Tag: scent

  • Rub, Breathe, Notice: A Mindful Breathing Practice With Fresh Garden Herbs

    Some of the most calming moments of summer begin with a simple gesture: reaching down to rub a leaf of mint or rosemary between your fingers and breathing in. The scent arrives all at once, bright and green, and for a moment your attention is completely in the present. That small act can become a mindful breathing practice of its own, one that uses the herbs growing on your porch or windowsill.

    Why fresh herbs work well

    Fresh herbs carry their aroma in tiny oil glands on their leaves and stems. When you gently rub or crush a leaf, those glands release their scent into the air. The fragrance is natural and noticeable but much softer than a concentrated essential oil, which makes fresh herbs a gentle partner for breathing practice. They also give your hands something to do and your eyes something to look at, which can make it easier to stay present.

    You do not need a garden. A pot of basil on the kitchen windowsill or a bunch of mint from the farmers market in a glass of water works just as well.

    The practice, step by step

    • Choose an herb. Mint, basil, rosemary, lemon balm, thyme and lavender are all good choices.
    • Sit or stand comfortably, and take one natural breath to arrive.
    • Look closely at the plant for a moment. Notice the shape, color and texture of the leaves.
    • Gently rub a leaf between your thumb and fingers, or pinch it lightly.
    • Bring your fingers near your nose, without touching, and breathe in slowly through your nose.
    • Pause for a moment at the top of the breath, then exhale slowly through your mouth, as if blowing gently across a cup of tea.
    • Repeat for three to five breaths, noticing how the scent changes as you go.

    Noticing and naming

    As you breathe, try to describe the scent in three words, silently or aloud. Is it sharp, sweet, cool, peppery, piney or lemony? Does it remind you of anything, such as a kitchen, a season or a person? Notice where you feel the breath most, in your nose, chest or belly. When your mind wanders, return to the scent on your fingers.

    If you have more than one herb, move slowly from one to the next. Comparing mint with basil, or rosemary with thyme, is a playful way to sharpen your attention. Children often enjoy this as a game, and it can be a nice way to share a quiet moment in the garden.

    Gentle cautions

    Stick to herbs you can identify with confidence, and avoid any plant you are allergic to. A few plants, such as rue, can irritate the skin, so it is best to work with familiar culinary herbs. Wash your hands afterward and avoid rubbing your eyes. If strong scents tend to bother your breathing or bring on headaches, skip this practice or keep the herbs at a comfortable distance, and talk to your doctor if you have concerns.

    Bringing it into the day

    Keep a small pot or a jar of cut herbs where you pass often, such as a kitchen counter, a desk or the porch steps. Each time you walk by, pause for a single scented breath. On hot July afternoons, a quick break with a sprig of cool mint can become a small, refreshing ritual. Over time, the herb itself becomes a reminder to slow down, notice and breathe.

  • Why Perfume Smells Stronger in Summer: Heat, Humidity and Fragrance

    Why Perfume Smells Stronger in Summer: Heat, Humidity and Fragrance

    Many people notice it without quite knowing why. The perfume that felt soft and pleasant in winter seems twice as strong on a July afternoon. A candle that barely registered in December fills the whole house in June. Heat and humidity change the way fragrance behaves, and knowing a little about why can help you enjoy scent more comfortably all summer.

    Heat speeds everything up

    Fragrance reaches your nose when scent molecules evaporate into the air. Warmth makes that evaporation happen faster. On a hot day, and on skin that is already warm, a perfume releases more of its molecules more quickly, so it projects further and seems louder. The same speed means it also fades sooner. The light, fresh top notes, often citrus and herbs, can flash off within minutes, leaving the heavier heart and base notes to carry the scent.

    Humidity adds its own effect. Many people find that scents seem to hang in moist, still air and linger around them rather than drifting away. Combine heat, humidity and a crowded room, and a fragrance that is perfectly pleasant at arm’s length can become overwhelming.

    Wearing fragrance in the heat

    • Use less. One spray instead of three is often plenty in summer.
    • Choose lighter concentrations. From strongest to lightest, the common categories are parfum, eau de parfum, eau de toilette and eau de cologne. The lighter versions suit hot weather.
    • Apply to clean skin after a shower, when skin is cooler, rather than in the middle of a hot afternoon.
    • Skip rubbing your wrists together after spraying. Many perfumers suggest letting fragrance dry on its own.
    • Consider lighter families, such as citrus, green, aquatic and soft floral scents, though personal preference always wins.

    Some fragrances contain citrus oils that can make skin more sensitive to sunlight. If you will be outside for a long time, spraying fragrance on clothing rather than sun-exposed skin is a simple precaution, though test a hidden spot first, since some perfumes can mark delicate fabric.

