is not beneficial to wash the hair too often, as this can strip the hair of its protective acid mantle. When short of time, or between shampoos, simply add a drop of rosemary essential oil, or an oil chosen for its fragrance, to one tablespoon of orris root powder or fuller’s earth. Part the hair in sections and sprinkle the mixture on. Leave for five minutes, then brush out thoroughly.
Aromatic shampoo
Buy a neutral pH shampoo (this is marked on the label) and add your own choice of essential oils to it. Add one or two drops of essential oil to a capful of shampoo at each wash, or add 30 to 50 drops of your chosen essential oil (or a blend) to a 3½fl oz/100ml bottle of shampoo, and shake well before using.
Aromatic rinse
Add a few drops of a suitable aromatherapy oil, such as chamomile, lavender, or rosemary, to the final rinse water together with one tablespoon of cider vinegar. This very effective, yet simple, procedure gives the hair a wonderful shine and maintains the acid mantle of the scalp. It also imparts a delicious fragrance and new vitality to the hair.
Powdered orris root can be used as the basis of an effective dry shampoo.
Fuller’s earth is used for scalp treatment.
WARNING
Some oils, including ylang ylang, cedarwood, cypress, lemon, lime, juniper, mandarin, and pine, are not stable in shampoo or detergent and should therefore not be used.
The psychological effects of fragrance have long been recognized, while herbs have probably been used for their specific effects by so-called “primitive” peoples since the dawn of time. It is certain that in the past natural aromatic substances were often employed successfully for their hallucinogenic, sedative, stimulating, sexually arousing, or anesthetizing effects on the mind, but a proper study of the action of scents, and specifically of essential oils, on the mind and behaviour has never been completed.
Psycho-aromatherapy
Psycho-aromatherapy, which focuses primarily on the psychological potential of essential oils, consists of two separate but interrelated fields—aromatic medicine and perfumery. In psycho-aromatherapy, the physiological effect of specific essential oils on the systems of the body is combined with the individual’s emotional or psychological reaction to their fragrance—with both aspects working together in a psychosomatic unity. It could be said that there are three different dimensions involved:
“He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart in the sensuous life …”
OSCAR WILDE
Responses to scents vary, but the rose has a perfume that is universally appreciated.
Some fragrances are generally experienced as pleasing, while others are widely perceived as repugnant, yet it is difficult to make hard and fast rules about how any individual will react to a particular smell. This is because the physiological effect of a given odor can be overridden by an individual’s specific emotional associations and psychological preferences. Sometimes even an unpleasant smell can have beneficial results if the associations are positive.
The close connection between the sense of smell and the experience of emotion has often been noted. It is suggested that, physiologically, molecules of odor in some way stimulate the same brain centers that signal the drives toward or away, which underlie almost all human emotion.5
Our sense of smell influences our moods, emotions, and memories. In view of the idiosyncratic quality of smell, it is virtually impossible accurately to assess in advance an individual’s reaction to a particular odor, or to prescribe a fragrance for therapeutic purposes without taking all the following considerations into account:
Strong odors such as frankincense are thought to affect mood and emotion through a physiological effect on the brain.
CARDAMOM
LEMON
Since our response to scent is so individualistic, to what extent is it possible to use odors to bring about a predictable response? The writer Michael Stoddard asserts that although there is no odor capable of systematically inducing a given reaction in human beings, it is nevertheless possible that we are still subconsciously manipulated by odors. Since the sexual and social instincts of human beings are no longer controlled by scent-signals as they are in other mammals, odors do not bring about overt changes in human sexual or emotional behavior; rather, they create changes in mood or feeling states, often at a subliminal level. Such changed states, as studies have shown, can subtly color and redirect our thoughts, often without our noticing.6
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