A sanctuary is furnished with the familiar - things that have warmed the soul before, even if we can't specifically identify what these are. This coming together of familiar elements has an effect on us. We can usually offer some kind of description for the scent of a place we call home. In our very first home, the womb, we become familiar with the chemical secretions present in the amniotic fluid which likewise seem to present themselves as odors around the nipple, instinctively guiding us to food after birth. If we take this example alone, apart from the survival instinct mechanism, smell can be a way to bring us home to comfort. Home to a place of belonging and home to ourselves, because being drawn to or repelled by certain smells has to do with our personal lived experiences.
When choosing scent for the home, consider the activities that take place in each room and how the scent can help to either elevate or alleviate these activities, rather than overwhelm. Cooking and food preparation is an activity that forms part of the heart of the home, because it's often enjoyed together and prepared by someone who is looking out for our well-being (making a meal for ourselves is also an act of caring for the self). The smell of food cooking is comforting - we want its aroma to waft by and excite the taste buds and digestive juices. If we are scenting the home with an over-powering candle, incense or room spray that clings to the air, the scent experience becomes confused - like inhaling a spray of body fragrance through the mouth by mistake. Be mindful about where heavily scented candles are placed and choose to burn incense outside of meal times.
It's lovely to be able to spray something in the kitchen to dispel a fowl odour coming from a just emptied bin. Ideally we'd like the spray to do its thing and then dissipate. Synthetic sprays will cling to the air a lot longer and more intensely than natural sprays. So while their scent dispels odours, fresh air coming in through the windows will struggle to compete with a synthetic spray, versus the naturally scented kind.
Home cleaning products also add scent to a home. A home can smell too sanitised - but perhaps this cooler scent is comforting to some, and that's okay. The consideration here is the 'clean' layer of synthetic scent that becomes an ingredient for the home's scent scape. Some laundry products and fabric softeners add a layer of scent to the body, which we may become accustomed to, while others sense these scent trails more definitively on us.
There is no right or wrong way to use scented products in the home, but I find that there is an element of empowering myself as the designer for my life, when I choose to curate a way of living that is in integrity with how I visualise well-being and natural beauty as pillars for sustainability and longevity, in my personal journey. I choose to infuse my activities with products that are closer to nature because they are subtle but stimulating, and they do not disrupt the natural growth process of the other gifts from nature I keep close, whether plants, pets or children.
I leave you with these notes from my own scent journeying as an invitation to all of us to bring awareness to the choices we make, especially in the seemingly subtle ways we consume, curate and carry out our chores.
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One of the most consistent smells along streets was that of over exposed offerings - the very beginnings of rotting you could say - which is not as terrible as advanced rotting. It is rather like a baked sweet biscuit that has been left out in the sun, with a bit of 'sour and spice'. The Hindu religion that is widely practiced in Bali seems more like part of the culture than a religion. I guess culture and religion are entwined in this case, where mythological creatures, goddesses and gods, botanicals and warriors are immortalised in stone, on every street corner. Pink, green and orange gems decoratively brighten the sidewalk outside almost every shop or home entrance. These gems, the melange of offerings created from sweets, rice, spices, flowers and incense in some or other variation, are for the Gods. And although each family might include something a bit different from day to day, there is a thread of familiar scents that weave consistently through the streets - perhaps the olfactive percolation of a common, uniting belief and practice.
One morning as I sat sipping on a coffee, post practice at a yoga studio cafe, I was witness to a flower blessing ritual. I will not forget this moment. Four women of different ages, dressed in traditional attire; long skirts and fitted long sleeve lace tops, bows of belted fabric resting at their hips, carrying circular bamboo woven trays filled with flowers and what I assume must have been holy water, came walking up the narrow street. I wanted to take a picture of the ritual but resisted. I decided to capture the scene with my full attention. I had the feeling that the act of taking a photo would draw something sacred from the moment and I did not want to steal from the atmosphere of grace. I watched the women chat and nod in the direction of the stores with closed doors, agreeing that they were eligible for blessing (my witness assumption - which includes the appearance that these women did not necessarily have personal affiliation to the stores). The flowers - mostly frangipanis (the ones I had seen being sold in big bags on the roadside at the early morning market as I walked to my morning practice) were pinched between fingers, dipped into a bowl of water, petal face down and then shaken off in each doorway, two or three times over. Magic-like.
