Aromatherapy to make your Valentine's Day Memorable

With Valentine's day right around the corner you may be thinking of doing something special for your loved one.  You can make an aromatherapy bath salt blend or an aromatherapy massage oil blend to create a romantic and lasting impression on your lover.

Essential Oils commonly associated with sensuality are: clary sage, jasmine, neroli, rose, patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla, vetiver and yang-ylang.

Throughout the ages scent has been used to woo partners and for personal expression.  Scents that we put on our skin mingle with the natural odor of our body to create a scent that is truly our own.  Our individual scent is so unique that babies have been able to identify their mothers through smell.  Scent is a primal sensation for us and as such evokes some of our more primal responses and emotions.  Using Aromatherapy to tap into your lovers unique scent connection can take your intimate experiences from wow to OH WOW.

To do this determine which smells from the above list you both find attractive and make you feel happy.  Look for those scent combo's in products you buy or you can use the individual essential oils to make a massage oil or bath salt (DIY recipe's to follow).

A few things to consider when using a massage oil for sensual purposes are to avoid getting the product on or near mucous membranes and sensitive body areas.  Have a towel nearby to dry your hands after using the massage oil.

Now that you have an understanding of the safety around using a massage oil and some suggestions for which essential oils to use to create a romantic setting its time to get to work making the product.  Or you can email info@evokearomatherapy.com for a custom created product made specifically for you and your lover based on your chosen scents.


DIY Sensual Massage Oil

30 ml (2 TBSP) Sweet Almond Oil
2 drops Rose Essential Oil
2 drops Sandalwood Essential Oil
1 drop 10% Vanilla Absolute in Jojoba Oil
3 drops Sweet Orange Essential Oil

Mix all the ingredients into a bottle with a flip top lid for easy pouring.

DIY Sensual Bath Salts

1/2 cup Epsom Salts
4 drops Ylang-Ylang Essential Oil
2 drops Clary Sage Essential Oil
1 drop Lemon Essential Oil
1 drop Sandalwood Essential Oil

Add the essential oils to the Epsom Salts.  Mix thoroughly.  Pour the bath.  While sitting in the bath mix in the bath salts containing the essential oils.

Light candles, play soft music, send the kids to grandma's for the night!  Do what you need to create uninterrupted time for you and your lover to connect and lose yourselves in the moment.  Trust that the memory you create will be lasting, carried on the sweet memory of scent.

"The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind I was.  Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.  They're in each other all along."
Rumi

Happy Valentine's Day!

www.evokearomatherapy.com

Understanding Vanilla as an aromatherapy perfume

With the onset of the fall season and return to school I get drawn into my kitchen to bake wholesome school snacks for the kids.  While my selection of baking varies from almond butter chocolate chip cookies (from the Oh She Glows cookbook, its excellent you have to try them!), to zucchini muffins (we grew lots of zucchini this year) and even to a pumpkin/kale smoothie there is one main ingredient that flows through all these things and that is vanilla.  I love this smell and the magic it brings to baking! 

Vanilla has been appearing in more places than my kitchen since at one of the last summer night markets I meet a woman who was asking about vanilla in an aromatherapy perfume.  Her request intrigued me and I took this curiosity into my lab and began playing with vanilla absolute oil in various carriers and with other oils.  Playing with vanilla in this setting was extremely fun and satisfying as I got to know Vanilla as more than a flavoring for baking but also as a scent for perfumes.  Wow!  The possibilities are endless.  At the time of writing this article there is not yet a completed product but I can say that I do anticipate a vanilla inspired aromatherapy perfume to grace the markets and website in the near future.  For now both my home and lab will be wafting wonderful vanilla smells as I enjoy Vanilla in all its heavenly forms!

To better understand Vanilla I gathered some information on growing, harvesting and how Vanilla is named that helped me to further appreciate this well used spice and perfume fragrance.  

Vanilla beans are actually the seeds from the orchid species Vanilla plantifolia.  This orchid is the only species of orchids out of 35,000 orchid species to have edible seedpods.  The Vanilla plantifolia orchid was originally only grown in the tropical rainforest of South Eastern Mexico and Central America.  Now however it is being grown in Indonesia, Tahiti, Reunion Islands and Madagascar.  I have also seen the vanilla orchid growing on a tree at a farm on Kauai, Hawaii.  The Vanilla orchid grows like a vine twining itself up trees reaching lengths of up to 30 feet.  In the regions where Vanilla is a native plant (South Eastern Mexico and Central America) it is pollinated by the Melipone bee that is only found in those regions.  All other Vanilla Orchids are hand pollinated.  The resulting bean pod takes up to 9 months to reach maturity. The Vanilla bean is odorless when harvested.  Then when cured in a 3-6 month long fermentation process the pods turn dark brown to black with reddish drops of crystal Vanillin lining the pod.  The crystal drops of Vanillin give the bean pod the familiar smell of Vanilla.

Vanilla is the most popular food flavor in the world.  It is the second most expensive spice flavoring (with saffron being the first) due to its labor intensive harvesting and curing process.

Vanilla can’t be steam distilled to extract its oil content like most other essential oils because of the delicate structure of the bean pods.  Instead there are 3 other extraction methods that are used:

1.  Vanilla CO2- uses carbon dioxide to pull the vanilla smell from the pod.

2. Vanilla absolute- uses solvents to extract the vanilla.  This method is preferred by perfumers.

3. Vanilla oleoresin- is another type of solvent extraction that uses the macerated beans.

Each of these methods produce slightly different smelling vanilla oil all of which are not considered to be a true essential oil.  When Vanilla in used in an aromatherapy blend it is usually considered a “fragrance” addition.

Vanilla is sold under many different names such as Mexican Vanilla (Mexico), Bourbon Vanilla (Madagascar), Tahitian Vanilla (French Polynesia) or West Indian Vanilla (Caribbean and Central/South America) all of which are named based on the geographical regions they are grown.

I hope that you enjoyed this article about Vanilla.  Please visit our website to view our product line.
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