Essential Oils for Lovers: How to use aromatherapy to revitalize your sex life. Maggie Tisserand
voluptuousness, upon a high and handsome bedstead; the sheets being sprinkled with flowers, such as aloes and other fragrant woods. In such a place, let the man, ascending the throne of love, enjoy the woman in ease and comfort, gratifying his and her every wish and every whim.’
A lovely story of man’s use of perfumes to seduce a woman comes from The Perfumed Garden, written by Sheik Nefzawi late in the fourteenth century:
Two prophets lived at the same time, and Sheja, the prophetess, wrote a letter to Mosailama, refuting his right to call himself a prophet. Mosailama sought advice from his counsellors, who recommended that he invite Sheja for a meeting to discuss their problem. In preparation for Sheja’s arrival, Mosailama was to erect a tent of coloured brocade on the outskirts of town, and then ‘fill it with delicious perfumes of various kinds, amber, musk and scented flowers such as the rose, orange blossom, jonquil, jasmine, hyacinth, pink and others similar. That done you will place in the tent golden cassolettes filled with perfumes … Then the tent must be closed so that none of the perfume can escape, and when the vapours have become sufficiently intense to impregnate the water in the tent, you will mount your throne and send for the prophetess, who will remain with you in the tent alone. When she inhales the perfumes she will be delighted, all her joints will slacken and she will swoon away. After having possessed her you will be spared trouble from her.’ When everything was in order Mosailama sent for Sheja, who quickly became stupefied and began to lose her presence of mind. Instead of discussing their conflicts, Mosailama knew he could have his way with her and asked, ‘Whatever posture you prefer, speak, and you will be satisfied.’ ‘I want it all ways,’ replied the prophetess, thus bringing to a satisfactory end the dispute between the two prophets.
As much credence was given to the rejuvenating properties of aromatic plants as to their seductive powers:
‘If you wish to repeat the act, perfume yourself with sweet odours, then approach the woman and you will attain a happy result.’
Kama Sutra
‘He who will feed for several days on eggs cooked with myrrh, cinnamon and pepper will find an increased vigour in his erections and in his capacity for coition.’ The Perfumed Garden
Little wonder that these ‘scriptures of love’ were written in a part of the world where sun and sex were a daily delight, where sandalwood trees grew in abundance, otto of roses was distilled and hundreds, of aromatic spices, grasses and flowers were a part of everyday life.
ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AND HEBREWS
It is from India, as well as from China, that the ancient Egyptians obtained their knowledge and their supplies of many aromatics. The Egyptians were the inventors of the public baths, later borrowed by the Romans and adopted as their own.
After their daily ablutions the Egyptians would rub themselves all over with fragrant oils and ointments. The unguents used were many and varied and were primarily dispensed by the priests, who alone were acquainted with the mysteries of the compounding art. From the priests, who could be called the first perfumers, the skills were learned by the temple attendants and then by ordinary members of the populace. It must be remembered that a perfume and a medicine were one and the same to the ancient Egyptians. In the time of the Pharaohs, Egyptian women appreciated the value of perfumes for sexual attraction and hundreds of formulations were known. Perfumes were used to camouflage body odours, to scent the homes and public meeting places, and to fragrance the hair and even the genitalia.
The passion for perfumes went on increasing in Egypt until the time of Cleopatra, when it can be said to have reached its climax. Queen Cleopatra used aromatics in a lavish way, which may have been a contributing factor to her active sex life. As well as being lover to Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, she is said to have fellated 100 centurions in a single day! Certainly she was no novice in the art of seduction: when summoned by Mark Anthony to meet him on the banks of the Tiber, she drenched the sails of her barge with jasmine and other heavy sensual aromatics. Having sailed to where he waited, she invited Mark Anthony on board. ‘The very winds were lovesick,’ Shakespeare writes in Anthony and Cleopatra, and this may account for the fact that Mark Anthony was completely spellbound by Cleopatra, to the exclusion of all duties and obligations to his country.
