Natural Indian Attars are an ancient form of perfumery that can have profound emotional benefits for the fortunate ones who wear them.
Most aromatherapy uses steam distilled essential oils. Plant materials are infused with steam to extract the aromatic oils. Steam, being very hot, tends to abuse the delicate top notes in an aromatic fragrance. While the oil can still be useful for aromatherapy, it may not work so well for perfumery.
Natural Attars, on the other hand, are made using a process called hydrodistillation. Hydrodistillation protects the fragile aromatic oils better than does steam distillation.
With attars, freshly picked flowers are placed in copper stills over an open fire, where they are gently simmered in water using low heat and pressure. The aromatic oils rise in the steam, and are collected in a vessel of sandalwood oil. This process is repeated daily for up to two weeks.
Gentle hydrodistillation seems to preserve the living essence of the flower. A real flower that grew with its feet in the mud and its head in the sky, soaking up the sunshine and rain, and offering it's fragrance as a gift to us. In a natural attar, you not only smell the flower, you feel the land that grew the flower as well.
A nose dulled by synthetic perfumes may not immediately appreciate the subtleties of natural attars. But if you keep smelling them an amazing transformation happens in your brain. Someday, when you least expect it, you will suddenly find yourself craving the scents of those attars that you didn't much care for at first!
In the West, we have been taught to appreciate different fragrances than those treasured in the East. Attars don't smell like French perfumes and this can take some getting used to. They smell like flowers and sandalwood, yes. But they also smell like pure water and fresh air. They smell like raindrops striking parched earth. They smell like a quiet day in the country, walking barefoot along a dirt path, with grassy meadows that glitter under the hot sun.
Watch a housecat longing to go outside. You can remove a cat from nature, but you cannot take the love of nature out of a cat. We, too, are creatures of nature. No matter how far away our lifestyles can take us, our bodies and brains have a longing for things natural and wholesome. In the midst of our hectic lives, Natural Indian Attars can help reconnect us to nature... and ourselves.
About the Author: Siri Amrit Kaur Khalsa has Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and is a cancer survivor. She started Tigerflag Natural Perfumery at http://www.tigerflag.com/ to give people beautiful natural alternatives to toxic perfumes, soaps and candles. You may print or publish this article as long as you use it in its entirety, with credit to the author and Tigerflag Natural Perfumery, LLC. | |
