Scent Meter

A Word About Scent and Fragrance

Scent is a marvelous thing, driving our animal instincts and impressions based on chemistry and memory. From the earliest age, babies smile at the scent of their mothers, preferring their odor to that of all others. We are designed to be attracted to scents that sustain us. How marvelous!

Mother Earth's plant and mineral odors evolve on the skin in response to body chemistry. This is a good thing. Natural essences are diffuse, ethereal and life affirming. So much so, in fact, that our scented world has been used ritualistically and as medicine for centuries. Aromatic plants form the basis of modern day pharmacology, but when Europe adopted aromatherapy as a medical model, the United States chose commerce instead and ensconced aromatherapy within gift market distribution channels. The unwinding of so much that had been commonly known about natural scent began.

Meanwhile, artificial fragrances were introduced and their popularity began to take hold after 1900. These new synthetics were an approximation, isolation and amplification of real scent. Close-as-they-could duplication offered the uniformity of mass market requirements: cheap prices that were consistently available. The shift from natural scent to artificial fragrance was swift.

However, our bodies are not equipped for chemical assault. Artificial fragrance makes some people sick. Many more experience less threatening but nagging symptoms like scent sensitivities, eczema, psoriasis, or dry, itchy, dull skin. None of these conditions are normal. Predictably, some people have turned away from scented products completely. Others have become cautious consumers. Our olfactory powers have been marginalized to the extent that we no longer recognize or trust natural scent when encountered. What a pity. 

Count on sammysoaps to be all natural and always fragrance-free. We never use artificial or synthetic fragrance. Our products are made entirely from vegetable oils, pure, natural emollients, grasses, barks, leaves, resins, roots, stems, leaves, flowers, buds, hulls, needles, seeds, salts and clays. We step out of Mother Nature's way and let her do the work. In the process, we put the poetry back in perfumery.

Still, we recognize that many of you are new to natural, artisanal soaps, having been previously burned by soaps made with synthetic fragrance. If you've had negative experiences with scented products, you may be wary of all scents. We understand but trust and hear us: our soaps are technically fragrance free.

Scent Meter

The scents you encounter in sammysoaps will always be naturally occurring. We're ranked our products on a three-point scent meter: Unscented, Mild and Full. These measurements are subjective, of course, but important to customers who wish to avoid scent, or would like to be slowly reintroduced to scent in its pure, natural, therapeutic form.

Unscented

  • Contains unscented oils.

Mild

  • Products with scents that whisper. Pleasant but very mild. An excellent place for the cautious consumer to begin.

Full

  • These include the middle-of-the-roaders and vibrant scents, those glad, good-natured, authentic, sunny-side up scents guaranteed to delight and captivate your senses. Some of these scents, like spearmint or ylang ylang, are most robust or vibrant than others, but the middle-of-the-roaders are still full expressions of their essence. 

 

 

Timeless, universal, highly prized