Recognizing the importance of creating the right ambiance for your Scent Dinner is key to the whole process. Discover how to use the active properties of essential oils to keep your guests focused, engaged, and energized through the process. Smell, sound, sight, and touch all impact the experience, before we even taste. Use layering techniques and scent-scaping to engage all of the senses in the scent dinner.
In this post, I have included a recipe for a subtle Ambient Theme Oil Blend that you can use to create scented candles, wax melts, reed diffusers, and scented placemats. Of course, you could also pop it in your aroma diffuser. Create an incredible Scent Dinner, and let your creative experience be the talk of the town.
Ambience
How your dining area is presented is part and parcel of the Scent Dinner experience.
If I were to lead you into an opulent room with gilding and crystal lights, your senses would be triggering you to think that the food about to be served will be of high quality. That it is likely to be an experience to savor. Yet, were I to lead you into a school canteen, you would immediately assume the food is likely to be of a lesser quality. The environment you create matters to the Scent Dining experience.
Fast food restaurants across the globe use bright colors to energize you, causing you to eat more quickly and keep you moving through. In the same way, bars will play loud music in anticipation of shortening your dining time.
High-end restaurants want you to stay, eat as much food as you can, savor it, and spend money on food and drinks. Restaurant colors tend to be more relaxing and calming. Music is much quieter to fit a more laid-back vibe. This combination encourages slow eating, savoring, and appreciation.
The Missing Trick
Venues use color, music, and fragrance to influence your experience of their dining. Using essential oils in these settings would be difficult because there are so many therapeutic anomalies to consider…guests having epilepsy or nausea for example. But curating the experience when you know your guest list is easy, effective, and exciting. So harness the wonderful qualities of essential oils for Scent Dinners at home.
Savor zingy lemon in your food but then also leverage its ability to invigorate and uplift.
When we use essential oils on all levels, we elevate the Scent Dinner experience and deepen the connection to the oils themselves.
Scent & The Dining Experience
Scent Dinners involving perfumes and professionally created fragrances are usually structured with scent experiences between courses. These are designed as preludes to enhance the upcoming meal in the following course.
Whether a particular scent is studied by the guests or the individual elements or accords of the fragrance are inhaled, the experience is designed to deepen the understanding of the construction of the scent. Good choices enhance our sensuous appreciation of the food and reflect the gourmand scents.
Exploring these different scents stimulates appetite and appreciation of the scent and the taste of the food being served.
(It should be noted, at this point, that perfumes and fragrance oils are not designed to be ingested. Over and above the safety issues, they would likely taste absolutely disgusting!
Senses & The Scent Dining Experience
The key to creating a richer dining experience is to stimulate ALL the senses in a variety of intriguing ways. This should constitute an intrinsic part of your planning to ensure a well-rounded and memorable event.
When you plan, consider the following for every course on the menu:
- How do I want it to smell?
- How do I want it to look?
- How do I want it to sound?
- How do I want it to feel?
- How do I want it to taste?
These considerations draw your guests deeper into the Scent Dinner experience.
Smell
The first thing guests will notice when they walk in somewhere is how it smells.
I pointed it out to my friend in IKEA earlier this week. We walked into the baby section and were subtly greeted by the smell of baby powder. Who can resist a newborn baby’s scent?
The scent changed to a spice scent as we reached the kitchen department which deepened as we walked into the Christmas decorations bit then. My friend had never noticed this before. She was gobsmacked and I’d wonder how many other customers had never noticed it either.
The moment your Scent Dinner Guest walks through the door they will switch on to the aromas around them. They will smell gorgeous wafts of cooking emanating from the kitchen, especially if you have an open-plan kitchen diner. Subtle layering of fragrances creates a scented tableau that complements the food you serve. I’ll take you through some layering ideas a bit later.
Just be mindful of how much scent you use though so as not to overwhelm everyone with it.
Sight
People eat with their eyes.
If you just dollop everything on the plate, as opposed to presenting it beautifully, it affects how the food is received. Plan how your plate will look and how you will present it to guests in the most attractive way possible.
Consider the look and placement of the food itself. How will it look against a colored plate as opposed to a white or black plate? How does it all look within the table placement, with the cutlery, table mat, and table linen? Does it coordinate beautifully?
This is why most restaurants stick to white table linen because it suits the variety of food they serve. But don’t be afraid to use a color that suits your environment and menu better.
