News & science
Shop news, seasonal rituals and plain-language summaries of research on aromatic plants.
New on Smelslike: a botanical herbarium
Every oil starts as a plant. Our new herbarium shows what each one looks like, where it grows and what its oil is made of.
2 min read
Orange and lavender in the dentist’s waiting room
A 2005 Austrian study of 200 patients compared the scent of orange, the scent of lavender, music and silence while people waited for dental treatment.
Rosemary and attention: an experiment with a blood test
British researchers measured how much 1,8-cineole from rosemary aroma reached volunteers’ blood — and compared it with their scores on mental arithmetic.
Peppermint oil capsules and IBS: what a 2022 meta-analysis found
Ten trials, 1,030 adults with irritable bowel syndrome, special medicinal capsules — and a very honest conclusion about the quality of the evidence.
Lavender and anxiety: what 90 studies say
An Italian review gathered research on lavender in every form — inhaled, as capsules and in massage. The results differ a lot by form, and the quality of studies matters.