It was the only time I got to witness this kind of ritual over the two weeks I was in Bali. On another occasion, a menu item I tried to order, which was out of stock that day, was temple flower water. My conclusion is that the women were infusing the water with temple flowers. Yes there are also marigolds, but the frangipani, young ylang ylang, tuberose and campaka (yellow/orange magnolia) are the queens of the show. Flowers that feel so precious to even find in a store at home. Most of my favourite moments on the trip were not the ones that were planned. But ones like these, where life unfolds in front of the eyes, evoking awe, a dawning peace in the heart, a shimmer in the waters of the eyes. A scent to remember.
So here I sign off, to go appreciate and learn within the beautiful, sacred oils sourced in Ubud, from a smiling, warm, sincere mother and son owned business (although she calls it her son's business and indeed he procures all the raw materials and makes all the scented body products himself).
I have some ideas of how I will use these scents but as I say, I need to spend some time with them, figure my relationship with them and see what comes. I hope you will stay for the journey ahead. I find that a developed fragrance always ends up just the way it intends to be, at the time it is meant for, when at the beginning I don't have the answer. This is my favourite place to be - between scent and an idea, and so into the expanse of anything can happen.
Which is precisely the essence of places like Ubud, where the energy is just textural enough to be distilled through memory.
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I imagine the scent floating down the stairs to be the kind generated by the flapping of fairy wings; a gathering of forest fairies I say to Kim, founder of the Gurucat Yoga Shala, during a light musing over the incense which is fast becoming a studio signature, she smiles and says, "fairies sipping on cream sodas". That's it, the now familiar and promising invitation. The scent promise of a space that honours practice, ritual, sacred ways of being and moving - a bridge between inner and outer worlds, the subtle and the gross.
Some days there is palo santo, others jasmine, most days forest fairy scent, and every day just after a heated class there is the scent of sweat, which is quickly ushered out on a breeze of fans, mops and more incense, ready for the next arrival of willing bodies. Freshly sprayed tea tree oil ends the scent journey for each session; nature's deep cleanser settling into the used rental mats hanging over the passage wall. Personal mats are rolled up, damp with sweat (as is the nature of a predominantly hot yoga studio) and are on their way home to be sprayed or wiped.
When this yoga practice studio, where I spend many precious hours, both as student and teacher, requested the creation of a Myrrh and Moksha mat spray, I needed no extra encouragement.
Students often choose to spray the Mawu sample off the retail shelf (essentially a 'sanitiser') in studio to help freshen the air because they say it smells "fancy" - even when I let them know it isn't formulated to the strength of a room spray. Mawu fans outside of the yoga studio have told me they use it in their office when they're in need of a "zen" moment, or to freshen their cars. I originally intended to make a great smelling functional product but I hadn't expected the combination of tea tree oil with anything else really, to be received as a luxury of sorts by the senses. It's possible that this kind of luxury is in the production ritual, whereby each batch of Mawu is blended to the same sacred song which becomes a healing sound bath for the plant particles. Perhaps this sound enhances the calibration and high vibration already contained in the precious oils - I like to believe it does.
The unexpected widespread affection for Mawu along with the desire from the beginning to go back and re-label Mawu one day to remove the word sanitiser, was enough reason to add to the Mawu 'scent family' in the form of an alcohol-free mat spray (as well as it originally having been formulated as a functional anti-bacterial spray). Mat sprays must be alcohol-free because this material degrades yoga mats. Upon further research, based on the warning advice of my own yoga mat supplier, I found that certain types of mats should not be sprayed with essential oils or other detergents, as these solutions can also degrade the grip (smooth surface mats). Alternatively, to keep a smooth surface mat fresh, spray the underside with Mawu mat spray, because the bottom of the mat likely makes contact with more yucky things than the sweat from our own bodies. The beauty about this natural mat spray is that it can be used to keep hands fresh and bacteria free too.
