I use the abstractions of art, music, and archetype to describe aromatherapy because…
I was first a literature student and single essential oils are very much full bodied characters in my mind. I think it’s safe to say most of us learn through story and yearn for the greatest lessons literature has to teach. The plant world contains volumes of story. Oftentimes when working with an oil, I feel like I’m “reading” it. I can recall its lesson another time when I need to, like I remember the lessons of fairy tales or the gifts/strengths/depth of a particular character.
Scent and music walk hand in hand in our psyche. It’s impossible for me to smell bergamot and not hear Debussy. Or think of pink pepper when I hear Kim Deal’s bass. Perfumery is described in the notes and chords they pluck within ourselves. Top notes, heart notes, bass notes. As we feel a scent land in the body, this gives us a good indication of its music and affect in us. To create a blend is to compose a little symphonic moment. To wear a well-balanced blend is to witness the music within.
If poetry, like music, strives to distill from our human experience what can only be expressed by the power of precise language, art, like perfumery, conveys the ineffable spirit of an experience language has yet to imagine.
When I work with individual notes, I see color and shape and feel in surround sound. This informs my choices in custom blending as much as the materia medica.
Scent is primal and has every opportunity to bring to life what desires to be explored and expressed in ourselves. As French designer Sonia Rykiel so perfectly explains, “Perfume is like a parenthesis, a moment of freedom, peace, love, and sensuality in between the disturbances of modern living.”
If you would like to explore the possibility of a custom blend, please visit Work with Erin and get in touch.
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