Perfume As Therapy

If There’s A Balm For Our Troubled Times, It’s Probably Scented. April Long Reports On The Fine-Fragrance World’s Latest Obsession: Aromatherapy.

- April Long

Should you have any doubt that we’re living in particularly tense times, know this: A 2018 poll conducted by the American Psychiatric Association revealed that 56 percent of Americans were anxious about the impact politics have on their lives, and 68 percent were worried about their ability to keep themselves and their families safe. As a nation, it’s clear we’re burned out, bummed out, and in need of a time-out.

It’s no coincidence that the compass of the zeitgeist has swiveled toward self-care. In hopes of finding something—anything—that will bring us some chill, we’re openly embracing wellness modalities previously regarded with a touch (or more) of skepticism: We’re waving around smudge sticks to “clear” our energy, hoarding hunks of rose quartz, and quaffing CBD coffee during our morning commutes. As we barrel toward the ultra futuristic-sounding year 2020, we’re also tapping into one of humanity’s OG healing traditions, aromatherapy, with renewed enthusiasm.

Over the millennia, the inhalation or application of potent-smelling plant extracts has been used to ease everything from muscle aches to migraines to mental malaise. Although the word aromatherapy wasn’t used regularly until 1937, when French chemist René-Maurice Gattefossé wrote the book on it (Gattefossé’s Aromatherapy), Kerri Nau, an educator for the British company Aromatherapy Associates, notes, “Archaeologists have discovered fragments of terracotta vessels used to cultivate floral waters for therapeutic purposes that date back as far as 3,000 B.C.”