Think about the textures of both the food and what appears on your dining table. Create a variety of textures and visual interest. Smooth and sleek vs rough-hewn and rustic. Choose textures to suit your environment, (think how you can emulate them in your menu too), if you are in a New York loft full of sleek modern decor, have your table reflect that. If you are in a converted barn in the south of France, choose more rustic textures.
Sound
Sound is not just about music. It can be more subtle and subliminal than that.
I used to have a wonderful meditation app that allowed you to choose and mix together a variety of sounds, from lapping waves, and water dripping in a cave to monks chanting. It was brilliant. Sadly, it’s now a remnant of old tech. Perhaps you can find something similar?
If you follow my menu from last week and use the essential oil blends that match each food course, you could even add in a layer of subtle sounds to complement those.
- Pea and King Crab Panna Cotta could be accompanied by sounds of the ocean, lapping waves, and calls from gulls.
- The Ginger and Lemongrass Fish skewers might be fun with the sounds of a busy Asian water market in the distance, with splashing water and boat bells.
- The Duck in Blackcurrant Sauce speaks of the forest lake, trees swishing the breeze, and bird calls. The sounds of the great outdoors, perhaps a crackling fire?
- Baked Fig and Salted Honey Cheesecake evokes Mediterranean waves against rocky cliffs, and tinkles of church bells in the distance.
- Finally, the Cheese course allows you to be creative and match it to your chosen ingredients. Think Swiss Alps, cows lowing, and the distinct peel of a cowbell.
They can all be underlaid into a more classical soundtrack for a sonorous effect. Draw your guests deeper into the experience, and engage them on a new and exciting level, possibly without them even noticing!
Chandler Burr’s Scent Dinners often feature the perfume Angel by Thierry Mugler, based on ethyl maltol, the molecule associated with the taste of Candy Floss or Cotton Candy. Most people buy Cotton Candy at State Fairs or Fairgrounds, what if you had the sound of the fair playing in the background and children laughing? Does it bring the experience to life and evoke memories and feelings more readily for you? Shut your eyes, can you feel the texture of Cotton Candy in your fingers?
Touch
Talking of how things feel, how can we bring touch into our Scent Dinner?
Obviously, guests touch smooth cutlery, glasses, and even their plates, but they will also touch table linen around them and napkins. Consider if this offers you an opportunity to give your guest a new texture to match their course.
When you clear away the plates, could you take the mat and replace it with a new one of a different color and texture? Possibly even imbued with the scent designed for that course? It’s not difficult to make your own table settings. The simple hemmed fabric would do!
Importantly, consider how each bit of food will feel in your mouth. Offer a variety of textures: soft, hard, chewy, crunchy, crispy, creamy, tender, smooth, crumbly, juicy…
Are there opportunities for your guests to eat with their fingers and touch the food? I love eating with my fingers. Dipping a chip, biting a chicken wing, piling food on a cracker, and biting down through the different layers, crunchy, buttery, crispy, soft, and juicy.
Engage your guests. Getting them to pick up their food in their fingers connects them deeper into the experience because they have to use another sense, touch.
Taste
Taste is the last sense to be engaged. All other senses will be engaged before it before the first morsel of food passes your lips.
This can be demonstrated as an example of how important the ambiance is to the Scent Dinner. Imagine you serve an ingredient that someone has a bit of an aversion to, like eggplant, oysters, or liver. A guest who has all of their senses heightened is already actively engaged in the process of eating by enjoying the convivial atmosphere of the dinner. They may be more likely to try something they would normally avoid.
If your ambiance is right, it transmits signals to the brain in terms of sight, sound, and smell. If your senses have already been mostly seduced it is less likely your brain will formulate an argument against eating it.
(Incidentally, this is a great method to get kids eating more too.)
What is Scent-scaping?
Scentscaping is the art of layering scent through your immediate environment to create a specific ambiance or evoke a theme.
If you were hosting a Hawaiian Luau, you might want to use fragrances that evoke the tropics like Ylang Ylang, Vanilla, and Sandalwood. An outdoor BBQ can take more rugged themes of smoke, burnt sugar, and bourbon.
It is gaining in popularity to create a scent that matches your event's theme, like weddings, birthdays, and christenings. There is nothing like a scent to evoke old memories and make new ones.
Scentscaping With Essential Oils
Most of these scents-caping principles are based on just the scent of the fragrance itself. Yet, when working with essential oils we can make the most of all their active qualities and the benefits that affect our mood and wellbeing too.
