Thursday, October 18, 2012

Ten Things Thursday ~ My Favorite Scents, Aromas & Fragrances

 

I have a multitude of 10 things... and determining which 10 things each week is the challenge.  So far I'm guessing I haven't bored you all too much, I haven't gotten any negative feedback and the traffic hasn't dropped. I DO hope if you get tired of reading ANYTHING I post, whether it's in one of the meme's or just my unorganized ramblings, you will let me know. If you let me know, I can change up the things I post that may be boring or repetitive and then I'd hope you'd want to stick around.

Ten Things Thursday ~ My 10 Favorite Fragrances or Scents or Aromas...


1. Cinnamon ~ Cinnamon has to be my all time go to fragrance when I want to refresh the air in my home or car. It seems to work the best at removing stale, musty odors. ATM, I have cinnamon wax melts burning in my wax warmer and you can smell it throughout the entire house.
2. Lavender ~ Ahhh, Lavender ~ lavender is in most of my personal body lotions, bath salts and spritzes. It's my go to fragrance for relaxation and I recently found lavender oil helps repel fleas on the fur babies. I keep a spray bottle full of lavender oil and water to spritz on my furniture and carpets.

3. Sage ~ My preference for sage is White Sage. It's used in many of my rituals and I smudge my house at least once a week to remove any negativity that may be lurking. Sage can be pretty strong smelling and I was once asked if I was smoking pot when someone came into the house after I had been burning sage. Admittedly it isn't for everyone...

4. Vanilla ~ I remember the scent of vanilla each time I would go to my great grandmother's house. She was an avid baker and her whole house carried the scents of what ever she was cooking or baking. Did you know, that in some cultures and parts of the country there are people who use vanilla extract as a personal scent or perfume? When times were tough back in the day, many women used their cooking vanilla as perfume when they had nothing else. I prefer to use the Molina Brand. It's real vanilla extract, not imitation, and more flavorful.
5. Nag Champa ~ This is my absolute FAVORITE incense. It calms me, it also energizes me. I use Nag Champa when I need to meditate and ground. I buy for or five of these boxes at a time. In my world you can never have too much Nag Champa, LOL!


6. Patchouli ~ Patchouli can be considered an aphrodisiac. Some people don't like it's raw earthy scent and again, that's alright. Thankfully free will can be applied to each situation we find ourselves in, LOL! I use patchouli in one of my personal body cream blends that I make myself. It just makes me feel empowered. This is the brand I buy when I can find it locally.

7. Pine/Evergreen/Cedar ~ During the winter months, I adore these scents. Being from Arizona we never had a real Yule/Christmas tree, so I didn't smell this fragrance unless we had taken a trip to the White Mountains or Mt Lemmon. Jimmy is from Vermont where they had live trees each year. When we got together, we had live trees for the first few years. I loved the fragrance, but couldn't decorate as early as I wanted, because live trees don't last very long. I finally convinced him to let me get an artificial tree by showing him our house could smell just as great if I burned candles that smelled like pine or evergreen. This is the candle I buy from Bath & Body Works every year. I get them when they are on sale 2 for $20.00 and buy 4. This *usually* gets us through the month of December, LOL

8. Pumpkin ~ Pumpkin pies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin coffee creamer, PUMPKIN!! Yes, this is also a flavor, but the smell of pumpkin baking is just so satisfying...nuff said, LOL! This is the new recipe I found for pumpkin bread...all I can say is YUM!

9. Gardenia ~ When I want a sweet floral scent, it HAS to be gardenia. I've always loved gardenia flowers and they don't survive well in the desert. So I used candles to accommodate my need for this flowers aroma. Now I have a gardenia bush in my flower bed in the front yard and after a couple near disasters and close calls with death, it is thriving and has bloomed TWICE this season. The secret is adding used coffee grounds to the soil to keep it more acidic...

10. Coffee ~ Yes I know, I know... really Vickie? COFFEE?? YES! I am in love with the scent of my coffee brewing and it doesn't matter what time of the day, either. LOL!! The aroma of coffee is just... unexplainable. If you don't like it, you won't get it. But if you DO like coffee, you know exactly what I'm saying.We drink Starbuck's Verona blend, it's a darker roast with a hint of chocolate... heaven.