Oh, Valentines day! The day of love! Herbs have been used throughout the centuries to not only attract members of 
the opposite sex, but also to enhance intimate relationships. Now, herbals certainly can’t make you fall in love, or even trap someone into loving you, but you can certainly enhance the love relationship that already have with your spouse, and how can that be a bad thing? What better way to attract your valentine than by creating a romantic massage oil or using a blend of oils to help guide cupids arrow? One of our most primal senses is the sense of smell, and aromatic herbs can certainly assist with attraction. Just take a nice carrier oil, like almond oil, grapeseed oil, or apricot kernel oil and add about 15 drops of essential oils for every ounce of carrier oil. You can experiment by combining oils that you and your partner both enjoy. Scents are categorized as base, middle and top notes. For the best results when creating a mixture, you will want to include a top, middle, and base note oil to create harmony, just like in a musical chord. Some romantic essential oils and their properties are listed below:
Top Note Oils
- Cardamon: Elletaria cardamomum: A warm, spicy oil increases circulation. Aphrodisiac and stimulant.
- Black Pepper: Piper nigrum: Promotes circulation, aphrodisiac, stimulant, and promotes stamina.
- Ginger: Zingiber officinale: A warming oil, and stimulating aphrodisiac. It increases local circulation.
Middle Note Oils
- Jasmine: Jasminum sambac: Narcotic, floral, and aphrodisiac. Contains a chemical constituent known as indol that has a distinct animal earthiness.
- Rose: Rosa damascena: The rose has traditionally been associated with love and is an intensely floral aphrodisiac.
- Neroli: Citrus aurantium: Distilled from the flowers of the bitter orange tree, this oil is calming to the central nervous system and nourishes the heart.
- Ylang Ylang: Canaga odorata: Highly narcotic and aphrodisiac. In Indonesia ylang ylang flowers are spread on the beds of newly married couples.
- Clary Sage: Salvia sclarea: Aphrodisiac, antidepressant, euphoric, and sedative.
Base Note Oils
- Vetiver: Vetiveria zizanioides: Distilled from the root of a grass this oil is grounding and nourishing. It is a circulatory stimulant yet sedative to the central nervous system.
- Patchouli: Pogostemon cablin: Aphrodisiac, antidepressant, grounding and balancing.
- Sandalwood: Santalum album: Aphrodisiac, antidepressant, and sedative. Contains sesquiterpenes, which are known to be calming to the nervous system.
A sample mixture for a romantic massage oil would be something like this:
Cardamon (Top) 7 drops + Ylang Ylang (Middle) 3 drops + Patchouli (Base) 5 drops for a total of 15 drops of essential oil mixed 1 drop at a time into 1 ounce of apricot kernel oil, then tip bottle gently up and down to mix.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with different oils until you find a scent that you and your spouse really enjoy!
This post is part of the 26th Edition of Wildcrafting Wednesday at Mind Body and Sole
