Botanical perfume, an ancient tradition

Don’t you just love the word unguent? It conjures up a medieval perfume studio and the ancient, handcrafted traditions of herbal infusions and distilled essential oils. Healingbalms, salves and solid perfumes are all unguents. They’ve been around for at least 4,000 years, and making them is still a valuable self-sufficiency skill. I will write about making healing balms in another post, but for now I want to dwell on natural perfume. With a handful of essential oils, I can forget about the heat and humidity for hours at a time by designing or fine tuning an aromatic creation. That's what I call survival.

Fourteen years ago while I was happily building my herbal soap business, I encountered Mandy Aftel’s book, Essence and Alchemy. I suddenly wanted to immerse myself in the artisan perfumeries of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, on into the Middle Ages when alchemists blended spices from the Far East with aromatic plants they grew in their indispensable medieval herb gardens. Essence and Alchemy takes you to those places and more, yet is also a practical DIY for natural perfumer-wannabes, full of fascinating historical info and Aftel’s contagious passion for this antediluvian tradition.

Perfume wasn’t always about smelling sweet or spicy for the opposite sex. Throughout history and for millennia before that, shamans and other spiritual people used infused scents to help them enter a mystical state of being. The ancient Egyptians buried pots of scented unguents with their god-like rulers to help them on their new journey into the afterlife. Of course the Romans took it all to a more decadent level with their scent shops in the bath houses. Then along came medieval times with their popular perfume studios. It’s no wonder really, why perfumeries were so important in their culture. Those poor people were probably desperate to smell something other than unwashed bodies. Or dead bodies during plague times. But away from the city, in a crone’s cottage in the woods, or a wealthy woman’s still room in her manor house, or a friar’s herbal workshop in a remote monastery, making herbal potions could afford to be a more romantic endeavor. At least in the minds of some of us modern day dreamers.

I make my solid perfumes with organic jojoba oil, essential oils and natural beeswax. I like to blend with a journey in mind, medicine for the spirit. When you inhale these natural perfumes, you can feel the evocative energy contained within the essential oils and absolutes. It’s heavenly. 

My collection so far:

Night Journey Earthy and spicy, inspired by the idea of crossing the veil. This one is my signature scent, created when Lew and I were living up on Chapel Ridge.

Earth Day A warm, woodsy blend that evokes the sacred, making it perfect

for meditation. Contains amyris (often called Haitian sandalwood), cedarwood, frankincense, rose otto, oak moss and various balsams.

Enchanted Path A spicy citrus top chord, floral heart and a sweet & sultry base meld into an uplifting confection that sings of bright magic and new beginnings. 

Meadow Journey through a summertime field of sweetgrass and wildflowers, where each step releases a sensual, earthy breath. Grounding and relaxing.

I sell my solid perfumes for $29. They come in a .25 oz glass jar, tucked into a drawstring linen bag. I also make simple chords (usually base chords), single notes (everyone loves lavender), children’s scents and herbal spray perfumes. Prices vary from $8 to $18 for these. Email me if you’d like more information.