Hebrews were kept as slaves in Egypt, and after their release brought the arts of perfumery to their own people. Perfume was one of the means of seduction resorted to by Judith when she sought Holofernes in his tent, determined to liberate her people from his oppression. Elsewhere in the Old Testament the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon act out their erotic and aromatic fantasy: ‘My lover has the scent of myrrh, he shall lie all night on my breasts.’ Other known aphrodisiacs are mentioned in Proverbs: ‘I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.’
GREEK GODS AND ROMAN EMPERORS
Many beautiful and romantic stories describe the origin of aromatic use, and none is more beguiling than the Greek version.
The goddess Aphrodite arose from the waves and, realizing her nakedness, plucked some sprigs from a myrtle bush to cover herself. This is why, it is said, the myrtle plant has leaves shaped like a vagina, the outer lips (labia majora) being likened to ‘the lips of the myrtle’ and the inner (labia minora) to ‘the fruit of the myrtle’. Aphrodite was worshipped as the goddess of love, beauty, sexuality and passion; she ruled all things sensual including the knowledge of the sexual use of aromatic plants. From her name we have the word ‘aphrodisiac’; her son’s name, Eros, gives us ‘erotic’.
According to Greek legend the art of perfumery came to mortals when Aphrodite’s handmaiden, Oenone, confided in her lover Paris. Paris, after anointing himself with aromatics, managed to steal Helen of Troy away from her husband Menelaus. When Helen eventually returned to Greece she brought with her the knowledge of perfumery. Another of Helen’s lovers, Alexandras, was saved from the clutches of the jealous Menelaus by Aphrodite, who ‘snatched him away with the ease of a god, wrapped him in thick mist, and set him down in his sweetly-scented bedroom’. Aphrodite then united the lovers: ‘She took hold of Helen’s sweet-smelling dress and twitched it with her hand. “Come this way, Alexandras is calling you back to the house. He is there in the bedroom, on the carved bed, shining in his own beauty.”’
Aphrodite was not always so kind, for when the women of Lemnos refused to pay homage to her she cursed them with a foul smell which made their husbands turn away from them. In despair and frustration they massacred their menfolk and lived empty celibate lives until Jason and the Argonauts arrived on the island during a tempestuous storm. So desperate for sex were these women of Lemnos that they bartered hospitality for love-making, but to enable this to take place they first had to burn vast quantities of incense on the alter of Aphrodite, not only to appease the goddess but so the sensual odours would mask the foul smell they’d been cursed with.
Ancient Greeks colonized parts of Italy; in Sybaris the men and women bathed several times a day in aromatic water and it was this indulgence in the physical pleasures that gave us the word ‘sybaritic’. Later when the Romans began to amass their Empire, conquering Southern Italy, the knowledge of perfumery passed to Rome.
The Roman goddess of love and sensuality was Venus, and she too was supposed to have been born from the sea and to have covered her nakedness with myrtle leaves. The Three Graces in attendance on Venus and her son Cupid were crowned with myrtle leaves; when accompanying The Muses, however, they wore wreaths of roses. Rose essence was called ‘the blood of Venus’ and Roman temples were always adorned with roses. Venus gave us the word ‘venery’, meaning sexual desire, and ‘venereal’ (of the sexual organs), and it is not coincidence that Venice is called ‘city of lovers’.
Roman feasts in honour of Bacchus, god of wine and lust, were elaborate occasions, with roses being as important a commodity as wine, women and food. The Romans were obsessed by the rose. Rose-water perfumed the public baths, flowed from fountains in the emperor’s palaces and were strewn everywhere at banquets. Even wine was rose-scented – and the cure for over-indulgence? Rose-water.
Although not the earliest aromatherapists, the Romans knew that perfumes in general possessed medicinal properties. The most popular recipes were inscribed on marble