Patchouli

Patchouli growing in my friends garden

Scented plant that has no scent....

What the, she's gone crazy!

Pogostemon cablin or Patchouli as we know it.

Patchouli is a bushy herb with dark green leaves and small, slightly fragrant pale pink-white flowers. It can get to around 1m in height. It loves a warm part sunny position and dislikes cold winters (protect from frost).

While it's flowers do have a slight scent it's the dried leaves that are the most potent. The fresh leaves have no real scent.

My history lesson has always been that dried patchouli leaves were put into the fabric to deter moths... It was so used widely by India’s fabric manufacturers in the 19th century to protect their products from damage while in transit, that it became the signature scent of clothing and fabric exported from India. This unknown scent was believed to have captivated many European women and then became a guarantee of authenticity. For so many the source of the exotic fragrance was a mystery, so fraudulent fabrics were easy to spot because they didn’t have the signature patchouli scent. Now days this scent is associated with the hippie movement of the 60's as it's an ingredient in many incense that became popular in that time.

Did you know that patchouli was also an ingredient in coke and according to Wikipedia In 1985 Mattel used patchouli oil in the plastic used to produce the action figure Stinkor in the Masters of the Universe line of toys!

Patchouli is one of the most common essential oils of today. It is a strong, slightly sweet, intoxicating scent. It described as having a dark, musky-earthy aroma. It is one of my favourite essential oils. Robbi Zeck writes that patchouli "....awakens within the soul, a deep yearning for the comforting presence of peace, bringing spiritual insights to all realms. Patchouli's slow peacefulness brings about a state of mind and wholehearted feeling where unification occurs with the soul on all levels. When the fragments of your spirit have been scattered far and wide, call the peacemaker of your soul to you." How beautiful is this explanation of what a scent can do to your psyche.

Harvested Patchouli, ready for drying

I have a lovely friend who lives in Ipswich that grows amazing patchouli plants. So big she can easily harvest a large amount of leaves each year to dry and hang in her cupboards.

Patchouli grows well in pots or the garden. It does love to be fed. I sprinkle Organic Link every three months over the soil and I liquid feed every fortnight with Triple Boost. Patchouli do not like wet feet, so try not to over water it and if you have clay soil you may be better growing your patchouli in a pot.

Patchouli flowers in summer. If you want to harvest the leaves it is best to do it on a dry morning before the plant comes into bloom.

Maybe it's time we all relived the ☮️ of the 60's and full our homes with this delightful scent.

Creating a Sacred Space

It started with a graduation present.

Perfect Potion was a little shop in the Elizabeth Arcade in Brisbane. For my year 12 graduation present my mother bought me a box of essential oils and a candle oil burner. A few years later I upgraded to an electric oil vaporizer. It was ugly yellow; there wasn’t much choice back then! Now I have a classy black aroma diffuser.

No matter where I lived I always had my oils. Slowly as my interest grew, so did my library and my aromatherapy classes. I enjoyed infusing my home with the scents I created. I loved it when friends visited and they’d say ‘your house always smells so good’. When I lived in an apartment the girls upstairs used to tell me how much they enjoyed walking past my door as there was always beautiful scents wafting out.

Lucky for me as my interest grew Perfect Potion flourished. More and more stores opened, more oils were released, more blends were available, more products. Unfortunately it didn't quench my scent thirst, it only fuelled it.

There was nothing more I enjoyed than spending an afternoon in a Perfect Potion Store.

One day the opportunity arose to stock Perfect Potion at Trevallan Lifestyle Centre. We have never looked back. It has been an amazing journey being a part of a company that seems to only take huge steps forward.

Then in 2012 something strange happened - Perfect Potion ran a competition, a competition unlike any other. A competition open to all Australian and Japanese residents. The competition was to create your own essential oil blend to be sold under the Perfect Potion banner. They had never offered this before; all the blends sold by Perfect Potion are Perfect Potion’s creations.

The competition wasn’t just about choosing some essential oils. You had to work out the perfect combination of oils and then how much of each oil. Plus the scent you were trying to create was to embody your scared space.

Hang on I live in a small house with kids, animals – what scared space?

My books! It always comes back to books. Books are my scared space. Books are my escape. At the time of the competition my little library was being built. So now I had a sacred space but no scent.

Then a few days before close of competition inspiration struck. The oils just worked, the combination, the amounts. It worked. I still hesitated to enter and then late one night, almost competition end time, I finally got enough guts to enter. And swoosh like that the email was sent, the competition closed and I promptly forgot all about it.

You see I had a baby on the way. Number three to be exact. The day the winners of Perfect Potion’s competition was announced I was a little busy. I was in labour.

When I finally got my head out of new born clouds I read an email “Firstly, a massive CONGRATULATIONS for being the winner of the Create Your Own Sacred Space Blend Competition”.

I thought “what’s going on. Who won the competition? They aren’t telling me the names”. I thought it was a generic email sent to everyone who entered informing them of the winner.

Silly me.

Tears may have flowed when it set in.

My Creation - Widsom

Something I loved, something that is so important and a part of me just became real.

The day that I received that little bottle adeptly named ‘Wisdom’, my heart skipped a beat. Just thinking about it now makes me well up with tears.

It wasn’t just that I won it was the recognition I also got from the creator of Perfect Potion Sal Battaglia. A man who I admire for all that he and his team have achieved over the years.

Sal wrote ‘Choosing the sacred space blend has been so difficult for me as there were so many wonderful ideas and beautiful blends…. I was so impressed with the depth and complexity of the blend. It is such a simple formula…..I absolutely loved the blend …

Unfortunately after 8 years this blend is no longer a part of Perfect Potion's range. I will always be eternally grateful to Sal and the Perfect Potion Team for giving me this opportunity. I was lucky to have one of my secret dreams realised and to be able to share it with others.