We can choose essential oils based on how they make us feel. We can use them to influence our guests energetically, augmenting their feelings and moods. This is something that we can use to enhance the guests' experience of our Scent Dinner. Imagine, sending them home, supremely chilled and utterly blissed out. They will rave about the whole experience for weeks and your ‘visionary’ Scent Dinner will be the talk of the town.
We can fully utilize the differences between essential oils and fragrance oils when it comes to scents-caping and using them in combination with one another, to get the best of both worlds.
Layering fragrance through your scentscaping gives you so much scope for creativity and versatility throughout the experience and I heartily encourage you to explore this effective technique. I’ll give you the lowdown on how to use layering to its full effect a little later.
Defining An Ambient Theme
An ‘ambient theme’ what’s that?
You will want to define a subtle and versatile ambient theme for your overall Scent Dinner experience. It creates the foundation and underpins all the other scents you will introduce throughout the course of the dining experience.
The Importance Of Defining An Ambient Theme
Why is it important to define an ambient theme?
Firstly you are using this ‘foundation of scent’ to underscore the whole rhapsody of the Scent Dinner. It is the first thing that guests will experience when they walk through the door and one of the last they will experience as they leave. (If you are canny, you will use it in your parting gifts for guests to help evoke the memories of the night for many weeks later).
Sense of Place
Your ambient theme not only needs to be complementary to the essential oils that you have used in your menu, but it also needs to give you a sense of place. If you're hosting in a modern building choose contemporary, sophisticated scents, versus more rustic and herbal scents for a country setting. Read further on this concept.
Balanced Energy
You want to use fragrance oils and essential oils that will keep guests' energy flowing. It helps them to remain stimulated, focused, and engaged and it keeps the conversation flowing. You want your guests to willingly engage with the experience and express their feelings, thoughts and opinions more openly about the process.
However, we need to be really judicious in finding that delicate balance, we don’t want to overstimulate them, or they may crash and burn before dessert. Or simply end up giving your guests a banging headache and dulling their palette.
Don’t be afraid to pick out your shy and retiring guests and use essential oils, like Mandarin and Sweet Orange, to draw them out of their shells a little. You could target them directly with ‘a little addition’ to a scented place mat during the meal. No one will ever know!
How To Define an Ambient Theme
Where do you even start? Actually, that is fairly simple, with the menu.
Your overall theme can be designed from the essential oils used in the menu, it is by far the easiest way for creating an overall blend.
Simply go through your menu, pick out the essential oils used, look too at the Essential Oils Blend recommended for each course. That will offer you the best starting point.
I would always err on the simpler side for an ‘Ambient Blend’. It is simply the foundation on which you will build all the other scents, so it needs to be simple, complementary, and versatile.
Let me show you how to create one.
Creating An Ambient Blend For Your Scent Dinner
I’m going to take the essential oils and the blends recommended for each course of my Scent Dinner. I’ll show you how to define a theme and pick suitable oils.
Now remember, this is for scent scaping layering, we can include fragrance oils here because none of this blend will be included in the food.
| Essential Oil and Fragrance Oils In Tashs’ Scent Dinner Recipes & Blends | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Appetizer | Fish Course | Entrée | Dessert | Cheese Course | |
| Essential Oil | Lemon |
Lemongrass Ginger |
Thyme Star Anise |
Cardamon | Mandarin |
|
Blend Essential Oils |
Lemon | Lemongrass |
Thyme Star Anise |
Cardamom Sweet Orange |
- |
|
Blend Fragrance Oils |
NO. 56 - Ocean Rain | NO. 1405 - Inspired by: Lemongrass & Ginger by Nest | NO. 1201 - Inspired by: Baies by Diptyque | NO. 1206 - Inspired by: Philosykos by Diptyque |
NO. 1200 - Inspired by: Ambre by Diptyque & NO. 74 - Mystic Oud |
| Most Versatile Element For Your Ambient Blend | Lemon | Ginger | Thyme | Sweet Orange | Mandarin |
What Do We Have To Choose From?
Looking at the table, all of the fragrance oils used are too complex or too specifically themed to its course, to underpin the whole theme and menu. That leaves us with the most versatile essential oils.
Why Did You Choose That?
First, let me explain my choices. I chose Ginger over Lemongrass because Lemongrass can be a bit too stimulating and we already have a more versatile Lemon oil available in our choices. This is why I chose Ginger, in addition to its gently warming and comforting characteristics, not to mention its wonderful digestive qualities.
