Fragrance and Well-Being
Fragrance and Well-Being
My fascination with how the olfactory ties in with well-being is one of the reasons why I studied perfumery. So many aspects of our lives are linked inextricably to fragrance that it’s easy to take for granted: from basic household cleaning products to common street smell and scents that arise from the changes in seasons—like Pumpkin Spice Everything and fresh, resinous fir needles at Christmas tree stands.
Think of the routine scents that accompany the daily rituals of waking, like making coffee or tea and grabbing breakfast. Coming home at night, a neighbor’s freshly cooked dinner may tantalize, if it isn’t the torturous waft emanating from the food delivery man’s bag inside an elevator. One’s evening ritual might include peeling out of sweaty gym clothes and settling into a hot soapy shower or a tub filled with Epsom salts. On the weekend the scents may shift to that of laundry soap and fabric softener sheets and a late Sunday breakfast with bacon and eggs or maple-syrupy pancakes.
Everything we encounter olfactorily is often taken for granted as part of an accepted routine as our minds race elsewhere and onto the next thing. Yet the sense of smell is powerful in terms of creating lasting memories.
Ask yourself what scents you can recall immediately from childhood? For me: orange peel lingering beneath fingernails, freshly sharpened lead pencils, crayons, fig newton cookies, mimeograph ink at school and the my grandmother’s copious usage of Aqua Net hairspray and Murphy’s Oil of Flax soap to mop the floors.
We’re often told that human noses do not have the amazing reach and power of a dog’s olfactory capacity, but I agree with this article, which states that the real reason is because we’re not paying attention or giving it much priority.
While the world may prioritize visual and auditory senses to a degree of overstimulation via computers, emails, phone calls accompanied by a bombardment of adverts, life-sized digital LED billboards, television/internet news footage and video games, fragrance can serve as a swift, therapeutic touchstone that offers soothing comfort and familiarity. Scent connects us instantly to the emotions, and well-being is about finding balance, peace of mind and establishing a mood.
Why do you wear perfume?
Air & Weather’s Linden: A Music Video
Filmed earlier this summer!
Catch Air & Weather’s Luxurious Linden at SPNA’s 2021 Gala!
The Stuyvesant Square Park Neighborhood Association will be hosting their 2021 Gala and Silent Auction on October 7, 2021. All proceeds go toward park improvements, which include rose bushes, arbor care and fountain repair. Air & Weather is pleased to offer our Linden perfume as an auction item, as the fragrance was inspired by the Little Leaf linden trees within the park.
This will be SPNA’s first fundraising event since the pandemic, and it will be held at the historic St. George’s Church in Manhattan.
Alcohol-Based Perfume Versus Perfume Oil
A client asked me the other day about the difference between alcohol-based fragrance and oil-based fragrance so I thought I would write a quick post to explain:
Alcohol-based perfume
Alcohol, as a carrier, creates a fine veil mist due to its wide vapor dispersement when sprayed. This allows you to step inside the scent and become enveloped within it. As a result, an alcohol-based perfume offers a very quick and fully dimensional idea of what a perfume smells like. If there’s one drawback to using alcohol as a carrier, it’s that it can be mildly drying to the skin.
Oil-based perfume
When oil is used as a carrier for the fragrance formulation instead of alcohol, the bottle often comes with a dabber or as a roll-on because oil is too thick of a substance to use in an atomizer.
Oil-based perfumes will be more of an intimate experience with a fragrance, as it responds to the warmth of your skin and your body heat. So instead of creating a cloud of fragrance to step into, the body becomes the warming vessel and diffuser. Oil-based perfumes are also hydrating and retain the skin’s moisture, which in turn extends the longevity of the fragrance, compared to an alcohol-based perfume.
One of the common tips for how to make an (alcohol-based) perfume last, is to first massage unscented lotion to your skin before applying the perfume.
Which Should You Choose?
Whether you choose an alcohol-based fragrance or an oil-based fragrance is entirely a matter of preference, as each delivers the perfume uniquely upon application. If you enjoy spritzing a fine mist of your favorite fragrance that settles over you like a soothing cloud, then choose an alcohol-based perfume. If you prefer to dab an oil-based perfume over pulse points and enjoy how it emanates subtly from your skin, then choose an oil-based perfume.
Welcome to Air & Weather!
Today is opening day, in the midst of a major tropical storm in New York City–and thankfully, at this moment, we do have electricity. (Never a dull moment.). Our current release is Linden.