Healing photo via shutterstock
Contemporary society has a complex relationship with the subject of rest. Even more so if that rest is in service of healing. The past few years have brought these ideas squarely to the forefront of many of our lives, or the lives of those we know and love. While you might not find rest, convalescence, or recovery as important subjects in modern medicine, you will find the term post-viral fatigue. The relationship between infectious illness and tiredness was well known to physicians as far back as ancient Greece: the first medical writings are full of descriptions of fever accompanied by debilitating fatigue. Why this happens is still poorly understood. Waves of Covid-19 from 2020 onward have triggered this kind of enduring fatigue in many. Since the pandemic, increasing economic pressures have created what Yale psychiatrists Paul B. Lieberman and John S. Strauss call work stress when “enforced pursuit of an activity is at odds with [a person’s] own goals and aspirations.” The need for rest and serenity is not new. Even during relatively normal times, humans have needed some kind of regular rest. Our modern practice of doing so every seventh day is actually an ancient notion enshrined in the concept of the sabbath (Hebrew for rest).
Florence Nightingale also strongly advocated for windows looking out on scenery that is green, alive and growing (a recommendation that has been born out through modern research). In the rush to corporate medicine, we’ve lost something important: places built for rest and adequate time to heal. When we don’t have access to spaces perfectly attuned to rest and healing, scent can transport us to those needed mental landscapes.
Anjali Perfumes Under the Mango Tree and Anjali Vandemark collage by Rachel
Anjali Perfumes Under the Mango Tree (Anjali Vandemark) transports its wearer to the meditative quiet of India’s rural landscape. Green farmlands move at the pace of nature and Anjali Perfumes Under the Mango Tree unfolds on the body in a harmoniously restful tempo. Perfumer Anjali Vandemark created Under the Mango Tree from her memories of playing beneath these majestic trees during her childhood in India. The mango tree has deep roots, like healthy veins, drawing water from far beneath the ground. The scent of healing, life and health that one gets from inhaling the air just underneath a tree is beautifully captured in the opening of this lovely fragrance. Green mango skin and tomato leaf create a unique and beautiful green accord that is lifted with grapefruit and bergamot. According to Anjali, “I was looking to represent the feel of the tree trunk, its deep green leaves, and the feel of the earth as you sit under it.” Anjali Perfumes Under the Mango Tree has a long and meditative opening that creates a sense of healing through scent. Blue chamomile essential oil and lavender essential oil offer herbaceous diffusion around the layered heart of wild rose and rose water. Base notes of fir balsam, pine wood, and hay recall the dry and healing air of mountain retreats. The mango skin note develops slowly into a ripe mango fruit that blends effortlessly into the protective canopied environment created by Anjali Perfumes Under the Mango Tree. Notes: green mango skin, tomato leaf, grapefruit, bergamot, wild roses, rose water, fir balsam, pine wood, dust, hay
Maher Olfactive Sun Soaked and Sean Maher courtesy of the brand collage by Rachel
Maher Olfactive Sun Soaked (Sean Maher): Healing time in a spa was known as the Rest Cure and it had a complementary approach to recovery known as the West Cure. Doctors in the 1800s would advise some patients to journey to the Midwest and seek work on a ranch where they could spend time immersed in nature, engaged in physical labor, and out in the sun. The West Cure had adherents from Teddy Roosevelt to Walt Whitman, all of whom spent time through the 1870s and 1880s out west as a cure for nervous conditions. Maher Olfactive Sun Soaked provides just such an energizing journey. Located in in Saint Louis, the “Gateway to the West,” Shawn Maher creates fragrances that reflect the unique sense of place in his part of the Midwest. Maher Olfactive Sun Soaked opens with a bright neroli exuding a healing and uplifting white floral aroma with a