The other thing about a yoga mat, the main thing really, is that it is a personal space. The space upon which our bodies move and feel, sweat and heal. It is a representation of the earth that steadies itself for us, as we move across it, feet, hands, whole bodies, supported. When we connect with this awareness, it becomes the reason we choose to place our mats gently and specifically onto the practice floor, rather than slapping them down. The reason we may feel slightly offended when another yogi walks over our mat instead of around it. It becomes a bit sacred, symbolic. Possibly even imbued with a bit of our own magic essence; like a house lived in, or a well used surfboard. Which is why a mat can be taken care of with a light spray, just like a surfer rinses off her board and adds a fresh layer of wax.
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The smell memories triggered by thoughts of summer are of cut grass, sunscreen, warmly salted sea air - which is different from crisp and cool salted sea air because it smells as though the salt particles are closer together than when they’re floating on a cool breeze. Heat is different to warmth.
Warmth smells like toast, the lingering scent of coffee, the slice of pavement lightly spread with the first rays of morning sunlight.
Heat is stifling to inhale. Heat exposes the hidden. The warmed up, deceased vermin tucked away inside the well trimmed hedge assaults the senses on your morning walk and you’re reminded that there is a dank and unforgiving side to life.
Skin becomes hot and small beads of sweat moisten the face, the aircon is not working, there is no aircon, heat starts to feel like it’s being generated from inside of the body, frustration leaks out, irritability is absorbed by the car door slammed, released with the impatient retort spewed. After a couple of days like this, one might start to explore a better way to be and live within heated conditions. Can we take better control of our sense responses if complaining and heatedly reacting to it doesn’t prove to bring sustainable physical or practical reprieve?
Heat is a condition of weather, and the rising temperatures, a consequence of the actions we perform on earth. Are we so comfortable with the technological advances of the day that discomfort brought on by the environment we find ourselves in, is perceived as a regressive circumstance, plunging us into a state of petulance? Does the heat expose our anger because it exposes the elements in our environment that point to a breakdown in infrastructure? Or because it increases the awareness of our own human activities as the root cause of climate change? The stench of overflowing bins, the inner city pollution hanging in the warmer pockets of air, sewage more visceral than we remember it being 5 years ago, load shedding drawing heavily on our tolerability reserves.
Smells do not deceive. They are information. If you smell your clothes at the end of a day, after having visited places outside of your home, you’ll recognise a scent from just about every place you visited, or every purposefully perfumed person you greeted with an embrace.
What information do our senses receive in the heat?
Blooming flowers perfume the air less in the heat because their fragrance oils dissipate. Perfumed skin exudes a deeper sensuality when it sweats, which awakens our primal instincts because sweat carries a natural animalic note and mixes together with the perceptible imperceptibility of pheromones (the presence of pheromones in humans is yet to be scientifically proven so it's a case of placebo effect vs 'knowing' what's there but goes undetected by the tech).
In the summer heat, cooking spices hang in the evening air a little more texturally; layers of cumin, coriander, turmeric and onion aromatically arouse the senses, momentarily unveiling the fantasy of travel to some exotic land.
Can we appreciate the stories the scented air tells? Stories of us, of people living together in community, or as strangers passing each other on the street, sharing the habits and necessities of eating, bathing, contributing to sewage pipe contents, consuming, disposing, celebrating. Can we respect the thread that connects us to each other; our human nature? And can we pay enough attention to want to adjust and restructure systems with this information being presented to us, in the air that we breathe;
The scent of it,
the temperature of it
and essentially, the intelligence in it.
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I think I probably do view the world through rose tinted lenses most of the time. How do you see? Do you see the kaleidoscope of colour that exists simply among the trees lining the roadside? Do you notice the change in formation of the clouds since you last stepped outside? Do you look into the eyes of the person pleading for food at the traffic light and offer a smile? How do you see the world each day? Are you really seeing through your eyes or are you using your eyes simply to navigate your way through distractions?
When you touch, do you notice what the surface of something feels like against your skin, even for a moment? When we begin to notice these interactions we become more sensitive to the qualities of the objects and beings we come into contact with. A solid oak armchair, the softness of a fluffy pet, the dimpled skin of an orange peel, the warmth of another human body. We can also enable ourselves to observe a sense of feeling empowered through the use of resources available at our fingertips each day. The touch of a phone screen, the boiling of a kettle, opening and closing, a hand on a shoulder - we are creating with every action we take.