I chose Thyme over Star Anise because Star Anise can be overpowering and quite cloying after a while, whilst Thyme is fresh, herbal, and has a clean and refreshing scent.
I chose the Sweet Orange over the Cardamom because I already have the spice element with the Ginger and Orange is wonderfully up lighting. It can help destress you and soothe anxiety, a wonderful addition to any gathering to help people relax, but also engage, as it is a confidence booster too.
Like Sweet Orange, Mandarin is brilliant for soothing anxiety and de-stressing people, but it is less stimulating. It is simply a toss-up now between these two wonderful oils. I would not add both, because then you're complicating an issue that needs to be as simple as possible.
However, the most important decision of all is that they all complement every other essential oil and fragrance oil in the individual blends. Nothing jars or sticks out like a sore thumb. It all works together.
Ambient Blend Recipe For Your Scent Dinner
This Ambient Blend is uplifting and refreshing with Lemon and Sweet Orange. The Thyme brings a clean, herbal aroma and melds well with the citrus scents and the final addition of warming Ginger.
This Ambient Blend makes 10 ml of undiluted essential oils for you to use in your Scent-scape layering. You can always double or triple the recipe to suit your needs.
You Will Need:
- Small measuring jug
- Small funnel
- Stainless steel spoon
- 10ml dropper bottle
Ingredients:
- 3 ml of Lemon Essential Oil (Citrus limon L (Burm.) F. )
- 3 ml of Sweet Orange Essential Oil (Citrus sinensis L)
- 2 ml of Thyme Essential Oil (Thymus vulgaris)
- 2 ml of Ginger Root (Fresh) Essential Oil (Zingiber officinale)
Safety:
- Not for topical use
Method:
- Simply measure out your individual essential oils and combine together.
- Use a small funnel to decant into your 10 ml dropper bottle.
- Label clearly, listing all ingredients and clearly annotate as ‘UNDILUTED OIL’
How To Use:
- Always dilute appropriately before use in line with the individual recipe.
What Is Layering?
Layering scent is such an intriguing practice, we can utilize it in so many creative ways to have amazing scent in our homes from floor to ceiling. Let's look at it in that manner!
However, before we crack on, you must understand that for a Scent Dinner, your level of scent needs to be very subtle. It needs to be understated, a ‘barely there’ aroma on which to build all those other scents.
It needs to be far more subtle than how would normally scent your individual rooms or home spaces.
TOP TIP: Always be sure to patch-test your Ambient Blend recipes in an inconspicuous space first, as oils can stain your precious furniture and linens.
Scent From Floor to Ceiling
Come with me on a layering journey from floor to ceiling and discover a myriad of ways to scent your home from top to bottom.
Floors
You can use your Ambient Blend in a final floor wash to scent your hard floors. Tip a little in your final floor polish to subtly scent it and bring it up to a wonderful fragrant shine.
Make our super simple Carpet Refreshing Powder with your Ambient Blend and some Cornstarch or Baking Soda. Baking Soda has that extra deodorizing quality, so that would always be my top choice. It leaves your carpet clean, refreshed, and subtly scented.
Linens & Soft Furnishings
Our Ambient Blend has that gorgeous zingy citrus burst that people love, laced with the greenery of the Thyme and a hint of warm spice from the Ginger. It’s the perfect combination for refreshing soft furnishing throughout the dining area.
Take it right up to the ceiling and refresh your drapes from top to bottom, they will hold onto that subtle scent for a good while and make a great ‘diffuser’ all on their own.
Spritz seats a good while before guests arrive, no one wants to sit on a damp seat (TOP TIP: use plenty of alcohol in your spray to help it evaporate faster. Though be careful, as it will be more flammable, be especially mindful of this if you plan to use candles)!
Make your own washing detergent, fabric softener, and ironing water, all subtly scented with your Ambient Blend to have your table linen scent perfect.
Pop your napkins in a box with a cotton pad soaked in your Ambient Oil Blend and scent your napkins wonderfully. If you want to swap out the scented napkins for each course, follow this method in How To Make Scented Paper With Essential Oils and Fragrance Oils. It’s an easy way to bring a new scent to each course.
Make your own scented placemats and swap them out with the plates in each course. Here is a similar project for a potholder that you could easily upscale.
These are such easy techniques that you can use in your home all year through.
Scented Home Products
Not the most exciting title by any means, but you can make a whole range of scented home products to fill your room and home with gorgeous fragrance at any time of the year.
