[speaker001:] It's a nice thing to know... if you ever... get... tense,... er decide that this is it, I'll throw things Er well I do when I want to throw things at the kitchen and go away and you use aromatherapy. And it's really nice. It's nice for both men and women. And so the men can try it just as much as the girls can as well.
[Emmy:] Cos what possibly
[Yvonne:] So
[Emmy:] we should tell you is that everybody here has suffered from mental health problems.
[Yvonne:] Yes. Yes. So I find
[Emmy:] So that might be might be our cure.
[Yvonne:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] I do find that I have been around everywhere. I mean I used to go to Park and and all and all this.
[Emmy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] Er well before actually. [LAUGHTER] So I've done er community work for a long time. So I do know the different things that do make people feel either a little bit better or might just help them. And the one thing that I over all these years I have found and I've come more and more into is aromatherapy, because it's not...
[Emmy:] I'm so worried about
[Yvonne:] drug-like, it's doesn't make you tired. Unless you get too relaxed and you're er tired. Erm it doesn't give you a headache it helps to... maybe cure a headache, and it's just nice... smelling and I think if you were just to even with your partners or with friends even just massage somebody's hands... or massage somebody's feet [LAUGHTER] if you don't make them scream while [LAUGHTER] you're doing it. [] It's really nice. So er Body Shop do have a ran they've bought a new range of aromatherapy out, so I can talk about Body Shop's it's easier when I've got it with me here. So... I'm going to tell you what each one does and I'm gonna pass them round. Now do any have any of you tried aromatherapy? Do you know what it is?
[Emmy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] Have you tried it,
[Emmy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] tried aromatherapy? Aroma is the sense of smell. You all smell things don't you, I mean you know when something smells horrible and you know when something smells nice. And so our sense of smell is very strong. So it soon tells you whether you like it or not. When you breathe something it goes up into... your your brain here, what they call the olfactory bulb up here, and this is right near the memory. And how many of you have smelt... things and you think it turns you back either to when you were a child,... maybe new bread,... a certain flower,
[speaker001:] Rowntrees.
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] Rowntrees yeah. []
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] You see you see chocolate Ooh I haven't got a chocolate flavoured one here. [] Er oh yes I have,. No I haven't got the Mamatoto. [LAUGHTER] Erm... yes chocolate Has anyo body else think of anything that...
[Wendy:] Oh grass clippings. Grass cuttings.
[Yvonne:] Grass clippings' ll send your memory
[Wendy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] straight back won't it
[Wendy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] to sometimes happier times.
[Wendy:] Mm.
[Celia:] Fresh laundry.
[Yvonne:] ... Yes. Yes.
[Emmy:] Mm.
[speaker001:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] The the the smell of the the sort of the w
[Celia:] Clean sheets.
[Yvonne:] Yes.
[Celia:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] The washing and that. Erm... but it does bring you back with things. I always think of er as I say new bread always brings me back... a lot of memories. So smell is very important, erm... s and this is why it's called aromatherapy. It tries to make you feel better by the sense of smell. You can massage them on your hands, on your temples, or you can use it as a what they call steam inhalation. Put it in a bowl of water... a few bowl of hot water, a few drops, like you do if you got a cold, and just breathe in. So these are... that's how you use aromatherapy. And it help it doesn't say it'll definitely cure you of anything, but it will help maybe to alleviate some problems. You have to have an open mind I always think with these things. Right. Now you can see Body Shop's here, I've got them in a nice box now. They look better They all used to be one colour before but we've now extended the range... and so they've put them in different colour bottles. Now the red range at the top here is all the oils to make you relax.... And all the oils at the bottom the blue ones are to make you refreshed, happy, revived, we hope. So if you ever go in and you want to have a oil that relaxes you, you look at all the red ones. Again, you must have one that you like the smell of. Also with essential oils, they come from plants, leaves,... twigs, roots, er parts of flowers and plants. If you were to use essential oil neat, that's the little drops of oil, it's too strong and it will h Well it won't harm you but it won't it might set up irritations. You must always mix it with an oil. And if you went say to 's where they sell essential oils, theirs are pure oils. You must always buy what they call a carrier oil to help mix the oils. Now ours, we've helped you by already mixing it, so ours have got three percent of essential oil to a carrier oil, which in our case happens to be grapes erm grapeseed oil, which is a very light carrier oil. So... I'll start with the first one and I'll pass it round and just... put either the relaxing on one hand and the reviving on the other and you'll have one hand relaxed the other one [LAUGHTER] doing this [].