    Be kind to the people near you

    Summer gathers people indoors in close quarters: restaurants, offices, churches, cars. Heat amplifies scent in all of those places, and some people are sensitive to strong fragrances. A light hand is a courtesy. A good rule is that your fragrance should be noticed by someone who leans in close, not by someone across the room.

    Storing scent through a Georgia summer

    Heat and light are hard on fragrance. They can break down the delicate molecules in a perfume, dulling its top notes or changing its character over time. The same is true of essential oils.

    • Keep perfumes and oils in a cool, dark place, such as a bedroom drawer or a closet shelf.
    • Avoid sunny windowsills and steamy bathrooms.
    • Never leave fragrance, essential oils or candles in a hot car, where temperatures climb quickly.
    • Close caps tightly to limit exposure to air.

    With a lighter touch and a cooler shelf, your favorite scents can stay pleasant all season, and so can the people who share the room with you.

  • Petrichor: Why Rain on Dry Ground Smells So Good

    Petrichor: Why Rain on Dry Ground Smells So Good

    After a run of hot, dry days in a Georgia summer, the first fat raindrops on the driveway release a smell almost everyone recognizes. It is earthy, clean and a little sweet, and it seems to rise from the ground itself. For centuries people simply called it the smell of rain. Since the 1960s, it has had a proper name: petrichor.

    A word invented in 1964

    Two Australian scientists, Isabel Joy Bear and Richard Thomas, coined the term in a paper published in the journal Nature in 1964. They built it from two Greek words: petra, meaning stone, and ichor, the ethereal fluid said to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology. The name suits a scent that seems to be drawn out of rock and soil.

    Their research found that during dry periods, oils given off by plants collect on rocks and in soil. When rain finally arrives, those oils are released into the air along with other compounds, creating the familiar smell.

    The earthy note: geosmin

    A large part of the scent comes from a compound called geosmin, whose name means earth smell. It is produced by microbes that live in soil, including bacteria in the group known as Streptomyces. Human noses are remarkably sensitive to geosmin and can detect astonishingly small amounts of it, which helps explain why the smell of rain on dry ground can feel so strong and so sudden.

    There is also a sharper, cleaner smell that sometimes arrives just before a thunderstorm. That one is often ozone, a form of oxygen created when lightning splits molecules in the air, which storm winds can carry ahead of the rain.

    How the scent reaches us

    In 2015, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used high-speed cameras to watch raindrops land on porous surfaces such as soil. They found that a drop can trap tiny bubbles of air that rise and burst, flinging a fine mist of particles upward, a little like the fizz from a glass of soda. Those particles carry scent with them. Light and moderate rain released more of them than heavy downpours, which may be why a gentle first shower often smells strongest.

    Bottling the smell of earth

    In the town of Kannauj in northern India, long known for its traditional perfumes, artisans make a fragrance called mitti attar, or earth attar. Clay is baked and then distilled, and its scent is captured in sandalwood oil, creating a perfume that smells like the first monsoon rain on parched ground. It is a lovely example of people cherishing this smell enough to preserve it.

    The next time a summer shower begins, step to an open door or a covered porch and take a slow breath. If there is thunder, enjoy the moment from inside, since lightning can strike well away from the storm itself. Notice the earthiness, the sweetness, the sudden cool. It is one of the oldest smells there is, and one of the few that seems to make everyone stop and breathe a little deeper.

  • Why Fresh-Cut Grass Smells So Good: The Science of a Green Summer Scent

    Why Fresh-Cut Grass Smells So Good: The Science of a Green Summer Scent

    Few smells are as instantly recognizable as a freshly mowed lawn. On a Saturday morning in May, the scent drifts across whole neighborhoods in Middle Georgia, sharp and sweet and green. Many people name it among their favorite smells of the year. What we are enjoying, it turns out, is the grass reacting to being cut.

    What is happening inside the grass

    When a mower slices through grass blades, it breaks open plant cells. Within seconds, the damaged tissue releases a burst of small, fast-evaporating molecules that scientists call green leaf volatiles. They include compounds such as cis-3-hexenal and cis-3-hexenol, the latter sometimes nicknamed leaf alcohol. These are what give cut grass, crushed leaves and torn stems their sharp, fresh scent.

    Researchers who study plants have found that these compounds play roles in how plants respond to damage. They can act as signals, for example by attracting insects that prey on leaf-eating pests, and neighboring plants may respond to them, too. The smell we find so pleasant is, in a sense, part of the plant’s communication system.

