Spiritual Use of Perfume
A southern California niche fragrance company, IBI, has launched a new fragrance called Virtue®. Touting itself as “the world’s first spiritual perfume,” it is “based upon an inspired Biblical formula.” The perfume contains top notes of apricot, pomegranate and fig; heart notes of iris; and base notes of frankincense, myrrh, aloe and spikenard.
What I found most noteworthy on this company’s website were its instructions for the spiritual use of perfume. A shortened version is as follows:
• Begin your spiritual practice
(prayer, meditation, contemplation, etc.)
• Establish your desired spiritual state.
• Smell your wrist, maintaining awareness of your spiritual state.
• Keep repeating this association.
• In the course of your day, let it remind you of your spiritual state by smelling your wrist.
These guidelines seem to have real merit. As most of us have discovered in our own lives, our sense of smell is closely tied with our memories and emotions. For instance, the scent of geranium leaves always reminds me of summertime on my grandmother’s deck, overlooking the beautiful Puget Sound. Conversely, the odor of deep-fried onion rings brings back the feelings of nausea I had during my first trimester when I was pregnant with my eldest son. And the use of incense in religious rituals for helping establish and maintain a sense of centeredness and reverence is well-known. The point is, scent and memory as well as mood are closely linked.
So, to extrapolate from that, can we use scent to consciously evoke certain moods or states of mind at a later time? Can we choose a fragrance, and, while sniffing it, link it to a particular experience and then, by simply smelling that scent at a later date re-enter that original state of mind? Makers of Virtue® would suggest that we can. And I am inclined to agree. I look forward to doing more research on this fascinating topic.
For more information on Virtue®, visit the virtueperfume.com website.
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