The Scented Home

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With home renovation and redecorating at an all-time high, people are discovering that sight is not the only important sense when it comes to home design. Just as people make their homes true havens by accentuating rooms with elements like colour, fabric and furnishings, they are increasingly using favourite scents as a way to create an ambiance throughout the home.

Of all our five senses, smell is the most basic instinctual sense and thought to be the one most closely linked to emotions. Sense of smell is directly connected to the same region of your brain where your memory and emotions are controlled. Studies show that the olfactory sense (your sense of smell) has the power to change your mood nearly instantaneously and it all comes down to biology. Our brains store and recognise scents longer and more readily than our other memories, and these memories can trigger strong emotional responses. If you have visited a Westin Hotel or Resort you may have noticed the signature fragrance used in the lobbies called white tea designed to make an emotional connection with their guests.

Here are a few ways to incorporate this growing interest in using scent to positively impact the mood, feel and even the size of a room.

The Delicate Scent of Flowers

A behavioural study conducted at Harvard University shows people feel more compassionate toward others, have less worry and anxiety and feel less depressed when flowers are present in their home. The visual appearance, and the subtle scent that flowers impart, adds a deeply personal touch to any room whether you prefer a simple bouquet of sweet peas on your nightstand, an elegant arrangement of lilies in the foyer or a floral centrepiece on the dining room table.

Flowers provide a key visual element in home decoration to accessories and transform a living space and to infuse it with colour and style.  They are often used to tie the colours, elements, or textures of a room together to create a harmonious theme in the surrounding decor and the scent of flowers is one of the easiest ways to bring the scents of nature right into your home.

The Fragrant Ambience of Candles 

A growing interest in fragrances from candles is one of the latest focal points in home décor. Candles can be considered as aromatherapy for the home that warm the heart and lighten the spirit.

Scented candles impart a fragrant ambience and aroma throughout the home filling entire rooms with their scent to create an individual signature style.

Use scented candles to add charm to a table setting, gently illuminate a hallway and dramatize a space. Place multiple candles in an alluring array of holders and arrange them on shelves, ledges and on the porch for all-around ambiance and style.

The Alluring Scent of Essential Oils

When guests first enter your home the first thing that greets them is the aroma or smell of your home. Essential Oils can play a role through cleaning the air rather than masking smells present. To use essential oils add 6-8 drops of your favourite scent to water in a diffuser or place drops directly into a bowl of boiling water to release their scent into the room.

• Hallways are the place where we greet our guests. Use lemon, lime, bergamot or grapefruit. Lavender or geranium can be mixed with any of these. Lavender is uplifting in the morning and geranium has a calming effect and good for afternoons when you may need to wind down at the end of the day.
• Opt for naturally calming scents, like lavender and vanilla, in your bedroom.
• Add zest to your living areas with lemon or eucalyptus.
• Citronella is clean and fresh and gives a feeling of peacefulness and security.
• Peppermint is also fresh and invigorating and is ideal for active areas.

• Lavender is soothing and calming and assists in relaxing the body and mind.

• Sweet orange, lemon and your favourite spice oil are especially good when diffused during the winter months for a refreshing, warming aroma and atmosphere.

• To rid a room of stale tobacco or cooking smells use cinnamon, eucalyptus, lavender, lemon, orange, tea tree, rosemary or lime for their ability to freshen and cleanse the air of stagnant smells throughout the house.
• Saturate cotton wool balls and place in the corners of a room, in cupboards or out-of-the-way places to fragrance kitchens and living areas.
• As an air-freshener put 6-8 drops in 600 ml of water in a fine spray bottle and spray into the air and towards carpets and curtains. Do not spray onto velvet of silk and avoid spraying directly onto wood.
• Wash down kitchen surfaces using 1 drop of lemon, thyme, cypress, lavender or Palma Rosa placed directly on a cloth or alternatively 7 drops in water.
• Clean your fridge with a one drop of orange, mandarin, mint, lavender or lemon oil added to the final rinse water to rid your fridge of odours.

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