Adventures in Lemongrass: Can't sleep without it

One of the therapeutic effects of lemongrass that really interests me is its use as a sedative. I am a terrible sleeper. My mum likes to reminisce about how I've always been a bad sleeper like it's some kind of special skill. I wake up at the drop of a hat. I wake up when I roll over in bed. I wake up when the neighbours go up to bed. When the cat snores. When my fiance rolls over. When anything happens, basically. If I get through the night and only wake up once, it's a good night. So I thought I could use some of my oodles of lemongrass oil to help me tackle this raging insomnia that plagues me.

For the past two or three weeks I've been burning lemongrass oil in the bedroom at night. I have to admit, the smell is a bit overwhelming at first - it probably goes without saying that lemongrass is very lemony-smelling and I initially associated it more with cleaning products than sleepy times. But it is quite a tranquil scent and now I'm used to it in the room at night, I miss it if I forget it. I suppose there's a certain psychological element in there - now I associate it with being in bed at night rather than cleaning my bath. It's part of the bedtime routine now.

I don't think it helps me get to sleep any faster than normal but seriously. I sleep deeply. Usually I remember a lot of my dreams in great detail because I wake up so much and don't get much REM sleep (the brain chemicals that are needed to convert short-term memories to long-term are suppressed during REM). The past couple of weeks, every time I've burned lemongrass oil before bed, I've slept deeply enough and long enough that I don't remember a single dream. I consider that something of an achievement.

I do still wake up at least once a night - Fergus will not be ignored when he wants feeding - but I fall asleep again much faster than I used to. Normally waking up in the night meant lying there staring at the ceiling for hours making lists of Pokemon in my head (what? It works), but I can generally fall asleep again much faster now. The nights I've forgotten to get my oil burner going, it's taken me a lot longer to fall asleep (sometimes the very act of getting ready for bed wakes me up all over again, which seems grossly unfair).

I don't know how much of this is a genuine effect of the lemongrass or just a psychosomatic thing, but what the hell, I'll take it.

Alchemy Report

I thought I might get in the habit of a weekly update on the perfumes I've been playing with. Some of them will eventually appear in my Etsy shop when it opens; others will be just for me and some will be banished to the Fail Bin. So! Here's what's been happening this week.

Win: A perfume oil inspired by my current D&D character class - Duskblade. It's such an evocative word, I couldn't resist. Duskblade is a vanilla and black musk base, with notes of leather, black pepper, plum and violet mixed in. I'm testing it this evening and it is a definite win for me. The black pepper and plum hits first, then tapers down to the violet. I was worried the violet would be overwhelming (it's a pretty big, noisy floral), but I think the leather and vanilla are weighing it down a bit so it's not in-my-face flowery. I can't really pick up the black musk but I can tell there's "something" else in there. The plum and black pepper keep peeking back through, too. I really love this ^_^

Fail: I picked up a whiskey fragrance oil last week and needed to make a blend inspired by Ethan Banning. I mixed the whiskey with leather, sandalwood, and apricot and...it just stank of whiskey. I was hoping it'd be mostly spicy-smooth from the sandalwood with hints of fruit and booze, but no. It's just booze. It smelt quite nice, but it wasn't at all what I was aiming for and certainly nothing I'd ever wear, so it got scrapped. I'm still determined to make the blend work though; I need to learn that less is more with alcoholic scents. I have the same problem with sweet rum - I think I'm putting in just enough and it ends up overwhelming everything else.

Just for me: I also got a white chocolate fragrance oil and thought I'd try that with some white florals and a bit of lemon. I was hoping for something a bit delicate and mysterious, but as with the whiskey, the white chocolate overwhelmed all the other notes. It smells amazing, but again it's not really something I'd wear as a perfume. It's too delicious to scrap though, so I'm going to use it as a bath oil or in an oil burner.

I will probably be looking for guinea pigs for Duskblade in the near future, so if you like the sound of it, stay tuned!