What is scentscaping?

Creating fragrance zones, or scentscaping, is a way to associate a distinct scent with specific places or activities, and create a well-defined sensory experience. We'll walk you through how to use fragrance throughout your home, office, professional work space or any other environment to create exactly the sensory experience you desire. 

Most of us have been spending exponentially more time in our homes over the past 18 months, and our homes are taking on more roles in our daily lives than ever before: office/workspace, school, daycare, gym, yoga studio, entertainment venue, restaurant, spa escape, pseudo-hotel. As life gets back to normal and we fully rejoin the public world, some things have shifted for good. Lots of us are still spending a larger portion of our time at home working from home partially (if not full-time), and that is likely to remain. When your home is your workplace and your workplace is your home, how can you mentally separate your professional and personal lives? Scentscaping is one simple way to create separation that will help you mentally organize your space & time. 

How to scentscape your space

I've heard from both friends and customers how much burning candles or using scented sprays and diffusers has helped them cope and find small joy throughout COVID lockdowns and increased daily isolation. Because fragrance is inextricably linked to experience, emotion, and memory (thanks amygdala!), it actually lends itself well to help you distinguish zones in your home for work and play, simply by changing the scents you use for each. Scentscaping can help you create intentional scent boundaries between your personal and professional responsibilities, when physical boundaries may not be possible. It can also help you create different zones in your schedule, by choosing particular scents for different times of day. If you own a business, you can also use scentscaping to create a high-touch experience that will stick with your customers or clients long after they leave your business. Here are some of the easiest ways to use scentscaping to define your space.

Method 1: Create fragrance zones

When creating fragrance zones, you will choose different scents to distinguish between separate physical spaces. Here are three ways to do it:

• Choose a different scent for work spaces and personal spaces. 
• Choose different fragrances for public and private spaces.
• Choose different scents for active and relaxing spaces.

Method 2: Create fragrance flow

Another option for scentscaping is to create flow in your day buy using different scents to distinguish between sections of your daily schedule. If you are used to block-scheduling your workday, this is a fantastic compliment to further enhance this approach of chunking up your day.

• Choose different scents to signify each portion of your workday and personal day.

• Choose different scents to distinguish working hours, personal hours, and weekend. 

Bright citrus for workdays; calming lavender for personal hours and sexy sandalwood for weekends.

• Choose different scents to define major work tasks.

An example is to choose a scent that makes you feel happy and light when you are on zoom calls or in extended meetings and a different one that makes you feel energized when you are powering through email replies or doing intensive computer tasks.

 Method 3: Create fragrance moods

You can also build your personal scentscape around enhancing or minimizing your own particular default moods. If you tend to be more anxious and high-energy, you may opt to scentscape with calming, relaxing scents to counterbalance. If you tend to be more chill and low-energy, you might want to uplift and energize to promote action. If you are easily distracted, boosting focus and memory might be of most benefit to you throughout the day, regardless of work or play. If you have kids or t3end. to get into negative emotional spirals, you might prefer scents to boost positivity and happiness. Knowing yourself (and your living community) is the most important aspect of this method of scentscaping. If you're wondering exactly which fragrance notes are used for managing moods + emotions, here are some quick-fix basics - but look for our more comprehensive list in the next post!

Promote Happiness: Orange
Relieve Anxiety: Bergamot
Diffuse Anger: Chamomile
Increase Confidence: Patchouli
Ease Depression: Grapefruit
Ease Sadness: Cypress
Enhance Sensuality: Sandalwood
Energize: Eucalyptus
Promote Calm: Lavender
Improve Focus: Lemongrass
Improve Memory: Rose
Boost Productivity: Peppermint