Can perfumes affect our moods?

[DaisyFlowerz]

When I get my episodes of anxiety / nervousness I do silly, weird things....not sure why. The other night i sprayed on some of my "Very Irresistible" perfume by Geovanni..(..or whatever his name is..) right after my shower.... And I enjoyed it as it calmed me down right before bed. Does anyone have the slightest idea why this occured? perhaps something maybe going on with me in my subconscience. It brought a nice feeling and mood over me. No memories or anything....just a relaxed feeling. Anyone experience this before?

[teajay]

Aroma therapy.... lavender calls me down

[DaisyFlowerz]

Thats right....I forgot about that. I have heard of the aroma therapy....and wanted to try it...but it didnt work because when I went to purchase the. stuff I just kinda changed my mind...Actually, I had a strong dislike for it....I mean the scents were just not pleasing for me.. I guess its just my perfume. I have just about 2 oz left. Hope I dont run out before we get back to the States.

[missrat]

Very helpful - especially Aromadough, which is play dough with aromatherapy oils!

[Photogeek]

Yes I love perfume too, and as well as that you are caring for yourself which we all need, so thats good. Vanilla type perfumes make me feel good, and I always put a drop of Lavender Oil on my sheets before I sleep, I find it calms me and I learned this from a lady I was in hospital with once.

Differenct scents do different things, some like Citrus energise us, and some are just feel good, everyone has a different reaction, as we are all so different.

Enjoy the scents and try out new ones too, I have a few I love and I use them always, whereas my sister uses Perfume maybe once a week.

Hannah xx

[coatpin]

yes of course, your mood can be changed by colours too, the brain can be zipped into memorys of flowers, and good feeling of summer , changing your bedroom colours can give you a better sleep , even changing the bed,, on the otherside of the room.

I love to watch the stars at night, calms me.

there are books on it.

Go get a colour chart and find out which colours gives you feelings nice feelings,, and do that with smells. As in the old days they used to use,, smelling salts to bring you back from a faint , triggers the senses,, that jolts you back.

write down in a book about which smell gave you images in your mind or how it made you feel, then put them in your home,,,if you like them

then share the experiance with us all, take care

[Hidden]

I really don't know anything about the therapeutic qualities of scents, but they can, and do, act as memory triggers for me, which is sometimes a bit of a mixed blessing.

For Proust, it was the smell ( actually the taste, but the two are senses are so interlinked ) of Madeleine cake that triggered what he called ' involuntary memory ' ;

"No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea."

Marcel Proust

For me, it is the smell of Guerlain's 'Mitsouko' that has such mixed effect on my memory.

Depending on my base mood at the time, the merest hint of the scent can conjure up perfectly recalled memories of happiness, love and desire, or if the moment in this time catches me in a 'black place', it can bleaken the mood into utter despair.

Similarly, the smell of sun - warmed dust on old, unvarnished wood will evoke a memory of an attic from a very long time ago - but this is a universally pleasant memory, without the black/ white connotations of the other.

The strange thing is that the memory can, often trigger the memory of the scent, so for a moment, I can actually 'smell' in my mind, the scent I associate with the memory.

Peculiar thing, the mind.