Aroma means smell, therapy means healing. Aromatherapy is smell healing, not to be confused with smelly healing, which occurs inside of your cast when you’ve broken a bone. After some research, it all boiled down to two things. Do we like things that smell good? Yes! Is there much scientific evidence in support of aromatherapy? Not really! But let’s go back to things smelling good for a minute. Almost everyone has a favorite scent, from morning pancakes to fresh Asphalt. OK, that’s only me who likes fresh Asphalt. But when I catch the scent, I really notice it. Nothing about that experience is therapeutic (it’s probably bad for me), but I enjoy it. Scientists and holistic practitioners can disagree all day long about whether aromatherapy – scents that help the body heal and provide sensual stimulation – is real. While they argue, I suggest you grab a bottle of ylang-ylang oil and head for the bedroom.
We get pleasant feelings from all of our senses, so it only makes sense that sight, sound, touch, smell and taste play a role in our sex lives. One of the most sensuous experiences for couples is a lovely aphrodisiac massage. Put on some beautiful music, close your eyes, feel your partner’s hands caressing you and smell those yummy aphrodisiac oils. If you’re using edible massage oil, complete the experience with your fifth sense – taste! (Please do make sure the bottle says “edible” – nothing kills the mood like a trip to the hospital).
As I’ve just mentioned, fragrant oils can produce relaxing or stimulating results when massaged into skin. Aromatherapy has other practical applications too. If you’re wondering exactly how to use aromatherapy, you can pour a small amount of essential oil in your bath or in a special diffuser. It heats the oil with a candle or electricity so that the scent permeates your air space.
Googling “aromatherapy” produces almost 10 million hits, and none of them can seem to agree on which essential oils you should use for which intended result. So, as a woman and a sexual being, I’ll tell you my preferences when it comes to aromatherapy. Sandalwood kind of makes me feel like I’m in a desert harem, wearing silky robes and belly dancing. It’s a very nice place to be. After a night of bacchanal-drenched pleasures, I might wake up and eat some baba ganoush. Then I would lay about the tent all day with my girlfriends and a hookah.
Lavender brings me back to the States – in fact, to the lush, green wooded area near the local college campus. Beautiful, fragrant lavender is growing everywhere, the bunnies are hopping around and I’m lying in the grass wearing a cute and revealing hippie dress and tantalizing the college boys as they walk by.
I’m heading down South for eucalyptus. Poling lazily through the bayou, I lounge in an alligator-proof boat and inhale the scent of the fragrant trees that surround me. I have a green parasol to shade myself from the sunlight that gently filters through the canopy of trees above. Do eucalyptus trees grow in the bayou? I don’t know. But that’s where I go when I breathe in the earthy, sensuous smell of eucalyptus oil.
For the scent adventurers out there, tickle your nose with some of these strange aromatic options: beeswax, carrot seed, coffee, catnip, lime, black pepper, tobacco, and something called spikenard, which my spell check accepts, and is described as earthy, woody, harsh and musty. You may want to leave that one out of the bedroom, but you can certainly bring it along when you go to Bonnaroo.
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