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] So and see just get to like the smell. See which one you like the smell of as I pass them round. Now the first one is camomile. Have any of you ever been on a camomile lawn?
[speaker001:] Tea.
[Celia:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] Or camomile tea yes.
[Celia:] Yes.
[Wendy:] Yeah. Yeah.
[Yvonne:] Very relaxing. Well this I think's Well it smells better than camomile tea. I always think it tastes a bit weak doesn't it. This one, the camomile, is is very good for the We call it the children's one because it's good for everything for children really. If they get a bit tetchy... and and they're crying a lot maybe cos they're teething you could just massage a little bit on their temples. If they're teething just on their jaw line. You never take them internally, it's always externally you use these. Or if you've got a headache you can massage it on your temples. If you suffer from eczema, psoriasis, any dry skin complaint, camomile is quite a soother for that. If you get itchy patches, do any of you ever get itchy patches?
[Emmy:] Mm.
[speaker001:] Mm.
[Emmy:] Mm.
[speaker001:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] I find sometimes I get itchy
[Emmy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] patches and you don't know why, maybe you've been in the garden or something irritates you, you'll find that camomile will c soothe and calm that down. So, gonna pass it round and just If you do this
[speaker001:] .
[Yvonne:] it'll drop eventually... [LAUGHTER] like that []. If you shake it it doesn't seem to drop. But just drop a bit on, that's it, a drop.
[speaker001:] Yeah I don't want to take too much though.
[Yvonne:] That's it.
[speaker001:] Right.
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] Just massage it on your hand. I'll leave some tissues around so that if you don't like it or you want to rub it off you can always use a tissue. There. There.
[Celia:] Your mother'll wonder where you've been Mike.
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] Yes. Yes. []
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] Ooh yeah. []
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] ?
[speaker001:] No.
[Yvonne:] No you don't like that one? No right.
[speaker001:] No.
[Yvonne:] Right. There.
[Celia:] can smell that from here.
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] Yeah. []...
[speaker001:] I think it'd give me a headache, not take it away. [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] Right. So so you'd say to yourself, Right
[speaker001:] No.
[Yvonne:] you don't like camomile, that's not gonna do you any good. The next one, which is similar to camomile and which I find a lot of people like better, is lavender. Everybody thinks of grandma with lavender. Lavender in the cupboards and lavender everywhere. Lavender again is good for headaches and it's good if you can't sleep or you suffer a bit from insomnia.
[speaker001:] No I s s I don't suffer from that.
[Yvonne:] No [LAUGHTER] like me the opposite direction. []
[speaker001:] .
[Yvonne:] Erm but if you can't sleep you could put a little bit on a hankie on your pillow or rub a little bit on your chest, and it'll help to... erm make you sleep. Lavender is also one that's quite good for things like acne. If you suffer from acne at all. Cos acne can often be s triggered by stress. Erm acne is good it's also good for burns.
[Emmy:] What do you do with acne then? Do you
[Yvonne:] Well you would just... massage it on your face.
[Emmy:] Mhm.
[Yvonne:] Over your face. You can put it with a moisturizer,
[Emmy:] Mhm.
[Yvonne:] or you could just erm... put on your hands and just gently go over your face.
[Emmy:] Mhm.
[Yvonne:] Make sure you washed your hands first before you do it. And it's supposed to help erm calm the skin down. Cos it's often acne is caused by the overactivity of the sebaceous glands. And what it does the... s erm sebum is very poisonous. If it can't get out... from the surface of the skin then it goes underneath and gets these great lumps which are very poisonous.
[speaker001:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] I mean often acne runs in families as well. It you know everybody
[Emmy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] can be prone to it. But you can help by sort of relaxing the pores so that the oil can come out. But it is the overactivity of the sebaceous glands that
[Emmy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] sends more oil through. So lavender can help calm it. It's also good for sunburn and if you burn yourself. If you get very sun
[Celia:] Really?
