As a teacher or mentor, after a while certain classes become old hat through repetition. Such is becoming the case with some of the activities I schedule with my clients at Ann’s Place. Last week we made fragrant sachets to kick off this year’s therapy. The winter is often a challenging time to be “horticultural” as there is a dearth of fresh local material to choose from. But for this exercise, all of my materials are neatly toted; the only thing I needed to purchase were more muslin bags.
The group filled up the room and we stated to talk about smells and what were some favorites. Lavender and rose were common loves. To get clients in the mood, I passed around a lemon geranium and a rosemary plant to smell.
“By rubbing the leaves, you are transferring the oils of the plants onto your fingers, and from that the smell that they express,” I said.
Half of the clients were amazed at the difference and smell, particularly from the geranium. I then passed around a vile of fragrant oil from a rose.
“There are two types of oils: essential and fragrant, “ I explained. “Essential oils are the actual oils that are expressed by a plant and collected. Fragrant oils are their chemically produced equivalent. In aromatherapy, you always use essential oils as it is the natural oil.
“Now the reason why you have a fragrant oil for a rose is that its essential counterpart is very expensive. Most fragrant oils are around $5 to $7 for the vial [1 ounce] you have in front of you. Guess how much that would cost if it was natural?”
The highest anyone guessed was around $75. The reality is closer to $300.
“We don’t have that kind of budget here,” I said.
So with that, my clients started their mixing of spices, herbs and oils. I told them to be very careful and only use one or two drops of each oil so they could sense the nuances of their concoctions. Unfortunately, I think many misheard me and squirted one or two droppers of oil into their mix.
“This just smells of lemon. Everything else is masked,” I told one client upon smelling their concoction.
“But that is exactly what I want,” she replied.
As oils were passed around one client became attached to the French vanilla. “This is wonderful,” she said as she inhaled again and again the fragrance of the vial. “I really like this.” But we almost needed a “vanilla-vention” as it was never far from her reach.
- And that is the way it went with many clients. They found a favorite that they wanted to dominate their mix and then they added a bunch of different elements. They all succeeded but not in the way they had initially thought as they were pleasantly surprised.
After we finished with the sachets, we had the opportunity to sample some mulled cider that had been heating for the last hour. The clients loved the taste and one mused that “wouldn’t it be nice if we could make a sachet of these spices.” She was the perfect straight man as that was part of my plan to also let the group make some mulling-spice tea bags. I showed them a selection of nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, clove, orange and lemon peel as well as cardamom. I had purchased tea bags that are sealed with a hot iron. I told them to carefully taste the current mixture, which was heavy on orange peel followed by cinnamon and told them to play with the flavors to emphasize the spice they would want to dominate. Now that they were mix-masters, they quickly put together the spices they wanted and looked forward to making their own cups of mulled cider or tea in the cold weeks to come.
