Natural Scent Therapy

Plants don’t contain essential oils; they contain volatile oils. The natural scents of plants, the volatile oils  are extracted, concentrated, and purified to make essential oils. Volatile oils are also antiseptic and antibacterial, and help purify sickrooms as well as the drug-like essentials.

Instead of essential oils, let’s use the volatile oils of fresh, dried, and preserved herbs as natural scent therapy. Volatile oils are easily released into the air by stroking the plant or boiling fresh or dried plants in an open pan. Volatile oils can also be captured in low-scent oils like almond oil, pure olive oil, or coconut oil.

If you want accessible natural scent therapy, simply to boil any aromatic plant. Cinnamon sticks, cloves, orange peels, lavender, sage, rosemary, and thyme (fresh or dried) produce wonderful scents when simmered on a low heat.  

Lavender                                                                         Purple Sage

Cloves

If you have a green thumb and a windowsill, you can easily grow almost any scented member of the mint family –  like peppermint, spearmint, catnip, lemon balm, lavender, thyme, oregano, and rosemary – and stroke them to fill your room with their volatile oils.

Catnip                                                                              Rosemary

~ More Natural Scent Therapy ~