Aromatherapy - Don’t See the Scents in it … Smell it!

I did a talk at the local Macular Society meeting last week.

Macular Degeneration causes sight loss in the central vision, usually affecting older people.

Can you see me? Well maybe

Can you hear me? Apparently so and

Can you smell – not me, I have showered today but I hope you are able to use your sense of smell.

 It had been sometime since I talked on Aromatherapy but I felt it was a good exercise, particularly for my own grey matter!

The objective of the talk was to give the people living with sight loss an idea of how aromatherapy can help – yes even with low vision.

So we had a whistle stop tour of the history followed by what oils are and where they come from for instance:

We needed a bit of fun so everyone had to imagine they were a plant.

My  previous BLOG POST:

If you were a plant

I covered some everyday oils, and how to use them safely. (Actually I did not ask if anyone on the audience was pregnant – err …the average age being about 75.)

The most popular concern were those wretched oven burns which are very common when you can’t see the cookware properly. Lavender to the rescue!

What's cooking? Not me!

And the uses of Bergamot

Keep the cats away using Bergamot

I was asked, as the bottle labels were so small if an RNIB penfriend, a voice labelling tool could help identify the contents. (As pictured with some lavender bags) Well. I do have one but it is not required, a much cheaper alternative is to open the bottle and smell it!

Actually I am using my penfriend for a project that will be included in my second book; Creation of ODD. Create Tarot Naturally is already on Amazon. 

Create Tarot Naturally on Amazon

After the tea break, we played a game as a tribute to Bruce Forsythe; I had not planned it as a “tribute” as he had sadly passed away two days earlier.

Mental note to self: I must try not to include well known people when I teach.  I remember (thank you dear Rosemary oil) that when I was teaching astrology last century my psychic vibes said not to do my usual demonstration using Princess Diana’s chart. She died the following day … A sad co-incidence.

The Game was called:

Higher Middle or Lower

This was where our noses got really stuck in. Were the oils of a high note, low note or somewhere in-between? Could we make a pleasant blend?

At that point I introduced a bottle of lemon oil. I announced it as a “rule of thumb” aroma standard for identifying the quality of the oils prior to purchase.

What? This new bottle smelled like sherbet lemons, hey-  that is not pure lemon oil! It must be May Chang or very much adulterated or gone off oil. 

May Chang mayhem

Nevertheless, May Chang (I call it the party oil) had its uses. It did make the session go well.