Medicine and perfumery have their roots in nature; both started as the alchemy of plants. Why medicine has progressed beyond tinctures and extractions to pills, surgery, and radiation, while aromatherapy and perfumery have not, remains a mystery. Even though people find relief with aromatherapy interventions, it is difficult to validate and measure consistently. That said, there is plenty of historical evidence attributing emotions and feelings to scent. Scents were referred to as “depressing”, “inspiring and reviving,” as far back as …
Tag: Odor
Olfactory Report 5: Scent as Protagonist * Catherine Haley Epstein
If you are reading this, you likely do not need convincing that indeed, scent is a protagonist in our lives, our society, and our world. We follow it everywhere, watching how it creates change and makes gorgeous metaphors for things – haunting, beautiful, and terrifying. Just as music and visual art can have an active role in changing our perceptions, so too does scent. While scent is invisible, it is intrinsically related to gender, race, politics etc.. We see it …
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Helen Keller on Smell, the Fallen Angel
“SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL” is Chapter SIX of The World I Live In (1908), a magnificent book that tells of perceptions beyond seeing and hearing. In it, Helen Keller offers vivid descriptions that blend her practical and poetical appreciation of what is arguably our most undervalued sense. We at Aromatica Poetica present this as one of our foundational texts, alongside Proust’s Madeleine. This was gently edited for apparent scanning errors and the odd British spellings were Americanized. Smell, the Fallen …