"How can you set your product apart at an art festival when so many people are doing the same thing? For us it has always been the smells. So many people tell me our products are the best they've ever smelled. Using natural oils is a great start, but I think it's more than that."
Step onto my driveway. Maybe avoid a day when the wind from the west is brining in the cattle smells from the Flannigan farm. My friend, Maggie, always jokes she can smell my house all the way out to her car when she pulls in. When I spilled a half of a pound of Spanish Marjoram oil on my floor one day I joked that maybe she could smell it from her house...way across the countryside. My yoga students often comment that I must be wearing essential oils, they can smell me across the room. And nobody enters the studio after my class without commenting on how good it smells in there...and I think that's saying a lot when you work in a sweaty gym setting. My life is filled with powerful aromatherapy, every inch, at every moment. I'd like to think that's what keeps me content, calm, and steady. I know it's what keeps me grateful.
We all have gifts we are able to develop over our lives. Whether we are born with these gifts or gain them through our life experiences, we all have things we are just better at than others. I love to sing in my car, loud, and with a ton of passion. This singing would quickly clear a room...well, not would, it has. I love music to a fault, but I just can't sing in tune. People who can sing are gifted. And, yes it can be learned and enhanced through practice and assistance, but it is a gift. Some people are good at science, art, or public speaking. I think in this realm of natural product creation, my biggest gift is my nose.
Of our 5 senses I think scent is my absolute favorite. Nature gifts us so many ways to interpret the world around us, and our ability to smell is so multi-faceted. Without scent, we can't taste. So many of the things we encounter we identify by the way they smell. Around the farm, scent depicts when the season is changing. Come to the country side as winter turns to spring, the odor of manure is so pungent, and, as spring carries on, it fades, until the season changes once again. A scent can trigger a memory so powerfully, it can literally bring us back years. While visiting my parents this past weekend I couldn't help but notice how powerful the smell of their house is, and no matter how many times the people, animals, and activities in the house has changed, the scent of the home stays exactly the same as when I was a child, living there with my family and my grandma's vintage green couch, sit-n-spinning my days away in the basement.
When I first started making product things were very simple. Product bases, pre-made recipes, varying ratios of water, oil, and wax. How can you set your product apart at an art festival when so many people are doing the same thing, and there is only so many ways to stand out? For us it has always been the smells. So many people tell me our products are the best they've ever smelled. Using natural oils is a great start, but I think it's more than that. I think I have a gift to be able to mix scents in a way that is balanced, yet unexpected. Just like any art I've created, I like to push the envelope with elements of surprise that lie in a bed of simplicity. Until I started studying the "science" of blending scents, I didn't even realize I was following the rules...and breaking them exquisitely.
The science of aromatherapy is based in how scents affect our moods and mindset. Smells truly can help us focus, make us calmer, or bring us feelings of joyful bliss from one moment to the next. Having the ability to feel many things at one time is a great gift of being human. I like being able to create opportunities for people to enjoy the complexity of multiple scents coming together perfectly to bring about an overall emotion that can stay true through all of life's ups-and-downs. Or just to get those whiffs of the soap they used that morning and question who in their office smells so good...only to realize, it's them.
We all have gifts we are able to develop over our lives. Whether we are born with these gifts or gain them through our life experiences, we all have things we are just better at than others. I love to sing in my car, loud, and with a ton of passion. This singing would quickly clear a room...well, not would, it has. I love music to a fault, but I just can't sing in tune. People who can sing are gifted. And, yes it can be learned and enhanced through practice and assistance, but it is a gift. Some people are good at science, art, or public speaking. I think in this realm of natural product creation, my biggest gift is my nose.
Of our 5 senses I think scent is my absolute favorite. Nature gifts us so many ways to interpret the world around us, and our ability to smell is so multi-faceted. Without scent, we can't taste. So many of the things we encounter we identify by the way they smell. Around the farm, scent depicts when the season is changing. Come to the country side as winter turns to spring, the odor of manure is so pungent, and, as spring carries on, it fades, until the season changes once again. A scent can trigger a memory so powerfully, it can literally bring us back years. While visiting my parents this past weekend I couldn't help but notice how powerful the smell of their house is, and no matter how many times the people, animals, and activities in the house has changed, the scent of the home stays exactly the same as when I was a child, living there with my family and my grandma's vintage green couch, sit-n-spinning my days away in the basement.
When I first started making product things were very simple. Product bases, pre-made recipes, varying ratios of water, oil, and wax. How can you set your product apart at an art festival when so many people are doing the same thing, and there is only so many ways to stand out? For us it has always been the smells. So many people tell me our products are the best they've ever smelled. Using natural oils is a great start, but I think it's more than that. I think I have a gift to be able to mix scents in a way that is balanced, yet unexpected. Just like any art I've created, I like to push the envelope with elements of surprise that lie in a bed of simplicity. Until I started studying the "science" of blending scents, I didn't even realize I was following the rules...and breaking them exquisitely.
The science of aromatherapy is based in how scents affect our moods and mindset. Smells truly can help us focus, make us calmer, or bring us feelings of joyful bliss from one moment to the next. Having the ability to feel many things at one time is a great gift of being human. I like being able to create opportunities for people to enjoy the complexity of multiple scents coming together perfectly to bring about an overall emotion that can stay true through all of life's ups-and-downs. Or just to get those whiffs of the soap they used that morning and question who in their office smells so good...only to realize, it's them.
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