available from Mirre & Kaneel.
Kind regards
Carina Falck
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