The air is crisp, the leaves are shades of yellow, orange, red, and purple, and your cozy, knit hat has made its way back onto the coat rack. While the sun still warms your cheeks during the day, the chill after dark brings another kind of pink into them. There’s nostalgic electricity in the atmosphere and with it comes an excitement that you can feel from your fingers to your toes. Soon, you’ll be snuggled up by a fire, drinking a mug of some hot, sweet concoction, and laughing with friends and family.
But wait! Something’s missing…where are the aromatics? It can’t be Fall until the essence of nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove tingle the tip of your nose and waft into your soul. A little ginger and allspice and we are transported to a happy place: a pumpkin patch at dusk, children laughing, a cup of cider warming your hands, and a gourd with a candle illuminating its smiling face. Oh, how our olfactory perception can salve our tired brain and excite our favorite memories.
In fact, the obsession that the world has with fall spices spawned a more than $600 million industry in 2018, according to Nielsen and Forbes. So it makes sense why Jason Fischer, a professor of psychology and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University, and Sarah Cormiea, a doctoral candidate, would take a moment to explain how the spicy fragrance transports us.
“Smells can tap memories more powerfully than any of the other senses,” informs Cormiea in a JHU news release by Jill Rosen. Rosen continues, “She points to evidence that just reading smell related words, for instance pumpkin spice, will spark activity in the area of the brain that processes olfactory stimuli, the piriform cortex. Even when people merely expect a smell, that neural zone fires up.” The proximity of the piriform cortex to the area of the brain responsible for memory explains why our sense of smell is linked so closely to our recollections. And the strength of our olfactory expectations allows those memories to be triggered by even the mention of Fall.
“We often long for the arrival of fall at the end of a hot summer, and our sense of smell can summon up the season early,” adds Fischer. With that in mind, aromatherapy, to evoke a cozy nostalgia, seems like an easy method of healing. “The closer attention that you pay to the way you’re perceiving the world at a given moment, the more that you can sort of act as your own scientist and sort of dig into your experience,” says Fischer in USA Today.
Now, how about a Spiced Cider Facial…
In the spirit of the season, we’ve concocted an hour of the best kind of therapy with our Spiced Cider Facial (check out the video here). Rebalance and exfoliate your skin with an Apple Orchard Enzyme filled with vitamin C and antioxidants. Then experience an Autumn Spice Hydrating Mask with hints of nutmeg and cinnamon. Refresh and renew your skin, while tickling those warm, fuzzy memories.
Contact us at Advanced Skin + Body Aesthetics for the best facials in Lincoln, NE, and take advantage of our limited-time special, the Spiced Cider Facial with a licensed aesthetician!
We also offer a variety of other aesthetics at our Lincoln location, including the Signature, Geneo, and Diamond Glow facials. And for more info, take a look at our blog Diamond Glow Facial- The Luxurious Treatment that Makes You Feel Like Royalty.
Resources and References:
https://releases.jhu.edu/2021/09/20/the-science-behind-the-appeal-of-pumpkin-spice/