Why you should invest in a good pillow spray.
Take inspiration from the world’s leading hoteliers, spas and luxury brands by creating a soothing sensory experience with aromatherapy
Spritzing your pillow at night with calming aromatic notes of lavender and bergamot has more to it besides making your bedtime routine a little more special.
There is a science behind scent.
In fact, scent is such a powerful and evoking sensation that many hotels, luxury spas, high-end retailers, and eating houses hire world-class aroma experts to create the ideal scent for guests to react emotionally. Often the scent is subtle enough that we don’t notice.
The infamous Ritz Carlton in New York uses a fresh blend of elderflower, mountain mint, and strawberries throughout the hotel.
W Hotels match their sophisticated ambiance with jasmine, rich sandalwood and Italian figs.
Jimmy Choo uses cardamom and ivy in their stores.
Even Starbucks stopped selling breakfast sandwiches in 2008 as the aroma overpowered the fantastic smell of freshly roasted coffee that customers love. The response to the new smell in stores made such an impact that the coffee chain lost sales.
Scents are incredibly influential. It is the only one of our senses that is directly linked to the area of the brain that processes emotion and memories.
Two neuroscientists won the Noble Prize in 2004 by discovering how scent improves our quality of life. So much so, that people with an impaired sense of smell often suffer extreme low mood.
With this knowledge, it’s not surprising that pillow sprays have been so popular.
Lavender - the aroma for deep sleep
The earthy floral scent of lavender has been found in science to be a mild sedative.
An experiment published in the Journal of Biological and Medical Rhythm Research in 2005 studied the effect of lavender oil on the sleep of young healthy participants aged 18-30. They reported that both men and women had increased deep sleep, less rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, and lack of sleepiness in the morning.
Those who find lavender oil to be a pleasant smell when inhaled can experience decreased heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, and skin temperature, according to the Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand.
These are the same responses the body makes when we go to sleep.
In the same study, the scientists measured the brainwaves of 20 healthy people to discover that inhaling lavender oil causes a relaxing effect, evidenced by an increase in theta and alpha wave activity.
The researchers note that these brainwave patterns are similar to those observed in meditation.
Lavender has also been found to be a safe method to improve the quality of sleep in postpartum women, students with insomnia, and patients in intensive care units suffering anxiety.
Using a pillow spray
Gently misting your bedsheets with a pillow spray is a relatively inexpensive way to create a calming sensory experience to lead to sound sleep.
Many blends are now available, but for better sleep, improving your mood and soothing anxiety, you should try the Echor End of Day Pillow Spray. Containing the perfect blend of Lavender, Eucalyptus, Geranium and Sweet Orange oils, it is the perfect pre-sleep wind down spray. It is also contained in a beautiful, reusable glass bottle allowing you to sleep well knowing you are doing your bit to reduce single use plastics.
Whichever pillow spray you choose, make sure it includes pure essential oils as cheaper pillow sprays will be full of sickly synthetic fragrances, which will irritate your sensitive olfactory (sense of smell) receptors without giving any of the above benefits.