How many different smells would you say you come into contact with each day? Do you notice the smell of your own body; more than one part of your body? Is the smell of your home, your office, your favourite cafe, familiar to you? How many times during the day do you experience the smell of burning or smoke and what are your first thoughts when you do? In my experience I usually try to identify the source (how close it is) and whether or not I have to worry about my safety. Does your daughter, your son, your lover, your mother have a smell that feels like home to you?
Do loud noises cause your body to tense and wince? Can a gentle piece of music soften the lines on your forehead? How does the tone of someone’s voice influence the way in which you respond to them? Do you hear the way your voice changes when you answer the unknown number of a caller who is painstakingly attempting to sell you something?
And the taste of water. The feeling of cool liquid on your tongue, different in flavour from a tap in the city versus a mountain stream. Why is it more refreshing from a mountain stream? It is probably cleaner, but so is bottled spring water. The difference is river water has energy; it was in motion before you dipped your cupped hands into it. Suddenly this primitive riverside activity seems like the ultimate luxury. Would the setting and the source even make a difference without access to one or all of your senses?
When we become so tapped out of our bodies or stuck in the vagaries of the mind, we limit perception and give away the simplicity of this beautiful life. Over indulging in stimuli means certain sensory functions may become a bit blurry in those moments and an accumulation of ‘blurs’ sets us up for what can come to be experienced as complications. Whether on an emotional or physical level. When we aren’t ‘tuned in’ through our senses, small niggles in the body can go undetected and take longer to heal than necessary when we finally do notice them as a scream rather than a whisper. When we are with our senses we are present and we can respond appropriately, simply. We notice that the rain is only rain on the skin. If we feel rain drops we get a bit wet. If we become too stuck in the mind’s ‘reel’ we may just notice irritation over getting wet as we try hard to maintain the levity of our special thought cloud. When we can accept through the senses; the breath, a touch, a view, can dissipate a cloud of thoughts enough for life to come back to the reality of simple beauty. And that is where it all begins. The rose tinted lenses. Because the smell of rot or urine on the pavement, is just that. You can leave it there, you identified it. You have smelled it before. Did it help the last time you started creating the 50th reel in your mind on the state of the city streets? Keep it simple. Keep it sense. Make sense from sense. Roses.
“We are always here, just at the surface, or as deeply as you desire,”
With love,
Your Senses
This exploration into hand wash and the nature of it, lead me to wonder a bit more about the times I choose to wash my hands. I realised that washing hands is not just about cleansing bacteria, it's also about coming home to one's own skin. I'm aware that I usually wash my hands after returning home from being out, having been in touch with things that aren't part of an environment I created. There's a sense of being in one's own 'bare skin' again after washing hands. Reconnecting with your essence; with yourself and your energy.
If we can go about our daily routines and rituals with even a tiny bit of intention, or awareness, perhaps it will inadvertently prompt us towards more mindful purchases when considering the kinds of products we invite into our spaces.
Sat Nam is produced using a locally made pure castile soap (from coconut oil), into which our M & M created Fragrance is blended. The fragrance is aromatic and fresh with an intention to create a closer to nature experience during which one might even imagine washing hands in a natural spring - an immediate portal for the senses.
SAT NAM is a Sanskrit term. It translates as truth is my essence, or the truth is within me - these words carry the vibration of an intention to be your true self. We chose this name to encourage a mindful moment with yourself each time you wash your hands; to offer a reminder to reconnect with your true self.
We hope that Sat Nam wash for hands fills a gap on your kitchen or bathroom sink, to please and nurture the eyes, the senses, the mind and our greater environment (in its re-usable & recyclable glass bottle).
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THE CONCEPT OF SPACE CLEARING
A wand of dried flowers and herbs tied together with cotton string - a fairly simple arrangement, used to accompany rituals and ceremonies rich with intention. Botanical wands as we like to call them, better known as smudge sticks, are used to clear (or burn) away negative energy to make space for renewal.
You may choose to clear spaces when moving into a previously lived in 'new' house, after guests have been to stay in your space, after home renovations/painting, after home invasions, after any kind of trauma has occurred in the space, after you or someone in the house has processed heavy emotions there, at the change of seasons, after you've gone through a positive transformation. There are no hard and fast rules about when to clear your space. You may even decide to introduce space clearing or smudging as a monthly or seasonal ritual in your home.