fresh, sweet, subtle green facet. Neroli remains the ray of sunshine throughout Maher Olfactive Sun Soaked. Narcissus, orange bigarde and chamomile interweave with the neroli to create a vibrant, radiant solar energy. Orange bigarde adds a sweet, honeyed and somewhat metallic edge with green and spicy facets (orange blossom is also extracted from the same blossom). Amber and Texas cedar bring the saturated sun-soaked texture to the fragrance. There is something powerfully healing about the incandescent feel of sun on one’s skin. Maher Olfactive Sun Soaked has managed to capture the experience of air thick with solar rays in this wonderful bottle. Notes: neroli, narcissus, orange bigarade, black currant bud, chamomile, Texas cedar, amber
Wit and West Jasmine Pet Noi and Whitney Swales courtesy of the brand collage by Rachel
Wit and West Jasmine Pet Noi (Whitneys Swales) In his book, Recovery, Dr. Gavin Francis discusses how important the natural balance between inner and outer environments can be for our health and for healing. He advises, “give time, space, and respect to convalescence if you can. Charge your environment with as much as you’re able of space, light, cleanliness, greenery, quiet. Travel if you can, and if you can’t, travel vicariously through the stories of others. Attend to your surroundings and your occupations if they’re making you sick, change them… healing happens thanks to the same force that greens the trees in the spring and pushes bulbs up through the earth.” Changing our environment through scent can be a powerful tool for health. Wit and West’s Jasmine Pet Noi takes us to a garden in full-bloom. Pink peppercorn and bitter orange sparkle through thick evening air. Orange blossom and jasmine sambac bring a flash of creamy white petals followed by a slow burn of intoxicatingly rich beeswax and sweet-honeyed indole. Wit and West Jasmine Pet Noi smolders down into a resinous base of labdanum, patchouli, and palo santo. This beautiful dry down is an utter whirlwind of healing energy. Biting yellow lemon entwine with honied marshmallow sweetness; fresh water mint and creamy notes reminding me of Siam wood and sandalwood rise to the surface. This garden is alive! It is buzzing with energy, a plentiful and dark perfection. Wit and West Jasmine Pet Noi captures that essential and healing lifeforce that propels us forward, to heal, to love and to create anew. Notes: pink peppercorn, bitter orange, orange blossom, jasmine sambac, patchouli, palo santo, labdanum
Sample of Under the Mango Tree kindly provided by Anjali Perfumes, sample of Jasmine Pet Noi kindly provided by Wit and West Perfumes for my scent of healing article and reviews, sample of Maher Olfactive Sun Soaked my own
Opinions, as always, my own.
~ Rachel K. Ng, Senior Contributor
Thanks to Anjali Perfumes, Maher Olfactive, and Wit and West Perfumes we have a reader’s choice of these three healing and serene fragrances.
Thanks to Whitney Swales we have a bottle of Wit and West Jasmine Pet Noi for a registered ÇaFleureBon readers IN THE USA ONLY (if you are not sure if you are registered click here – you must register on our site or your entry will be invalid)
Thanks to Shawn Maher we have a bottle of Maher Olfactive Sunsoaked for a registered ÇaFleureBon readers IN THE USA ONLY (if you are not sure if you are registered click here – you must register on our site or your entry will be invalid)
Thanks to Anjali Vandemark we have a bottle of Anjali Perfumes Under the Mango Tree readers IN THE USA ONLY (if you are not sure if you are registered click here – you must register on our site or your entry will be invalid)
To be eligible please leave a quality comment on this site with what strikes you about Rachel’s three scents of healing, which you would choose should you win and how fragrance helps you find serenity and healing, Draw Closes 6/10/2023
Please read Deputy Editor and Natural Perfumery Editor Ida Meister’s Perfumed Plume award winning in-depth essay Scent and Healing: The Transformative Power of Perfume
Editor’s Note: Each of the three scents of healing chosen by Rachel are by artisan perfumers. Perhaps it is their mindful and deeply personal intent when creating that brings serenity and healing.
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