[Yvonne:] Yeah it's very calming. Apparently during the First World War some professor erm was using a bunsen burner and he burned himself quite badly and by him he just happ [LAUGHTER] he just happened to have [] some lavender oil essential and... for the nearest thing he put his hand in there and apparently it was supposed to have calmed it down and it healed very quickly. So during the First World War and in the Second for severe burn cases they use er used Lavender... mm if they didn't have any drugs of any kind.
[speaker001:] Is that like a dock leaf when you?
[Yvonne:] Yes, that's the same sort of thing. The plants have
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[Yvonne:] a certain chemical
[speaker001:] Yeah
[Yvonne:] and if you sting yourself you go and get a dock leaf. You
[speaker001:] Dock leaf yeah.
[Yvonne:] don't know why but the dock leaf takes the itching out. It's a similar sort of thing. So the lavender is good for headaches, it's good
[speaker001:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] for... insom
[speaker001:] Where's that one put it er somewhere else?
[Yvonne:] Just put it somewhere. [LAUGHTER]
[speaker001:] I'm gonna run out of space here you know.
[Celia:] Roll your sleeve up.
[Yvonne:] Roll your sleeves up yeah.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] That's it.
[speaker001:] .
[Celia:] Is this still a is
[Yvonne:] Yeah.
[Celia:] this a r these are r the relaxing
[speaker001:] .
[Celia:] ones we're on?
[Yvonne:] These are all the relaxing ones now so Also if you've got them on... breathe deeply. Now just breathing deeply with it will help you relax.
[Wendy:] Not with the camomile one it won't.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] No. No not with the camomile one, maybe that's
[Wendy:] I'm not keen on that one. Not keen on that.
[Yvonne:] not so good. []... You've got to like the smell,
[Wendy:] Oh yeah.
[Yvonne:] otherwise it just will not do you any good.
[speaker001:] Right. Well that's better.
[Yvonne:] Do you like that the lavender better?
[speaker001:] Well yeah I I got in a lavender bush when I was small so
[Yvonne:] Oh did you?
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] you'll like the lavender one.
[speaker001:] .... My brothers er I mean you know this lavender bush and... Get in there.
[Celia:] Bet you smelled lovely when you came out.
[speaker001:] compost heap. [LAUGHTER]. Yeah. all right....
[Yvonne:] Another one which is very relaxing, and this one you'll find much stronger that the... It's a different smell. Those two that we've had are fl are flowers. The ylang-ylang is a flower, but it's a tropical flower and it's this is called can be called the Oil of Tranquillity. So this g very good for things like shock... like when my husband gets a telephone bill,
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] to my son, [gruffly] You have been on the phone again.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] Or if you're frightened or if you're very anxious, if you're gonna do something important and you've not done it before and you get a bit anxious, you can use the ylang-ylang which is the Oil of Tranquillity. It's very calming.
[Wendy:] Or the next committee meeting.
[speaker001:] .
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] Yes. Yes. You'd better use that. []
[Emmy:] Couldn't you leave me a drop?
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]....
[Yvonne:] Yeah so ylang-ylang is it's it's very good, it's a good sort of all-round one.
[Wendy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] But this has a much different smell... to the others.
[speaker001:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] Eh?
[speaker001:] . [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] You might like that one, it's sort of more
[speaker001:] Right.
[Yvonne:] erm... it's not sort of flowery.
[Wendy:] Lovely. It's gorgeous.
[Celia:] Yeah i they're not overpowering are they.
[Yvonne:] No.
[speaker001:] They're delicate. Mm.
[Yvonne:] No.
[speaker001:] .
[Yvonne:] I found we used to have them mixed with sweet almond oil and soya oil, which I find this one brings out their aroma much more the grapeseed oil. It's supposed to be erm a lighter oil. And of course with Body Shop it's more [LAUGHTER] environmentally easy to get [].
[Celia:] Yes. [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] We always have to have things that you know are easier to do or are not s such a hassle with the environment. So did you like that one at all?
