Favourite Friday: Scents

Hello again :) This one is a bit special one for me, as I can’t stand most artificial smells mixed into perfumes (ick, poison!) and scented lotions, deodorants etc. I want to introduce you to my wondrous world of natural and sometimes pretty ordinary scents.

Favourite scents: cedar wood and lemon grass essential oils, and lavender (both the plant and the essential oil, I like the scent because it is a childhood memory). I use them for adding a bit of fragrance to my homemade cosmetic products. Apart from that, I mostly enjoy the clean smell of a freshly showered human body without the addition of weird perfumed stuff (will write more about simple beauty/hygienic products and essential oils another day). I also really like some smells you can find in nature, for example the scent of rain on a hot, dusty path/street, the scent of the air directly before and after a thunderstorm, the aromatic fragrance of straw and hay – and the scents of late summer in general. Sometimes I enjoy the heavy scents of a forest, especially in autumn. Also, this special kind of winter air, when there is only dry snow or none, frosty temperatures, little to no wind, and this faint scent of fresh, crisp novelty and freedom. The kind of winter air that beckons me to run across the fields like a wolf, and once it really made me run through partly knee high snow at night! Some very nice everyday smells are the aroma of freshly brewed coffee in the morning (smelling it is nicer than drinking it imy opinion), freshly baked bread/buns, fresh bed linen, and of course clean morning air, especially after a rainy night.

Somehow I like all kinds of natural “fresh” smells, while things like scented air-fresheners give me headaches, big time! It is also unforgivable to spray me with a scented deodorant for fun. Not funny. You can take me for a walk in the forest or through fields instead.

I guess I’ll have to bake raisin buns today, writing this post made me hungry for fresh food (this, and the fact that I haven’t had breakfast yet).

What do you prefer, artificial blends of scents, or natural smells?

Favourite Friday: Summertime Activities

Hi everyone, I’m a little late because I haven’t been online yesterday. At the moment I’m out of town and enjoying the countryside for some days, so stay tuned for an update on my photoblog!

Just a short post today –

Favourite summertime activities: going for walks and taking pictures in the countryside (obviously, and today darling was tagging along, which was also fun), reading books, doing a bit of easy crafting (warmth = glue/paint/water dries faster), meeting friends outside – just being lazy and talking for hours, and if ice cream or a barbecue are involved, all the better. Somehow summertime makes me dream about places far away, different (more natural) ways of life, beautiful things of all kinds, and it makes me want to throw out some stuff to get a more airy feeling in the apartment.

Favourite Friday: Flowers and Seasons

Welcome back to the second edition of “Favourite Friday”.  As the weather outside is not really summer like yet, and the sky is more grey than blue, how about something nice?

Favourite Flowers: white roses, and I like green plants like ivy and fern, they give me such a nice feeling with their barely noticeable earthy aroma and a notion of fantasy worlds. Generally I prefer blossoming trees (Japanese cherry trees, apple tree blossoms) and wild flowers (e.g. corn flowers) over blooming plants inside, because too many smells combined in a confined space make me uncomfortable.

Favourite Seasons: late summer and the European equivalent to Indian summer. The times when the air and the soil exhale a soft, warm, slightly dusty breath and a faint aroma of hay, the trees are full of leaves and maybe a glint of fire in the sun. Deep blue skies. Happiness. The times when I long to run through open fields. Our church wedding will be in the mid of September this year, could there be a better time?

Tell me about flowers/plants and seasons that make me happy, please?