Yet, it really pays for you to make them for your Scent Dinner, because you need something very subtle. More subtle than you can probably buy commercially.
Consider what methods are going to prove most versatile for your Scent Dinner for YOU. Is it easier for you to give a spritz of room spray, than to quickly change out a wax melt?
Will swapping out scented candles for each course prove more effective scent-wise than a simple reed diffuser that takes time to emit its scent?
Will incense be too smoky, heady, or intense? Is it likely to set off your smoke detector like mine always does? Would a diffuser be a better vehicle for your Ambient Blend?
Is it easier to tuck scented sachets behind pictures, ornaments, and books than to spritz the air (and probably your guests)? I noticed that IKEA has started selling scented card hangers that could be discreetly positioned in the room for the best fragrant effects. I nearly bought one too! Nearly!
Choose the best method for you and click the links to full tutorials in which you can use your Scent Dinner Ambient Blend. Choose from room sprays, reed diffusers, scented candles, wax melts, wax scent sachets, linen sachets, diffusers, and incense.
Decorative Scents
Decorative scents? What’s that?
Have you seen those scented decorations you can buy for your Christmas tree? Holiday wreaths and garlands made from fragrant dried plants, like cinnamon sticks, orange slices, and pine cones? These are examples of decorative scents. You don’t need to buy them either because you can easily make your own or simply adapt what you already have.
Does your buffet or hutch have a seasonal silk flower centerpiece, a vase of flowers, or a potted plant? Yes! Wonderful, why not pour some of your Ambient Blend onto a cotton pad and place it in a discreet place within the centerpiece? Hidden out of sight it will still emit a wonderful fragrance.
When it heads towards Thanksgiving and the holiday season we might be making our own decorations for our fire surrounds, hearths, doors, tables, and buffets. Consider scenting them. You can use them for your Scent Dinner and then simply swap out the fragrance for Thanksgiving or the holidays.
You don’t have to spend a fortune either. This is a wonderful time of year for collecting dried seed heads, consider cutting some on long stems and placing them in a vase. You can spray paint them if you wish or give them a sprinkling of glitter. Often, stems will be hollow, perfect for sliding up a sliver of oil-soaked cotton pad. This can easily be replenished as and when needed and can last you months.
It’s simply a case of using your imagination (or Pinterest) and being brave creatively.
Throughout The Home
Think of the whole experience for your guests and run your Ambient Blend throughout the whole house, so no matter where they go they are surrounded by this fresh, clean aroma. It keeps them fully immersed in the experience and keeps them spellbound in the process.
However, I would make slight additions in two places.
- First add a relaxing essential oil into the blend you are using in the room you plan to retire to, like the sitting room or den. This helps wind your guests down after a stimulating experience and relaxes them. Send them home chillaxed and blissed out!
- I’d even run the Ambient Blend in the loo too. I don’t know about you, but I often run to the loo when I need to retreat and need a moment of peace to recharge and re-center myself, you will be surprised how many people do! Choose an additional essential oil here, like Rosemary or Clary Sage, that will help your guest recharge themselves and re-energize. Allowing them to return to the table re-focused and ready to engage, rather than battle-worn and weary.
The Final Word on Scent Dinner Scentscaping and Creating Ambiance
If you are a super creative and confident cook why not consider creating a Scent Dinner menu around your favorite scents and perfumes? The way Elizabeth Minchelli describes her menu experience in her article may offer you some inspiration if you wish to carve your own path.
Otherwise, start with the recipes recommended in Scent Dinners with Essential Oils - Part Two - The Recipes and have fun choosing wines to match the Scent Dinner menu.
Carefully consider the ambiance you are creating for your Scent Dinner, as carefully as you would choose your ingredients and your essential oil supplier. How you present, and scent your environment will have a big impact on the experience for your guests.
Pay attention to those layering techniques and keep a keen eye on the balance and subtly of that Ambient Blend, you don’t want it to overpower everything. It is the foundational scent for your Scent Dinner, on which to build upon.
Try your hand at making your own scented home products, room sprays and wax melts are super easy to create for yourself. Not to mention that carpet powder, it’s a revelation! Get creative and make your own decorative scents to use for your Scent Dinner and beyond.
I hope that you have thoroughly enjoyed this three-part series on how to create your Scent Dinner with essential oils. I have had a ball writing it, trying out delicious recipes, and of course, matching those incredible fragrances and essential oils to the Scent Dinner menu.
Enjoy every single moment of planning, creating, and hosting your own incredible Scent Dinner.