[speaker001:] Yeah. It's not bad.
[Yvonne:] You're thinking about that one.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] .
[speaker001:] Well I think I need I think I need something a bit stronger that all these three.
[Yvonne:] Oh do you.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] .
[speaker001:] A mixture of all three.... . ....
[Yvonne:] The next one we've got is rose.
[Wendy:] Oh yeah.
[Yvonne:] Now rose is one of the oldest essential oils. And and rose and neroli are our sort of dearest ones now. Before when we had our other range they were all the same price, which was wrong really because it's a lot easier to get lavender than it is to get rose.
[Celia:] .
[Wendy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] And if you went and bought the essential oil you could buy
[Wendy:] Don't you like it?
[Yvonne:] lavender for about three pound a bottle whereas neroli and rose are eighty six pound a bottle. So now we've... alter varied the prices. Lavender is one ninety five and rose and neroli are four ninety five so it does make a you know a difference. Now rose I don't know how many of you when you were little used to collect rose petals and put them in the... jam jars did you?
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[Wendy:] Ooh yeah. Yes.
[Yvonne:] And tried to get
[Wendy:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] And all you got was a rotting mess. []
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] It is very difficult to get essential oil from the rose, it has to be done by what they call extraction. They put it on a a solvent or a fat in layers... and let the oil seep through, and so it takes a lot longer and is more difficult to get. Erm... the rose i has been used through the centuries. Again the Egyptians used to use rose. It's a sort of slight relaxing and an aphrodisiac and... it's supposed to help your headaches.
[Emmy:] Does everybody know what an aphrodisiac is?
[Yvonne:] Oh yes an aph aphrodisiac. Do you know what it is?
[speaker001:] Is it er... something to make you go... h high?
[Yvonne:] Y yes sort of.
[speaker001:] Sor s sort of something like a... It makes you go it makes you go l loose and nice and feeling good inside.
[Yvonne:] That's it. Sort a er you know you... you're you're happy but you're full of go at the same time.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[Yvonne:] You're not so th relaxed that you want to do this but you're relaxed and yet you're happy with life as well.
[speaker001:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] So this is what rose is supposed to be. It's more
[speaker001:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] of a sort of they call one of the women's essential oils... er cos I suppose they think rose was a woman really [LAUGHTER] don't they []. So it's good again for headaches. It's good for people with dry skins. The dry mature skin as they say.
[Emmy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] Er so you can mix it with your moisturizer. All these you could use as a face... cre in a face cream. So again this is good for headaches, dry, flaky skin. It's good just to make you feel good. Some people use it as a perfume.
[speaker001:] No I think I know what a rose smells like.
[Yvonne:] You Yes.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] He's gonna he's gonna bypass that one.
[Celia:] Not macho
[speaker001:] No.
[Celia:] enough.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]. No I just I know they ta I know what they smell like you know
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] Yeah. []
[speaker001:] .
[Emmy:] everybody's asleep in a minute, everybody's.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] I've got the reviving ones next, you're all right.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Celia:] Are you okay in the corner Karen, enjoying the smells?
[speaker001:] Nearly asleep. [LAUGHTER]
[Emmy:] Haven't been so relaxed for ages have we.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] ?
[Emmy:] .
[Celia:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] In the with the camomile with have in our mother and baby range,... Mamatoto range, and I usually go to mother and baby u clinics and m massage the babies [LAUGHTER] with it []. You know and they seem to love it, yeah.
[speaker001:] Oh how lovely. Yeah.
[Yvonne:] And usually the one I massage at the end is way out [LAUGHTER] asleep you know [].
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Celia:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] I'm getting very popular at these mother and baby things. [LAUGHTER]... Right the last one on the rela
[speaker001:] .
[Yvonne:] l the relaxing one is one called neroli, which is my favourite.
[speaker001:] .
[Yvonne:] Now neroli is made from the blossom of the bitter orange tree. You get three essential oils from the orange tree. You get neroli from the blossom, er tangerine and orange which erm or mandarin,whi people might call it from the fruits, and from the leaves and the twigs and the bark you get er an oil called petitgrain. So it's very useful is the orange tree. Erm neroli is very good for sensitive skins... for people who have er you know veins on the surface.
