Aftelier Perfumed Bath Oils are luxurious essential oil blends to be used in the bath. The hot water “steams” the fragrance scenting the bath and lightly fragrancing the skin. Aftelier Illumination is a clean, woody citrus fragrance that leaves me in an uplifted mood (and that’s saying something, haha).
What I’m learning from my limited Aftelier exposure is that this house is more about creating a mood and/or a place vs. a progression of notes creating a “song”. Illumination reminds me of summer. This summer I tried to make a bath tea using lemon balm, lemon verbena, epazote, and spearmint. My experiment wasn’t successful. I couldn’t capture the beautiful green but citrus aromas from my herb garden. Aftelier has with Illumination. At first sniff, Illumination is an evergreen-ish lemon, much stronger than any lemon verbena that I’ve sniffed before. And it’s sweeter than lemon verbena, almost sappy sweet but still a very bright lemon oil. Illumination is citrusy but not from a fruit. There is a greenness and evergreen quality to the lemon. I’m reminded of freshly picked herbs such as lemon beebalm, lemon verbena, epazote, and cilantro. I’m reminded of herbaceous teas/oils that I can find at the Chinese apothecary: litsea cubeba (May Chang), lemongrass, and lemon myrtle. Illumiation is lemony but not from a citrus, but from lemony smelling plants. There is a woodsy quality to Illumination but more foresty or like evergreen shrubs. I don’t want to use the word “woodsy” because I often associate woodsy with dried woods/bark or incense. Illumination is more of a living woods, like a green forest. I’m left feeling refreshed and revitalized after inhaling this oil during bathing. This is such a clean, green, citrus scent (in fact so clean and green that some cultures, I’m thinking Northern Europeans, may think of household cleaning products). With this bottle of bath oil, I can smell my herb garden year round.
A small amount of this fragrance left an entire floor of my house smelling like lemony herbs. My skin was left lightly scented afterwards. This clean citrus fragrance would make a great fragrance for the home. I bet you can use it in an oil burner.
Notes listed include: lemon myrtle, ho wood, and many other essential oils.
Aftelier Illumination Bath Oil is a very strong and potent blend of essential oils. There are no carrier oils. Perfumer Mandy Aftel recommends that one do not apply this oil directly to the skin. She recommends that the bath oil be diluted in jojoba oil, fractioned coconut oil, or alcohol. I had to ask because my husband loves this scent so much that he wanted to wear it on his pulse points. Illumination is a very attractive “sporty” cologne alternative scent for a man. But, woman are going to want to wear Illumination too 🙂
An 1/2 oz. retails for $45 and is available at Aftelier’s on-line boutique. Aftelier also sells samples of their bath oils which I find nice for a aromatherapy “field kit” or travel kit.
That is one expensive bath product! 🙂 I hope a little bit goes a long way!
A little does go a long way. It is really strong stuff. I agree that it fits in the luxury price range!
This sounds delicious! I love fresh scents like that for the bath & shower. I’m currently looking for a great herbaceous smelling shower gel, but I’m so taken with Penhaligon’s English Fern (even though it’s supposed to be a men’s scent), I may get the shower & bath gel in that scent. It’s a pricey one, though. I’m sort of obsessed with the idea of buying some plain jojoba or some other oil to add my own fragrance to for use as a body oil for after-shower. I’m not really a bath person, but if I were, I would definitely get something like the Aftelier oil.
If you like Penhaligon’s English Fern then I could see you liking Illumination. It’s that clean herbaceous fragrance that isn’t too clean. It seriously smells just like this herb garden in my front yard.
I throw around the unscented thing to and then add my own scents. I don’t like to pay that much for bath/shower products. I like to put my budget towards the actual juice. But, I admit that those are so luxurious!
In all honesty, I bet you could add a sample of Illumination to a bottle of oil. It wouldn’t be very strong but it would have enough of that fresh, clean scent making it perfect for layering.
I was thinking of doing that with my sample of English Fern, an 8 oz bottle of jojoba oil, probably two 1ml samples would be enough? Have you done this sort of thing before?
Yeah. It didn’t turn out disastrous. I mixed an oil based home fragrance in an oil and it was successful. I don’t know how an alcohol base would work in oil. I assume fine but I’m not sure. I just checked all my “fancy” body oils and only one has alcohol listed as an ingredient . If it doesn’t work, you wouldn’t be out much money.
I’ve also made my own dusting powders. I make a natural powder base and but it in a container with a few cotton balls saturated in the sample fragrance. I’m left with a highly fragrance dusting powder in any fragrance that I wanted. This works has a hair powder too.
That’s it! I’m gonna do it. I’ll let you know how it works out with the alcohol based fragrance. Like you said, even if it doesn’t work out, it’s not that expensive.
Do let me know. I’m curious. I assume it would have to be mixed/shake it before each use.
Who doesn’t want to smell fresh and clean after a bath? I think I’d really like the fragrance of this. I love the smell of lemon balm and herbs like that.
If you love lemon balm then you would love Illumination!
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Sounds amazing!