Posted on 22-Oct-2011

It is time for Autumn Harvest

This is truly one of the most beautiful seasons and one of my favorites. The beautiful colors surrounding us everywhere. The big pumpkins, acorn squash, the last of the herbs gathered, the first blast of winter chill, the first fire making everything cozy and warm. Picking apples, the scent of apple pie, hot applesauce laced with cinnamon.

Halloween is the time of apple harvest, and there are many Halloween traditions in which apples are very important. Candy apples are a traditional trick or treat gift, or bobbing for apples, or 'dooking' as it is called in Scotland.

Apples also have a history of being used for healing "an apple a day keeps the doctor away".

The weather is changing and our skin needs more protection. The kids are in school and getting the sniffels. The heat is on and the air is very dry.

Do you have your basics for the coming season, ie, shea butter, skin creams, carrier oils, essential oils, etc?

Posted on 13-Oct-2011

The sense of smell plays a vital role in our sense of well-being and quality of life. The sense of smell brings us into harmony with nature, warns us of dangers and sharpens our awareness of other people, places and things. It helps us to respond to those we meet, can influence our mood, how long we stay in a room, who we talk to and who we want to see again.

Posted on 28-Oct-2011

Choosing a perfume to wear

I was cruising on the web the other day and was reading a post from a woman who asked what was the difference between vintage and niche scents. Well, the answer that was given to her was good for a brief posting. People seek out the vintage perfumes because they were made with quality ingredients that rarely go bad if kept in a cool, dark place. In other words, the current perfume market for the last thirty years has been bombarded every year with celebrity perfumes that come and go just as quickly. The real difference between a vintage scent and a modern scent is that today’s perfumes are predominantly synthetic. They smell the same an hour after application as they did the second they were sprayed. They are what they are. Vintage, just like niche perfumes today, were designed to evolve on the skin. A whiff from a bottle, did not tell you how it would smell on you. You had to wear the perfume to experience it. And while some scents were soliflore scents, most were complex and exciting. And here is where Niche perfumes come in. They are hand blended for the most part, and created by unknown “Noses”. Just like a great song can be written and performed by an unknown band, who are heralded to the top of the charts, so can a niche perfumer rise to the top from the creation of one perfume. Many people want a scent they can “own”, that belongs to them and they will never run into someone who is wearing their scent. As a niche perfumer myself, I get great joy when a man stops me in the grocery store and asks me what the perfume is that I am wearing. Men want their women to smell good and they are pleased when they smell something they have never smelled before. And many of the men who comment on my scent, state they normally don’t like perfumes. A good niche perfume can be even better than a vintage one.