    Why the smell feels like summer

    Part of the pleasure is chemistry, and part of it is memory. Our sense of smell is closely linked to the parts of the brain involved in memory and emotion, so a scent we meet again and again in a particular season tends to carry that season with it. For many people, cut grass means school letting out, ballfields, long evenings and the sound of a mower down the street.

    The same green note turns up in many other places once you start noticing it: a tomato leaf brushed in the garden, a snapped green bean, a handful of crushed basil, the stem end of a cut flower.

    Green notes in the perfume bottle

    Perfumers call this family of scents green, and they have been building it into fragrances for a long time. Cis-3-hexenol is a common ingredient for adding a fresh, leafy lift to a blend. Natural materials with a green character include galbanum, a resin with a sharp, leafy smell, and violet leaf, whose scent is more like cucumber and wet greenery than like the flower. If you love the smell of a mowed lawn, these are the notes to look for on a fragrance or candle description.

    Noticing it on purpose

    The next time the scent drifts over the fence, stop for a few seconds. Close your eyes and take a slow breath. Notice whether the smell seems sweet, sharp or watery, and what it brings to mind. It is a small, free mindfulness practice that the season hands you every week.

    If you are the one mowing, try doing the first and last passes with full attention to the sound, the smell and the stripes appearing behind you. Wear sturdy closed shoes and hearing protection, work in the cooler morning hours and take water breaks. If grass pollen bothers you, you may prefer to enjoy this scent through an open window, and your doctor can help with seasonal allergy questions.

  • Choosing a Candle: Soy, Beeswax, Paraffin and Scent Safety

    Choosing a Candle: Soy, Beeswax, Paraffin and Scent Safety

    A candle is one of the simplest ways to change the feel of a room. The small flame, the slow pool of melted wax and a scent chosen with care turn an ordinary evening into something gentler. But candles vary a great deal in what they are made of and how they burn, and the labels can be confusing. Here is a plain guide to choosing a candle and enjoying it safely.

    What Candles Are Made Of

    Most candles use one of a few waxes, each with its own character:

    • Paraffin is the most common and least expensive. It is a petroleum byproduct, holds fragrance well and burns with a bright flame.
    • Soy wax is made from hydrogenated soybean oil. It burns cooler and slower than paraffin, which stretches a candle’s life, and it has a softer, more muted scent throw. Many soy candles are blends, so check the label if it matters to you.
    • Beeswax is the oldest candle wax and the most expensive. It burns slowly and cleanly, with a faint natural honey scent and a warm glow. Pure beeswax candles are rarely heavily fragranced.

    None of these is wrong. Soy and beeswax are often marketed as cleaner, and they do tend to produce less soot when burned properly, but a well-made candle of any wax, with a properly trimmed wick, burns reasonably cleanly.

    Wicks

    Most wicks today are braided cotton, sometimes with a paper or thin zinc core for stability. Lead-core wicks were banned in the United States in 2003, so this is no longer a concern for candles sold here. Whatever the material, the wick should be trimmed to about a quarter of an inch before each lighting. A long wick is the main cause of smoking, soot and a flame that flickers too high.

    Scent

    Candles are scented with fragrance oils, essential oils or a mix. Fragrance oils are blends created by perfumers and include synthetic and natural components; they offer the widest range of scents and the strongest throw. Essential oil candles smell more like the plant itself and tend to be subtler, since many essential oils do not survive heat well. A candle labeled natural is not necessarily made with essential oils, and one made with fragrance oil is not necessarily lower quality. Smell before you buy if you can, and remember that a scent that fills a shop may be too strong for a bedroom.

    If you are sensitive to fragrance, have asthma or live with someone who does, unscented beeswax or a very lightly scented candle is the gentler choice. Talk with your doctor if burning candles seems to bother your breathing.

    Burning Safely

    Candles are open flames, and the basic rules bear repeating:

    • Never leave a burning candle unattended or go to sleep with one lit.
    • Keep candles well away from curtains, bedding, books and anything else that can catch.
    • Burn on a stable, heat-resistant surface, out of reach of children and pets.
    • Let a new candle burn long enough on the first lighting for the melted wax to reach the edges of the container, usually an hour or two. This prevents tunneling later.
    • Do not burn for more than a few hours at a time, and stop when half an inch of wax remains.
    • Keep a window cracked in small rooms.

    Candles and Calm

    Part of a candle’s appeal is the small ceremony of lighting it. Many people light the same candle each evening as a signal that the working day has ended, or save one scent for bath nights. Battery candles provide the glow without the flame for bedrooms and bathrooms, and they are the right choice around small children. However you use them, a candle asks you to pause, strike a match and watch a flame catch, and that moment is part of the pleasure.