[Emmy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] Men don't usually suffer
[Emmy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] from that, it's
[Emmy:] Mm. Yes. It's sort of the ladies who get Mm.
[Yvonne:] the veins on the s red cheeks
[Celia:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[Yvonne:] and a red nose. It's also good for erm depressed if you're depressed, neroli is very good for depression. It's also very good again if you're going on your committee meeting or you're going for an interview to rub on what they call the solar plexus just here.
[speaker001:] Yeah? [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] It helps to when you get you know when you get the your tummy
[Celia:] Butterflies.
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] butterflies, yeah []. And to rub on there and it helps to calm it down. They do say that essential oils will often work quicker than a tablet. I mean I've never timed them. [LAUGHTER]
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] Cos it depends how you feel. But that's what they do say, that it it sometimes works quicker. So if you're going or When my daughter had a driving test I was [LAUGHTER] massaging neroli all over her in the hope that she would calm down [].
[Wendy:] [LAUGHTER]
[Celia:] Did she pass?
[Yvonne:] Well only the third time.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] [LAUGHTER] She just went haywire as soon as she saw the instructor.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Yvonne:] It wouldn't be so bad, [LAUGHTER] er she's not a nervous type normally and it's the only person that's sort of made her go completely nervous []. So neroli again is good for the skin.
[Celia:] [sigh]
[Yvonne:] You ma when you smell
[Celia:] It is lovely isn't it. Yeah it is relaxing.
[Yvonne:] When you smell this one
[Emmy:] [LAUGHTER] Everybody's so relaxed. []
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Emmy:] [LAUGHTER] We are not normally like this. []
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] When you smell this one you may re there's the l the girls particularly may recognize it from face cream. A l neroli is a lot in face creams cos it is good for the skin. Go on smell that one, cos it's a nice one.
[speaker001:] . [LAUGHTER]
[Yvonne:] I'm going to get him to like one.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].... I can't smell [LAUGHTER] anything now []. [LAUGHTER].
[Celia:] Do you like neroli? I like the lavender best.
[speaker001:] Mm. It's probably a knock-on effect.
[Emmy:] Lavender must
[Celia:] Mm.
[Emmy:] be nice sort of in the bath at night.
[Yvonne:] Yes.
[Emmy:] So which one is the best sort of
[Yvonne:] Lavender is. We have a a erm a bath oil here. Oh well I've got the massage one which w we might massage our hands or massage somebody's hands in a minute. This relaxing massage oil has got lavender in and ylang-ylang and frankincense and sandalwood so it's nice for men as well cos they're supposed to like frankincense and sandalwood. [LAUGHTER] And this is nice if you just use a capful in a drawn bath. And so if you were to use that at night and then put a bit of lavender on it is really nice.
[Emmy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] Really relaxing. Erm the massage oil which this one, is I use a lot of this for massaging and but people find it very... relaxing. Er
[Emmy:] If you have a bath in the morning what?
[Yvonne:] Well if you have a bath in the morning we have we have we have... If I've got it here... I haven't got one here, but we do have a refreshing shower gel.
[Emmy:] Mhm.
[Yvonne:] And that's got lemon and lemon grass... and er... bay in that one I think. So that's you can use that in the bath as well, but they call it a shower gel because a shower oil because they think people usually have a shower in the morning and a bath at night.
[Celia:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] But if you haven't got a shower you can use it anyway. But that one is quite erm Oh I thought I had some in here. [whispering] Obviously not. []
[Celia:] Oh I'm not keen on that one. Oh that do you do you remember those
[Yvonne:] You don't like nero Yes it's
[Wendy:] little erm you used be able to get I don't know if you still can little wipes in little sachets and they smelled of this....
[Yvonne:] Yes.
[Celia:] Mm.
[Wendy:] Little face wipes. Refreshing wipes.
[Yvonne:] We do that with the Mamatoto ones again.
[Wendy:] Mm.
[Yvonne:] It's in my other box.
[Wendy:] Oh I like those.
[Yvonne:] We've got.
[Celia:] I quite like it.
[Wendy:] Mm.