| Sure, home aromatherapy boosts your mood, | | | | cookies." |
| restoring you to the peak of your perk. If, however, | | | | "How Do You Keep Your Linens So Fresh?" |
| you have limited your experiments to the pick-me-up | | | | It does not require a pre-requisite course in advanced |
| with plants routine, you really have missed the best | | | | placement chemistry. I took and, naturally, received |
| of home aromatherapy. Insisting that you keep this | | | | an "A" in advanced placement chemistry. It is not |
| information strictly on the down-low, I will reveal a | | | | nearly so complicated, and it never involves copying |
| few of essential oil/s greatest hits. | | | | your boyfriend's homework. For me, home |
| Martha Stewart has nothing on me, but I never in a | | | | aromatherapy mostly requires mixing the appropriate |
| million years would consent to having my own show, | | | | proportions of vanilla and vodka, aging my mix in a |
| because I really do not want to divulge my household | | | | proper place, and diluting it to regular household |
| secrets. I do not want to share my meatloaf and pot | | | | strength. One good vanilla-vodka brew lasts several |
| roast recipes, I do not want to demonstrate how I | | | | months in everyday use, and I lavish it on bed linens |
| cut my own steaks and carne asada from big slabs | | | | and bathroom towels. My family sleeps in, bathes in, |
| of cow, and I especially do not want to share my | | | | dries off with, and dresses in home aromatherapy, |
| first and foremost all-purpose household | | | | and they never know what hit 'em. I cherish my |
| intervention--home aromatherapy. If you remain | | | | stealth. My mother, not exactly your Betty Crocker |
| stuck in some medieval time, believing "home | | | | type, wonders on every weekend visit, "How do you |
| aromatherapy" means periodically sticking your nose | | | | keep your linens so fresh, dear?" Just as I refuse to |
| in a bouquet to make yourself feel better, you really | | | | tell my mother I no longer am a virgin, I refuse to tell |
| should fast-forward into the 21st century. For me, | | | | her my secret. "Just good luck," I reply. |
| home aromatherapy has become the go-to | | | | "Your Kitchen Always Sparkles" |
| intervention for anything and everything that | | | | Home aromatherapy often reduces to one word, or |
| threatens my domestic tranquility. I measure my | | | | more precisely, precious citrus fruit. Meet the lowly |
| success by my houseguests' random comments. | | | | lemon, key to all good things in home aromatherapy. |
| "Your House Always Smells Like Fresh-Baked | | | | Lemon boosts my laundry detergent-especially those |
| Cookies" | | | | white softball pants! A little oxy in the wash and a lot |
| Home aromatherapy means clearing pollutants, | | | | of lemon in the rinse and we look white as a wedding |
| contaminants, pathogens, and other random junk | | | | day while we own second base. Of course, lemon |
| from my indoor air. That is not just the good mom in | | | | supplements my dish washing detergent. Duh, how |
| me speaking. If you studied the kind of stuff that | | | | else can you cut that baked-on, caked-on, |
| floats around your house masquerading as dust, you | | | | gotta-roto-hammer-it grease and gunk? But my very |
| would mount an aggressive campaign too. Let me | | | | best-kept lemon secret: Until I get my cabinets |
| simply remind you dead skin cells make-up between | | | | refaced, the funky old colonial doors and drawers |
| 80% and 90% of regular household "dust." So, yeah, | | | | must suffice. I keep them totally sparkly, shiny, and |
| I constantly simmer a saucepan of vanilla, almond, | | | | germ-free by rubbing them down with lemon. Not |
| mandarin orange, and vodka on the stove. My volatile | | | | diluted, not mixed. Cut the lemon in half and apply |
| mix wipes-out just about everything airborne except | | | | directly to the woodworks. The wood seems to like |
| my thoughts and fantasies. And I agree with the | | | | lemon just fine, and, once again, my dear-darling |
| jealous PTA mom who, in an unguarded moment, let | | | | mother is correct. My kitchen always sparkles. |
| slip, "Your house always smells like fresh-baked | | | | |