An Aromatic Life-Frauke Galia

Frauke Galia is an aromatherapist, educator, ambassador, inspiration, or a smellspiration-she more than anyone I have ever met is educating people about smelling and an advocate for those with Parosmia and Anosmia. Her mantra is "Smell to be Well" she is always curious and ever inviting us along as we all learn more about how important smell is in our lives. This willfully neglected, possibly this neglected possibly most unappreciated sense that people -if given the choice to have to give up will probably choose first over all others.

Frauke has an outstanding podcast called An Aromatic Life where is she invites guests artist, educators, scientist, perfumers, bloggers, people from all corners of the globe to talk about what smell. It's super fascinating. I apologize again I haven't figured out how to create a direct link but you can cut and paste to her site where she has a huge amount of information.

https://www.falkaromatherapy.com/

She offers free resources and also teaches classes about aromatherapy and composition with aromatherapy and perfume materials. Very importantly she offers a workshop that I took on "smell training" I specifically took this because on contracting Covid March 2020 I become one of the many people that developed Parosmia. ( A loss of smell or distorted sense of smell) I had kept this information really private. I was worried what people would think of especially actively trying to make perfume. because of how I taught myself I was relying completely on my scent memory all those years smelling all my materials-so thoroughly in their progression from first hitting us and strip until hours later- by 15 years later this gorilla materials were friends basically characters I could cast- compose by scent memory -but it was still absolutely terrifying not knowing what was actually happening all together in that beaker. in the months went by I regained probably about 70% sometimes that would completely disappear I just never knew what I'd wake up to, mainly my sense of smell was distorted. It was as if there was a very mischievous nose imp playing all the time with my senses. Half of Perfumes i was working on olfactory would disapear, all top or bottom notes would turn to something like a battery being put on a tongue, I smelled terrible things- food became rotten and I had phantom smells -often as if there was lighter fluid, a fire nearby or even in the house. I sometimes accidentally would eat rather spoiled food. Losing your sense of smell can be literally dangerous. It came to a point I needed help toot sweet. I was starting to get depressed. Taking the Smell training course was helpful because I went back to basics. Of course I had already by my own self teaching woth years of work smelled materials but this was A bit different - slowed down. Also there was something unique that was helpful that had to do with attaching an item/ smell to memory. For example we only used four items to smell, two times a day over the weeks. One of the oils was lemon. Though at that time with my limited perception it wasn't very strong what started to help me smell better was that I could attach a memory to it -which was my mother loved lemon - I'd picture the a lemon & she had at times tins of hard candies & used to clean with lemons after they were used. If one can attach a memory to a smell it is much more powerful in association. And it reminded me of how I would use creative visualization in my perfume composition which I did already attached memory but not quite so vividly so this is also helpful for me now creating. i'm very thankful for Frauke.

I can promise you if you visit her site or listen to her podcast you will definitely learn something new and very helpful. :)