Essential Oils for Lovers: How to use aromatherapy to revitalize your sex life

Ancient Greeks colonized parts of Italy; in Sybaris the men and women bathed several times a day in aromatic water and it was this indulgence in the physical pleasures that gave us the word ‘sybaritic’. Later when the Romans began to amass their Empire, conquering Southern Italy, the knowledge of perfumery passed to Rome.

The Roman goddess of love and sensuality was Venus, and she too was supposed to have been born from the sea and to have covered her nakedness with myrtle leaves. The Three Graces in attendance on Venus and her son Cupid were crowned with myrtle leaves; when accompanying The Muses, however, they wore wreaths of roses. Rose essence was called ‘the blood of Venus’ and Roman temples were always adorned with roses. Venus gave us the word ‘venery’, meaning sexual desire, and ‘venereal’ (of the sexual organs), and it is not coincidence that Venice is called ‘city of lovers’.

Roman feasts in honour of Bacchus, god of wine and lust, were elaborate occasions, with roses being as important a commodity as wine, women and food. The Romans were obsessed by the rose. Rose-water perfumed the public baths, flowed from fountains in the emperor’s palaces and were strewn everywhere at banquets. Even wine was rose-scented – and the cure for over-indulgence? Rose-water.

Although not the earliest aromatherapists, the Romans knew that perfumes in general possessed medicinal properties. The most popular recipes were inscribed on marble tablets in the temple of Venus. Brides-to-be in the fourth century BC were anointed with aromatic oils prior to their wedding. Romans borrowed from the Egyptians the use of the public bath, which they would visit daily. Ovid, the great poet in the time of the Emperor Augustus, told the Romans ‘Adonis is a woodland boy, but became the darling of Venus. It is by simple cleanliness that you should seek to attract …’ Rome in Nero’s time had over 1,000 unctuaria (baths that specialized in the use of fragrances). Nero’s wife Poppaea bathed in scented ass’s milk. She was a poet, and wrote ‘Wives are out of fashion now/Mistresses are in/Rose leaves are dated/Now cinnamon’s the thing.’ Eating, drinking, bathing and copulating were not only indulged in but actually worshipped. One month in every year male genitals were worshipped in honour of the god Liber. The month of this phallic worship corresponded to the time of year ruled by Libra. Romans worshipped the genitals as the gateway to immortality both for their procreative powers and because it was believed that one could attain spiritual union with the gods by reaching sexual heights of ecstasy, as was believed by those who practised the Indian Tantra.

BYZANTIUM

Wherever we look in history and see how the mighty empires rose and fell we can see evidence of aromatics used for sensual pleasures. After the fall of the Roman Empire power passed to the Eastern Empire, as Byzantium became the hub of trade. Harem women relied heavily on the use of aromatics, for their beauty, their ability to satisfy their master sexually, and to appease their boredom during the long hot days with nothing better to do than prepare for a night of love-making. Spices such as cloves and ginger were rubbed onto the body, because the women of the harem believed that these aromatics had the ability to increase sexual power.

Bathing was not only a necessary obligation but the main social event of the day, where dozens of nude beauties whiled away the hours. The bathing ritual lasted for several hours, and afterwards ‘they at once spring upon their sofas, where the attentive slaves fold them in warm clothes, and pour essences upon their hair, which they twist loosely without attempting to dislodge the wet … and then cover with handsome handkerchiefs or embroidered muslin … perfumed water is scattered over the face and hands, and the exhausted bather sinks into a luxurious slumber beneath a coverlet of satin or eider down.’

EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD

In Europe perfume, although introduced by the Romans, went out of fashion and was only really reintroduced when the Crusaders returned from their travels and their wives found themselves competing with the seductive memories they brought home with them. Exotic perfumes brought home by the Crusaders became popular with the women, who took to wearing perfume in an attempt to lay the ghosts of Arabian nights to rest and so to regain their husband’s affections.

‘With the Renaissance the perfumer’s art was revived with a vengeance … it was also acceptable once more for men and women to search openly for the erotic.’ Catherine de Medici adored aromatics, especially neroli, which she transplanted from her native Italy to the South of France when she became wife of Henry II. Despite the fact that Diane de Poitiers was the young and beautiful mistress of the king, Catherine managed to give him five heirs.

The Empress Josephine loved scents and, being a Creole brought up in Martinique, she was used to wearing oils and creams of almond and coconut impregnated with heady aromas from jasmine and other heavily scented flowers. She was fanatical about the use of aromatics and impregnated the walls of her bedroom with musk. Her favourite flower was the violet. Napoleon gave her instructions to wear only orange-water, lavender-water and eau de Cologne when she visited him on location, claiming that her perfumes distracted him to such an extent that he could not concentrate on planning his battle strategies. But when they had been apart for a lengthy period he would send word to her: ‘Je reviens en trois jours, ne te laves pas’ (I return in three days, don’t wash), so potent did he find her natural body odours. When Josephine died Napoleon had violets planted on her tomb, and in loving memory of their nights of passion he wore a pressed violet in the gold locket which he wore constantly round his neck.

