A Woman of Uncommon Scents

Importer of Extraordinary Essential Oils

Spa Management Article #1

You and I have a story to tell,

"Aromatherapy, Essential Oils, and the Spa"

by Rachael S. Shapiro

"The felicities of design in art, or in works of Nature, are shadows or forerunners of that beauty which reaches its perfection in the human form." ~~~~~~~~Ralph Waldo Emerson

You and I have a story to tell, "Aromatherapy, Essential Oils, and the Spa." You will see that our roles go like a hand in glove. I'll tell my story first. When God created the Aromatic Garden of Eden only a small percentage of plants received the gift of scent. Fewer were given the ability to offer to man its aromatic oil. Through a process of distillation involving intense heat and water, the essential oil is born of its parent material (bark, seed, wood, flower, leaf, root, fruit rind). Mankind's history shows an utter passion, indeed an obsession for all the perfume raw materials. Centuries of poetic works affirm in countless volumes the essential oil to be the soul of the plant and indeed compare it to the human soul. The Christ-child was gifted with Frankincense and Myrrh declared to be more precious than gold. Many people demanded wages in spices instead of metal coin. Countless wars were fought for the ownership of aromatic spice routes. Cleopatra's famous seduction of Mark Anthony started with scenting the sails of her ship with rose oil.

I like to joke that my profession is one of the oldest known to mankind. I know what you are thinking! No not that! I am an importer and broker of essential oils. As a small child I knew that one day I would make a career in the world of essential oils. My favorite past time was picking flowers and herbs which I fruitlessly tried to transform into perfume by mashing messes of botanicals. Little did I know that I was already on my career path searching for the origins of perfume.

I buy essential oils direct from the distillers instead of from the multi-national perfume and flavor industry. Highly prized products are from small "boutique" farmers and "artisan" distillers who produce a single-estate; single-crop product crafted specially for the needs of the aroma therapy market. More than a skill, distillation is an art and very demanding of the artist. Most distillers learn from mentors or are born into the trade. Visiting the essential oil farmers and distillers I establish lifelong business relationships and learn each essential oil's particular issues of farming, production and distillation. Close relationships are maintained with more than 40 producers in 15 countries. To acquire the inventory my fax machine and email substitute for the treacherous caravan travel of desert spice routes. My mission is to seek out and offer only the finest essential oils available.

Let's go back to our story. Ours is an ancient tale. Our relationship is intimate and inseparable. Your story is the Spa. The official birth of the modern Spa was from the practice of "taking the waters" in the German town of Spa. But, ancient and modern cultures have always used special body care practices with aromatics in social and ritual settings: birth, coming of age, marriage, death, religious, feasting, medicine, entertainment and social intercourse.

Marriage rituals offers many examples. Ancient Jewish women prepared by massage with aromatics unguents. The preparation followed a protocol lasting six months. Turkish women in the setting of a party prepared the bride with scented henna decorations and similarly Indian, and Thai women plastered the bride with pastes of sandalwood. African women prepared with herbaceous scented animal butters, Tunisian women oiled their hair with Jasmine, and Japanese women fumigated their robes with incense of Aloes. All this happened in social settings, some formal some not. Ancient practices of anointing, bathing and fumigating was a party of joyous and sacred celebrations.

Today Spas feature the holistic approach of treating the

Mind-Body-Spirit is the incarnations of these ancient practices. The Massage therapist and aromatherapist in the setting of the Spa are now the modern equivalent for the ancient ritual leaders and practitioners.

Is it any wonder that aromatic essential oil applications, known as Aromatherapy has found their way back into the Spa setting? The return is natural. We are back to the future, again. Can you imagine your Spa without this esthetic addition? I can hear you say, "Of course not"! In fact, the role of essential oils in the forward-looking Spa is expanding out from merely esthetic to therapeutic. The Spa hybridized with the complimentary health care practices will look to essential oils as basic tools. Essential oil as phytotherapy (plant medicine), as means for emotional and spiritual growth, for enhancement of body care is quite a powerful collection for your tool box!

Aromatherapy body care products are now part and parcel of almost every Spa treatment and practice. Look at your chosen line of products and read the labels. If it is scented and it is a true aromatherapy product it will be prepared with pure and natural essential oils. It might be a challenge to find these products. The final product cost to the end user will be more costly than others because essential oils born of the farmer's alembic (the distillation still) are always more costly than aromatics born of the bench chemist's laboratory. Aromatic chemicals have their place in consumer products but not in Aromatherapy.

The holistic concept is central to the philosophy of aromatherapy. Aromatic chemicals may represent a certain chemical component of an essential oil, but can never reproduce an essential oil as found in nature. Nature gave essential oils a complex synergy of hundreds of chemical components. Sometimes the tiny trace components are of tremendous value for the scent and for the therapeutic effect.