White sage (different to the herb we cook with) is universally associated with energy clearing and cleansing, but closer to home Imphepho is the medicinal herb traditionally burned in African rituals. It is used for its purification quality (it's both anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial), and is known to restore a sense of calm. Imphepho is also used to call in ancestral spirits or guides. When we choose to carry out our own rituals, using precious healing herbs and flowers, we should honour the wisdom of ancient cultures who passed these practices on to us, as well as the healing wisdom encoded in the cells of the plants and flowers we are handling.
SMOKE & SCENT MEMORIES
Once humans learned to harness fire, it could be used to cook food and thus began the ritual of lighting fires to gather and celebrate in the warmth of flames (a warm welcoming quality more than a physical heat) or to burn away things that no longer serve us, both literally and energetically.
It is no wonder then that most humans are strangely attracted to the scent of a wood burning fire. Chemicals, plastics and cigarette smoke are not so appealing, but burning wood harkens to sitting around camp fires, being in the mountains and a sense of primitive nostalgia linked to conjuring a fire with bare hands.
While smoke isn't a smell we prefer to have clinging to our hair and clothes (as it does) it has emerged as a prominent theme in fragrance creation over the past 5 years. The kind of smoke associated with the flavour of food being smoked, with the use of woods like cade (from branches of juniper) and gaiac. We feel that the smoke theme speaks to our innate desire to link to universal human heritage and tradition; to include some kind of cultural practice in our daily lives that connects us to earth and to each other through the familiarity of the way we harness nature's elements to create, build and nourish.
INTENTIONAL SPACE CLEARING GUIDE
*make sure all the windows in the space you are clearing are open
* before lighting your smudge stick hold the botanical wand in your hands and gaze at it, silently acknowledging the gift of beauty and healing from nature
* bring to mind your intention or reason for clearing your space
* keep a ceramic or non-flammable container with you to catch the embers that fall while smudging
* light the smudge wand and blow out the flame. The smoke will start to rise. Holding the container just below the lit end of the wand, move from one end of your space to the other, moving the wand in a clockwise circular motion.
* make sure you allow smoke to rise up towards corners and behind doors, all the while holding in your heart your true energy, the energy you want to invite back into the space
* once you're done, put out the end of the wand by pressing it into your ceramic container. Your wand should last ages, only a small amount will actually burn down each time
* to bring a pleasant scent back into the space, light a fragrance candle, again bringing to mind and heart the new energy you're inviting into your space
* all the above also applies to using Palo Santo to clear your space. The exception is that Palo Santo itself has a lovely fragrance rather than a smoke smell
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This is the question you may ask at first, if you're just starting out on your fragrance journey. Or perhaps a personal scent isn't something you've been too interested in - you've always just worn what has most easily come your way. The answer to the question of meaning behind scent is filtered through a different membrane by each person who experiences it, because our memories are personal; they're directly linked to the olfactory nerve.
We do seem to have a generalised scent filter on some levels, for example we generally perceive fresh, light, heavy, intense, soft. However, while you may love top notes of basil and citrus, conjuring thoughts of walking through an artisanal market in Italy, an easy stride, curious mind and a certain lightness of being about you, someone else may have a complete aversion to aromatic notes, and the possibility of any imagery around it besides "eugh" ends there. The history behind this aversion is fascinating and often not entirely explicable - a discussion worthy of its own blog post, another time.
There is really no way to know if another person is able to translate the part of yourself you're sharing through your choice in fragrance, at the exact same axis where your individual scent experiences meet those you may share collectively (as families, geographically, culturally, through religious ceremony). Another person might find your fragrance choice pleasing, but the way they experience you, with it, could take on a slightly different essence or meaning for them. It is safe to say we can never have the exact same cerebral experience as someone else.
And this is why the question is not what is my fragrance saying about me?
But rather what or how do I want to feel when I wear my fragrance? Which part of yourself, of your own essence, would you like to enhance?