Though pomanders were originally used for medicinal purposes, in the seventeenth century many upper-class European women wore them solely as a means of enveloping themselves in an aura of perfume, in order to attract the attentions of a lover. Perfumed bracelets became popular as, it was believed, they ‘by their odiferous scent conduce much, to the making your captives numerous, though they bind only your arms, yet they take men your prisoners’

The use of aromatics for seduction became so rife in Europe that the English Parliament of 1770 even passed an act intended to protect men from being beguiled into marriage by the fairer sex. ‘All women, of whatever age … that shall from and after such act, impose upon, seduce and betray in matrimony, any of his subjects, by the use of scents, paints, cosmetics … shall incur the penalty of the law in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanours and that marriage shall stand null and void.’ Witch-hunts and the Puritanism of Cromwell’s reign did much to destroy the love of perfumes, sensual pleasures and open sexuality. During the Restoration perfumes made a comeback and one popular scent was an orange fragrance created in memory of Nell Gwynne, mistress of Charles II, as her humble origins were that of an orange-seller.

Elsewhere around the globe people were also employing aromatics in their love lives. Women in Senegal used the tubers of the ginger plant to make belts, with the aim of arousing the dormant senses of their men. In North America, Native American tribes made a tea from juniper berries which they drank as a contraceptive. At wedding rituals great bowls of yucca suds (aloe vera) were prepared so that the bride and groom could ceremonially wash each other’s head.

Every civilization has employed aromatics in the course of a fulfilling sex life, and only in times of repression and fear has the use and appreciation of sensual aromatics been lost.

‘Man only doth smell and take delight in the odours of flowers and sweet things. Sweet scents are the sweet vehicles of still sweeter thoughts.’

WALTER LANDOR

chapter three (#ulink_fb6222b0-d7c7-580f-9fe2-786f0a43aad6)

LASTING IMPRESSIONS (#ulink_fb6222b0-d7c7-580f-9fe2-786f0a43aad6)

‘He found her as she slept in the beauty of her palace. She awakened at the fragrance of the god, which she smelled in the presence of his majesty. When he came before her, she rejoiced in the sight of his beauty. His love passed into her limbs, which the fragrance of the god flooded.’

From an inscription on the chamber wall of an Egyptian pyramid

ENHANCING YOUR NATURAL BODY SCENT

Each of us has our own ‘smell’ which is as unique as our fingerprints. Mostly we are unable to detect it ourselves because our noses become ‘satiated’ with one smell after a short period of time – just as when we apply perfume and cannot smell it after half an hour even though other people can be aware of it for many hours. Uniquely personal, we can often only detect our own scent when we take a worn item of clothing from the back of the wardrobe and realize that it needs laundering. This is our ‘stale’ scent, however, an aroma we find disagreeable and do not choose to be associated with; yet our ‘fresh’ scent signature is one that we take with us wherever we go and by which we are recognizably us.

Smell has very strong erotic connotations, and we can be attracted to or repelled by another person by the way he smells. Just as you can love someone for the softness of her skin, so you can love someone for the smell of it. Part of loving someone is loving his smell, and ‘just as it may be difficult to live with someone whose voice is unpleasantly loud or shrill, so it may be impossible to live with someone whose body smell is disagreeable.’ Some North African tribes give so much credence to personal aroma that the wife can be instantly divorced if she does not smell ‘right’.

Your individual aroma can be affected by what you put into your system – food, alcohol, coffee and other strong drink, cigar or cigarette smoke, etc., and by your mental and spiritual attitudes. Anger or fear, for example, can alter your smell as your body releases adrenaline. In an acute situation this chemical change may be insignificant, but if it becomes chronic due to the pressures of work, then your body chemistry can be altered to such a degree that your partner no longer ‘recognizes’ the person he fell in love with.

Acupuncturists are trained to recognize different body smells, and so are able to utilize the sense of smell as a diagnostic tool. Spiritual harmony is supposed to imbue the body with a beautiful aroma, and reports from India claim that after the death of holy men there is sometimes a lingering aroma of beautiful blossoms.

It is interesting to note that the Japanese, who have long employed a daily relaxing bath in scented water, do not have an underarm smell – there are of course a few exceptions, but in general their understanding of the need to create harmony in their everyday lives, and their conscious effort ‘not to disturb the “wa”’ (harmony) may have caused a systematic physiological change over the passage of time.

Sexual excitement causes all sorts of exotic odours to emanate from the body – from the breath, the skin and in particular the genitalia. In many successful relationships the partners are able to recognize each other’s smells, as the body’s natural perfume is indeed a potent method of non-verbal communication. An experiment showing that when a woman’s vaginal secretions were applied to her chest she and her partner had sex more often has recently been reported in the British Journal of Sexual Medicine