The aromatherapy industry and the perfume industry have very different requirements and approaches for raw materials to be used in their finished body care products. The worldwide

Multi-national perfume companies must supply to a global market consistent product at stable prices. The worldwide perfume industry (along with the flavor industry) consumes the vast part of all available essential oils. In fact, the demand for goods in both industries exceeds the supply of a vast majority of oils. When demand exceeds the supply, market pressure dictates higher prices. The influence of the higher prices makes manufacturing of products for a worldwide market much too expensive and substitutes are needed. The perfume industry solution is to manufacture aromatic fragrance oils from natural materials allowing stability of price and abundant availability.

These manufactured aromatic chemicals made possible the modern explosive growth and pervasiveness of the perfume industry. In 1921 one of the first successes with a perfume with a manufactured aromatic chemical included amid the natural essential oil components was "Chanel #5". The human quest for novelty in scent propelled the invention of an industry for aromatic chemicals. It was the good child. Aromatic chemicals can be managed. The Essential oil industry became the bad child, and was not at all easily managed. Today's essential oil industry still gives the parent a wild ride but is there anything more fascinating than watching the growth and maturity of an entity whether it is human or plant?

Traders in essential oils are a rare breed. We have the

risk-taking tolerance and indeed utter fascination working in partnership with Nature. Farmers are at the mercy of the weather, politics, and economic pressures. Crops vary from year to year and thus so does the quality of the essential oil. As most essential oil distillers are paid in their country's currency, the trader must learn to work with the fluctuations of the foreign currency market!

The aromatherapy grade oils are not easy to find. There are very few farmers willing to supply this industry. These farmers

are willing to bring in a smaller crop for a higher paying end product than their commercial brethren. Compared to commercial grown essential oil crops, the farming and distillation is done on a small scale to suit each lot of material.

I spend many hours just smelling samples of the same product from different distillers. What do I "look for," "smelling for"? What do I seek for an essential oil that I will proudly carry in my inventory as exceptional and extraordinary?

First, I always choose an oil that is organic farmed or wildcrafted over one that is from a regular farming practice. If I can choose an organic certified product, I am very pleased. Organic certification is awarded by a third party agency to the farmer/distiller for products that meet farming and handling strict protocol and codes.

The oil must stand on its own personality. Let us go back to the analogy of the child! Is this oil a child with potential but not yet a fully developed personality? What is essential oil "character" which is known as a "sensory profile"?

The sensory profile is merely a description of the impact the oil has on our five senses. We use euphemistic phrases to describe the essential oil fragrance because our English language has no language for scent. We describe a scent as "green" but that refers to our sense of vision, or as "soft" but that refers to our sense of touch. For Chamomile Roman (excellent for sensitive skin care) the sensory description is pale blue in color, herbaceous, warm, with musical "high notes" of sweet ripe apple.

In my industry I am known as a "Nose". I have a fine sense of esthetics, of what is beautiful in an oil. I "smell for" an oil that is the shining example of it's kind. The oil must have the vibrancy of life. If the oil is radiant with vitality then I evaluate for complexity and integrity of the "music" of the scent. As a final confirmation through the help of scientific evaluations I determine if the essential oil has a chemical profile that matches its sensory profile. The ones that make the final cut are truly exceptional for all the aspects of Aromatherapy: body care, therapy, natural perfumery, and for emotional and spiritual use.

Instead of using manufactured aromatherapy products, consider using the essential oils for Spa treatments and practices. There is not one treatment or practice than cannot benefit from the use of essential oils instead of product or as an addition to the chosen products.

To be comfortable working with the oils education is a prerequisite. Besides self-education through books, schooling in Aromatherapy is easily accomplished. Enrolling in correspondence courses, or popular on-site intensives, which might range from 3 to 5 days of schooling, will provide the basis of knowledge for designing and managing treatments and practices. Your entire staff need not be all expert aromatherapists! One staff expert can guide the rest of staff and design the Spa aromatherapy program. Also consider hiring an Aromatherapist consultant who often has a clinical background as a massage therapist.

On New Year's Eve 2000, Times Square New York, an extraordinary Aromatherapy event happened, named "The World Sensorium." Mixed in the confetti release were approximately 150 thousand decorated scent strip cards containing a botanical essential oil perfume. The artwork for the scent strip is an illustration of the aromatic molecules as a metaphor for the solar system planets and as explanation there is a brief description of the origin and meaning of the project. It is not an advertisement, nor is donations solicited. Two hundred thirty nations specified a beloved aromatic botanical which was then represented in the final formulation according to each nation's percentage of the world population.

As one of the project's essential oil suppliers, I am emotionally full from this event and will ponder for decades the micro and macro meaning of this unusual global botanical " collective anointing." This Aromatherapy milestone "performance art" captured our "global village" imagination and forever fixed its imprint in our culture. Essential oil use, or Aromatherapy is a road to know our sense of self. Two hundred thirty nations contemplated this question and offered their answer in the "World Sensorium" project.

Go back to your aromatic birthright. The effect of working

directly with oils is nothing less than transformational. Employing the essential oils into the total Spa-experience celebrates and honors your clients. Mankind's centuries of ritual aromatic use foretold our story.