Are you counting the days until spring and want to drop your boots for beach flip flops? If you're in high spirits (and socks far from your nose), we have good news for you: smells act on our brain to give us positive sensations and emotions! And before putting on the (swim)suit, perfume can awaken our memories and it's no coincidence, it's been proven.
We tell you everything!
Scent has the power to change our mood and evoke emotions due to its ability to influence our brain.
Perfume is a powerful entity. Certain smells can transport us mentally to another place while the smell of something familiar can bring back a flood of memories. As such, and since the brain controls the body, scent can improve feelings of well-being by prompting the body to relax, feel less stressed, and even uplift spirits. Scent can also unlock images from the past, releasing memories of bygone eras.
How can we harness the unique powers of perfume to bring about positive change in our lives?
Let's do the exercise together
If you had to recall your most vivid olfactory memory?
That of my friend Sophie interviewed: It would probably be that of childhood, walking in the woods when I was a child and I lived on a farm in the south of France. On hot summer days, we would go to a spring to cool off and slide on the moss-covered rocks; I remember the smell of wet leaves on the forest floor, tree foliage, ferns, damp earth and cool spring water flowing. "
How does perfume have this significant power over memory and our actions?
Let me tell you about Tim who recounted how his sense of smell saved his life during the Vietnam War. He remembered crawling on the jungle floor when he smelled garlic and fish. He knew he was in enemy territory because these foods were not the usual diet of American soldiers…and so when he smelled these smells, his fight or flight instinct kicked in. Recently, I was talking to a group about the smell of fresh bread and so I awakened in an elderly woman her personal story with the fond memory of the bakery downstairs from her apartment in the 70s. On the elderly, the workshops are often rich because the memory remains connected. When I worked at Estée Lauder, I used to take my perfume proposals home to smell them in a different environment, and sometimes I would have my mother smell samples. I had noticed that she could rarely detect the simplest aromas: an apple, a hint of cinnamon, vanilla... I was able to correlate this with her lack of appetite, which often happens with people elderly who lose the taste to eat because of a lack of smell. By further stimulating his ability to smell again, I was able to help him find true pleasure in food.
Perfumes and olfactory memories are powerful, and the story ignited by our olfactory memory is A REAL BATH OF YOUTH!
“Perfume is a remedy to cure a bad mood. "
We agree with Hippocrates, so don't wait for spring and bring out your perfumes, relight your candles, perfume your homes! Sometimes a few scented drops are enough to say goodbye to the ambient "spleen".
Anne-Marie Spencer
#ecofrenchlab #thevirtuesofperfume #thepoweroffragrance #madetomeasurefragrance #fragrancememory #fragranceandmood #olfactivememory #sensorialmarketing