Above all, these questions are prompts for you to delve deeper into your own experience of yourself - to get to know yourself a bit more. What you like and don't like. Which parts of yourself you want to express. How do you want to communicate with others? How do you communicate with yourself? Are you afraid of your inner thoughts or are you curious about what would happen if you experimented a bit more with scents that are not familiar but are also not unpleasing?
Or the kind of scents that you've suddenly realised you aren't sure about because you've been told they aren't favourable. Or some cultural sub-text attached to certain scents that has made up your mind before you've even tested them on your own skin.
So yes, in some ways, what does your choice in fragrance say about you? But more so, what do you say about you? What makes you feel more you? Because at the end of the day others will come and go, but you are here with yourself every moment of every day. Honour that.
I'm here to explore, question, be enamoured and humoured by life, and I hope to keep sharing ways and producing things that encourage you to do so too.
]]>I recently visited a friend for a few days in another city and did some washing at her place. The detergent she uses is so strong that it was all I could smell when I wore my clean clothes after that. This got me to thinking that people often over spray perfume too, which would over bear the detergent smell anyway. Some people like the smell of clean clothes and perhaps even that's enough for them - along with a spray of underarm deodorant.
Metaphysically speaking, in the world of natural perfumery, fragrance is less of a trench coat and more a silk scarf. It's light on the skin and compliments a mood, even enhances it as it happens to float up off the skin with a casual swing of the scarf over one shoulder. Natural fragrance is for your personal space and so in many ways it's 'becoming' to wear, as it settles in with your skin and your sense of self. A trench coat on the other hand, while presenting a beautiful silhouette, is more of an external statement - outside of yourself and very structured, coating your body like a shell.
Occasions I'm likely to wear perfume, are less occasion based because perfume for me is about mood. There is usually one day during the week when I won't be working in my lab at all and I'll put on a solid perfume, every now and then a parfum or edt (when I'm feeling positively intense). On other days I try give myself a complete break from scent because it's good for perfumers to step away from their work; both for a sensory break and to regain a 'fresh' palette. Such days also present great opportunities for me to become more engaged and curious about the smells I come into contact with in the world around me.
If I'm going out for dinner I'll wear one of the natural perfumes I bought in France early last year - it feels very indulgent, especially because they aren't fragrances I created so there is un petit guilt in wearing a perfume that wasn't made by me. There is one french perfume I wear with tuberose in it, which is not entirely natural and while I adore it, I do find there are times when it is a bit much for me, especially the more accustomed I become to wearing naturals. And then there are dinners where I'll wear M & M - it really is all about my mood.
Sometimes at the end of the day on my way to yoga I'll dab on a solid perfume - I usually feel like doing this when I'm craving a deeper multi-sensory experience or some self soothing.
On weekends, during the day I'll experiment with the solids, mixing two different ones together for a new experience. I often forget to put perfume on when I'm not in the lab though as it's become more of a (quite sad) habit not to (before being on the production side, I used to feel naked leaving the house without perfume). As soon as I remember after leaving the house, I feel disappointed at having lost the opportunity to experience being the wearer again, but If I'm lucky and I'm using one of my well used handbags, there is likely to be a little M & M tin hidden amongst my Mawu, hair clips and lip balm.
While it is a little sad that I can't use as many fragranced products or wear perfume as much as I used to, I'm also truly grateful to be working with the most precious plant materials on a daily basis and experiencing them in ways that I'd never dreamed of.
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During those ancient times when mythology and superstition held reverence, kings and queens were known to solicit rare delicacies such as animal genitalia to be cooked and eaten for sexual arousal and performance, or spices that we use freely today, like cardamom, ginger, caraway, pepper, cinnamon and cloves to seduce those they desired. It was a kind of magic, they thought, in most cases a seduction of the senses, not necessarily the heart. Casanova famously seduced a virgin by slipping a raw oyster into her mouth. Chocolate, champagne and foie gras are also hailed as aphrodisiacs, and yes, they do catalyse chemical reactions in the body that can affect our moods. In the heat of an intimate moment they can fuel desire. But what happens when the ‘magic’ wears off and our moods change?
