Fragrance as ritual has been woven into human life for thousands of years, embedded in spiritual practice – from purifying the body to scenting sacred spaces and reaching toward the divine. Across cultures, religious leaders, priests, and shamans have burned woods, barks, and resins for millennia. “If we go back to the ancients, rituals were often about communion with the gods or the spirit world,” fragrance expert Karen Gilbert explains. “To make contact with that higher realm, we need to step out of the mundane and into a kind of sacred space. Incenses and oils were a fundamental part of anchoring into that altered state of consciousness.”
Woods like frankincense, as well as palo santo and the shrub sage are associated with energy cleansing and purification rites to this day, cleansing both physical spaces and people. There is some science behind this. Recent studies have found that frankincense, when burned as incense, actually produces a smoke containing a psychoactive substance said to expand consciousness, alleviating anxiety and depression. Some scents have also been shown to affect our perception of the world, speeding things up or slowing them down. “Smell is the one of the most powerful tools we can use to bypass our cognitive thought processes to create emotional and behavioural changes,” says Gilbert.
Skip to 2025, and brands are tapping into these ideas around spirituality and consciousness-altering scents to sell their products. Kate Moss’s perfume, Cosmoss Sacred Mist is described as having “aura cleansing” and mood uplifting abilities, and was created by homeopath Victoria Young. Bella Hadid’s ‘alchemy revealing’ brand Ôrebella describes its ‘aura-elevating scents’ as boosting “both mood and aura with memorable blends of aromatherapy essential oils and fine fragrance notes.”
The perfumes in Charlotte Tilbury’s Fragrances of Emotions collection contain “emotion-boosting molecules” to alter your mood. The Magic Energy fragrance has “spiritual palo santo accord” and notes of “ancient frankincense”, while symbols on the packaging represent “the seven human chakras”. Meanwhile, Vyrao uses energy amplification, crystals and alternative medicines to target emotion and energy through scent.
“I’ve always been very comfortable in the esoteric, but not everyone is… yet,” says founder Yasmin Sewell. “Intuition and spirituality are becoming less ‘woo woo’ as science starts to validate what many of us have always known to be true.” Vyrao’s last three “neuroscents” – The Sixth, Sun Rae and Mamajuju – were created in partnership with International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc.’s decades of research into fragrance’s impact on emotion and wellness. It was also the perfumers and scientists at the IFF who Tilbury worked with to create her mood enhancing perfumes.
“The Science of Wellness programme tested individuals’ responses to natural ingredients with brain-imaging tests, whether it’s happiness, mindfulness, energy,” Meabh Mc Curtin, IFF Fine Fragrance perfumer, explains. Mc Curtin was the nose behind Vyrao’s The Sixth, a freshly shaken apple, basil and peppermint fragrance “diffused with sacred herbs”, and she collaborated with not just Sewell but Sewell’s psychic as well while creating the scent.
“We worked with my psychic who has this incredible ability to interpret energy and channel it into tangible forms. This was about creating an energetic tool that connects to your sixth sense and intuition,” says Sewell. “Growing up, I was constantly seeing and feeling things that others might miss. Working with IFF is like blending these two worlds, using science to refine the magic. It wasn’t just about smelling something nice; it was about creating a moment, a transformation.”
While our ancestors used fragrance and incense to commune with the gods, today we turn to these mood-shifting scents not for prayer, but to look inward, to heighten our emotions and fine-tune our mental state. Functional aromatherapy became the shared obsession of Moods co-founders Danile Smith and Gregory Allen during their search for corporate burnout cures. “It wasn’t about healing in a vague, spiritual sense,” says Smith. “It was about taking control.”
Biohacking their way to olfactory enlightenment, the pair commissioned the largest aroma-focused clinical study to date. The results showed that their scent blends could deliver measurable benefits: reduced stress, improved concentration, and enhanced memory.
Hustle, Charisma, Chill, Genius… the Moods oils and mists wear their intentions plainly, prioritising aromatherapy as a functional tool over complex scent storytelling. But do the Moods boys see a link between neuro-aromatics and the metaphysical? “When your mood shifts, inevitably so does your aura and what you attract energetically,” Allen enthusiastically replies. “We have just clinically proven that it does!”
So why is aromatherapy suddenly an indicator of sacred sophistication and not just crystal shop clutter? “The idea that you could blend specific molecules to shift mental states feels both powerful and deeply personal,” Smith tells me. “People are craving rituals that reconnect them to themselves. Scent is fast, emotional and tactile. It creates space in a world that rarely does.”
Creating space where one can reconnect with oneself is also how Gilbert thinks of the link between fragrance and spirituality. While on the edge of a mental breakdown, she embarked on a journey of healing her inner self through scent, delving into the scientific research alongside the more spiritual traditions. “What priests, shamans and biohackers are doing is using scent anchors to bring themselves to a place of ‘the gap’, as my yoga teacher calls it. We are stepping out of the ordinary world and into the magical state between waking a dream, accessing a place where you can tap into your best self, whatever that looks like.”