The Naturally Scented Home: Creating Traditional Scented Products with a Modern Twist Hardcover – June 30, 2001

I work in an office that specializes in spiritually and self improvement, and this book was great for creating pleasantries for the office!

You know you've been led astray before. Other books in this genre rely heavily on expensive, hard to find ingredients you've never heard of, forcing you to spend far more on searching and supplies than store bought versions of the finished products. This book is so simple and easy to follow, you'll smack yourself on the head and wonder "Why didn't I think of that?" Within an hour of cracking open this book, I had already tried out three different ideas. A handful of fresh Verbena on a string perfumed my living room, a new spray bottle of dryer scent was blessing my clothes with amber, and I was cleaning my kitchen counters with citrus scrub. The next day I was experimenting with creating new tea blends with the herbs in my garden. As days progressed, store bought sprays and cleaners were pushed aside and forgotten. I was so pleased! My only additional expenditure was a whole ten bucks on the two ingredients I didn't have - Borax and Soap Flakes - and now I can make all but two of the recipes in this book.Speaking of recipes, the Tudor Lemon soap is probably the easisest, and thankfully, Julia Bird skips the animal fat and burning lye steps I've seen in other books. Just soap flakes and lemons, really, that's all you need. No need to endanger yourself at all. No need for goggles and a burn kit. None.I love this book, and I feel I made a good investment by buying it. I think you'll like it too.

For anyone who wants a useful index of how to mix scentful herbs for food, oils for aromatherapy, natural and effectful house cleaners, keeping bugs out, etc - close to hand. It's got beautiful photography to illustrate it and it is very easy to follow, lots of tips on 'how to', psychological as well as physical impacts of the different scents. Basically an instruction for beeing one with nature in your everyday life making things a lot easier:-)