When the nose happens upon a desirable scent and we intriguingly turn towards it, the intrigue can only be further engaged if the wearer carries both their own energy and the scent well. Yes, physical appearance does play a role in attraction but we are drawn to each other by energy more than anything else, whether of a romantic, friendly, or professional nature, there is a reason we prefer to work or play with certain people. Sometimes we can name the reasons and sometimes we can’t. Sometimes we say, ‘it was the champagne’, and mostly it was, with the slight numbing of logic and rush of endorphins. But when scent is carried by a wave of energy that compliments it, floats it well, I believe that is when we feel enamoured by a person’s presence.
SO WHY DO YOU WEAR FRAGRANCE?
We usually choose a scent for the day or evening according to our mood. We might be feeling playful, sensual, confident, or we may want to put something on that makes us feel more in flow with one of these states. If you usually stick to one fragrance (the rest remaining hidden in a dark drawer), try experimenting with others - our preferences often change over time and even between seasons or times of the day. This exploration will not only help you discover what you like, it’ll also reveal the parts of you that you unknowingly keep to the shadows; the parts of you that are probably the most alluring.
It’s when you know more about yourself, what you like and don’t like, that you're able to feel so in tune with who you are that you wear your essence on your sleeve, adding to your life only the things that compliment that essence (whether experiences, people, accessories or fragrance). Making choices becomes easier because you trust your inner wisdom.
If your intention is to attract, allow the attraction of You to float upon your scent rather than to be suffocated by it.
Be so in love with who you are that you never feel as though you have to try and do anything more to attract someone you desire, than simply be present, as yourself.
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A quick look at these two raw materials ('tis the season):
If you're a fan of decorating a real tree for the jolly season, you probably make an outing of it each year, either to a nursery or inland tree farm, to select your fir/pine/spruce tree. Whether the tree in your living room is real or not, pine is one of the scents we associate with the season, even more so for those in the northern hemisphere who experience a white winter. The evergreens represent the more leafy, earthy side of the holiday season, which balances out the sweet aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and citrus that hang happily in the atmosphere of homes and cafes dedicated to traditional festive gastronomy.
Just as the trees in the evergreen family are similar in appearance but also quite different, so too are the scent profiles of their oils. Fir needle oil is different to pine needle and considered a bit more precious in the world of perfumery; it carries a heftier price tag. Fir carries a bit more of a landscaped scent profile in that it's evocative of the forest as a collective entity (balsamic woody, forest, green and dry). Its oil is extracted from the needles only. Pine oil is extracted from the needles and twigs and is more sharp and crisp than fir (herbal, woody, hay, green).
Emotionally, fir can be helpful with fatigue, anxiety and lifting the spirit.
]]>We love creating with local KZN based artisan ECOGEM.
Our 100% cotton pouches remain as soft cocoons for our solid perfume invitation collection, but we've removed the drawstring (from the candle pouches too) so that the bag folds out, or in more, to the size that is most convenient for your reuse purposes. The pouch folds out long enough to hold a toothbrush and toothpaste, travel jewellery, Barbie clothes & Barbie, sunglasses and many other things we don't like to leave home without.
The new SCOUTS pouches for M & M stand alone solid fragrances were such fun to design and perfectly timed to be the first products Ecogem created using the new cream coloured Future Felt, a fabric made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. There are 3 different SCOUTS pouches to collect (crescent moon & rectangular varieties). Keep your solid fragrances in them or repurpose them as money or card holders, jewellery protectors, gift pouches or whatever your heart desires (all M & M branding is removable).
]]>We've just released our first bigger, 161g candle, which means more burn time and a new scent journey for you to embark upon. This candle comes straight from the heart of perfumer KS;
the many depths of love all come back to one,
ONELOVE to bind us all.
Feel the love,
every kind.
{scent evocation} a wooded thicket, an entwined shadow of roses, a gathering of critters wanting to love and be loved, as they gnaw upon bittersweet nutmeg seeds.
You may notice that ONELOVE is a lot more yellow in colour than our other candles. This is because we're now using beeswax from South Africa, rather than Germany. Previously we weren't able to source beeswax pellets locally (pellets are more practical for melting purposes than a beeswax slab). While the previous beeswax we used was natural and superb in quality, the SA beeswax holds a more intense pollen-full fragrance. From now on all our candles will be crafted using this beeswax, in our efforts to try our best to keep our business local.
In other candle news, keep an eye on our social media pages for our holiday fragrance launching soon.
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