Seven Scents of Christmas

Christmas is  the perfect time to delight the senses with wonderful natural fragrances and reap their benefits.
This year make your Christmas even more fragrant and healthily festive by filling your home with the welcoming aromas of essential oils. Instead of using chemical aerosol sprays, try using natural essential oils to produce a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere that will make it a great Christmas and New Year.
Here are seven traditional essential oil aromas to use during the holiday celebrations, they all smell great individually and will blend with each other really well too. You can mix all these essential oils together in various combinations for your diffuser or burner to suit your personal taste, but however you employ them they will be sure to invoke a truly aromatic season of goodwill and relaxation.

• Pine essential oil
To have the enlivening smell of a real tree, fill a water-spray bottle with around 50mls of water, add 5 or 6 drops of pine essential oil, and shake the mixture vigorously. Now lightly spray the room and be sure to avoid spraying near any  polished wooden surfaces.
If you don’t have a spray bottle, just put a few drops of the essential oil on cotton-wool balls and hide them here and there, or alternatively place a few drops of pine essential oil in your aromatherapy diffuser. You can also use a few drops of grapefruit essential oil with pine to give an extra uplifting, fresh effect that really lifts the spirits.

Frankincense and Myrrh Essential Oils
Apart from the obvious religious connection as one of the gifts to the baby Jesus, Frankincense and Myrrh are the perfect essential oils for the Christmas celebrations. Frankincense and Myrrh are resins – hardened sap from trees. In both cases, trees are slashed and allowed to “bleed.” The sap that comes from the trees hardens and forms beads or “tears.” While Frankincense is used for incense and Myrrh is mainly used in oral preparations, they both have many more uses
• Frankincense Essential Oil
It is a wonderfully relaxing oil (hence its use in meditation) and is ideal for keeping you chilled during the hectic run up to Christmas, and through all the celebrations. Use frankincense essential oil in your burner or diffuser to radiate a beautiful atmosphere of serenity when your nerves become frazzled or frayed, and to calm and soothe over excited children. Works on adults too!
• Myrrh Essential Oil
Inhaling its sedative scent is known to lift negative moods, promote the feeling of being grounded, and encourage the feeling of spiritual awakening.

The Spice Oils
• Cinnamon essential oil
The spicy fragrance of cinnamon is warming, comforting and strengthening, which is just perfect for the winter weather and Christmas season.
Diffusing cinnamon essential oil helps to focus the mind and strengthen your resolve. Cinnamon oil also acts as a tonic to the mind and body, bringing a welcome boost to flagging energy levels to keep you going in this busy season.

• Clove Bud essential oil
The wonderful warm and full-bodied aroma of clove bud essential oil is another one closely associated with Christmas, due to the spices historic connection in making fragrant orange-clove pomanders, mulled wine and scrumptious baked ham.
The classic blend of sweet orange oil and clove bud in your vaporiser creates an instant enlivening effect that appeals to everyone and creates a welcoming atmosphere . The inhalation of clove oil can be very beneficial to your mental health. It can alleviate symptoms of stress and anxiety and is also known to help ease difficulty in sleeping related to insomnia. The safest way to inhale clove oil is to diffuse it throughout the home, either with the use of an essential oil diffuser or by adding a few drops to a pot of boiling water.
It has powerful anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties, so whilst you fragrance your home during the holidays, you are also helping to protect you against all those nasty bugs

• Ginger essential oil
This is a warming, sweet and spicy oil
It can be helpful when you are indecisive or lacking in motivation, it helps bring clarity, strength and determination. A mix of stimulating ginger essential oil and refreshing bergamot is wonderful to reinstate your get up and go.
All the spice oils have quite strong aromas, and you don’t need to very much of them to fill a room.

Last but by no means least of the Christmas oils

.Sweet orange essential oil.I call this one the happy oil. The uplifting and refreshing aroma of sweet orange oil is the perfect choice to blend with any, or all the above spice oils if you want to add a burst of citrus freshness. Sweet orange essential oil always brings a ray of sunshine to any day.

Caution
These beautiful essential oils can give lots of benefits when used safely. I have given some benefits from inhalation, never use these essential oils neat on the skin. The above oils can be used in massage oils and creams but caution is needed in their exact dilution so always get advice from a professional aromatherapist or supplier.

Majella Farrell RMN, MBRCP. is a mother of four and grandmother of three. She is involved in the care of the parents.
An experienced tutor of therapies and healthcare science.
She practices Natural Health Care at Live Well Clinic, with over 40 years of experience in healthcare first as a nurse and then as a Natural Health Care Consultant.
07759003457
www.livewellclinic.co.uk