Saturating and Stimulating Botanicals
Perfume, fundamentally, is the sexual attractant of flowers… Squeezed from the
reproductive glands of plants and creatures, perfume is the smell of creation, a
sign dramatically delivered to our senses of the Earth’s regenerative powers – a
message of hope and a message of pleasure.
〰️ Tom Robbins[vi]
Flowers are the sexual tissues and receptacles of plants, and their oils are the love liniments of nature. The petals, sepals, stamen, pollen, nectar, and aromatic molecules are attuned to one objective – attracting pollinators into the flower to revel in the pollen. Plants have evolved alongside us and in many ways their needs reflect our own. It is beautiful and sensible that the essential oils of flowers and berries can release our inner and outer jouissance juice, igniting our sex lives and opening us to life’s seductiveness.
Distilled from the sexual glands of flowers, many botanicals are aromatic aphrodisiacs, like jasmine, help to regulate the nervous system. Just one honeyed whiff of jasmine will deepen breathing, slow the heart rate, lower blood pressure, relax muscles, and unwind the mind. Sensual ylang and rose oils uplift our hearts and heal our tissues. Some oils, like cinnamon, heat us up, while peppermint makes us tingle.
A flower’s fragrance declares to all the world that it is fertile,
available, and desirable, its sex organs oozing with nectar.
We inhale its ardent aroma and, no matter what our ages,
we feel young and nubile in a world aflame with desire.
∼ Diane Ackerman[vii]
Botanical oils will inspire you with a fragrant garden of ways to stay up and play. When your world is aflame with desire, here are a few intensely stimulating, igniting, and delighting oils for yoni-care perfection and encounters of the most intimate kind:
Saw palmetto, Serenoa repens, is a small palm tree that is endemic to the southeast US. American Indians and Mayans ate the berry-like as a tonic for an assortment of reproductive issues. The essential oil is highly lipophilic so applying it topically is very effective. Saw palmetto is an aphrodisiac and helps kindle natural lubrication production.
The fragrant, tropical Jasmine flower, Jasminum Sambac, “releases inhibition, liberates imagination and develops exhilarating playfulness.”[viii] By signaling the brain to release a specific neurotransmitter, jasmine essential oil gives us a sense of well-being.[ix] It balances the nervous system, cools stress, and prepares the body and mind to relax and receive.
The luscious red Schizandra berry is one of the most medicinal and nutritive fruits. It is a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, and it enhances physical strength and sexual endurance. Traditional Chinese Medicine employs Schizandra to build up body fluids, so it may help to invigorate natural lubrication. Eat a drop in honey or tea or mix a drop with your favorite lubricating oil and apply it internally.
Cananga odorata, or Ylang, is also called Perfume Tree as the prolific yellow flowers have an exotically floral and intoxicatingly sexy scent. The tree, an evening bloomer, releases its scent into the night air to attract evening pollinating visitors. The oil from the Ylang flower promotes euphoria, increases attraction to your partner, and boosts libido. In Indonesia, the bed of a newlywed couple is draped in Ylang flowers. You wear it as perfume or a perfume for your bed, diffuse it, or mix a drop with a buttery, lubricating oil.
Ginger, Gingiber officinale, and cinnamon, Cinnamomum zeylanicum, are naturally warming and stimulating. Both ginger and cinnamon are vasodilators, increasing sensation and blood flow to every cell. Spicy cinnamon applied internally will give you the warm tingles inside. Spiritually, ginger dilates the sacral (sex) root chakra to ignite its energy and to encourage interaction, pleasure, and flow. Superbly potent, cinnamon and ginger oils must be diluted before use.