Entrepreneur’s Good Scents Brought Him the Sweet Smell of Success : Aromatherapy: Rivals laughed at his ideas on therapeutic values of aromas. Now they copy him.
Horst Rechelbacher didn’t realize he was planting the seeds of an aromatic empire when 20-odd years ago he whipped up his first batch of homemade clove shampoo.
Noses wrinkled over the pungent, murky concoction intended for his small chain of hair salons. But that didn’t stop the Austrian expatriate from preaching the gospel of aromatherapy--the belief that essences of plants and flowers have therapeutic benefits.
At age 52, Horst (as he prefers to be called) is basking in the sweet smell of success. The founder and chairman of Aveda Corp. oversees a 400-employee dominion credited with popularizing aromatherapy in America.
Although the privately owned company won’t release sales figures, it does say it has enjoyed strong double-digit growth annually for the past 15 years. In 1990, one report had it doing an estimated $200 million in retail sales.
“I think Horst was ahead of his time, definitely,” says John Steele, a California aromatherapist who has done consulting for Aveda. “That’s one of the reasons his company has done so well. He had the sense of smelling the future.”
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Aveda is an interesting mix of old-fashioned capitalism and conscientious naturalism.
More than 25,000 salons, spas and flagship stores called “esthetiques” carry its products ranging from shampoos and cosmetics to “purefumes” and sunscreen. A spa in Osceola, Wis., for example, delivers flower-essence massage and hydrotherapy, among other indulgences using Aveda products.
Horst’s interest in the natural began early. His mother was a herbalist, someone who grows or uses herbs. A visit he made to India in the 1960s inspired his decision to make pure products out of herbs.
Aveda, derived from a Sanskrit phrase meaning “the wisdom of nature,” has found devotees among the famous: Elizabeth Taylor and Goldie Hawn have worn its basil-based lipsticks, and Princess Diana has reportedly dabbled in aromatherapy to curb her nail-biting.
But the renewed belief in the power of scent has created its own problems for Horst, who recently dumped aromatherapy in favor of what he calls a more distinguishing term: “aromaology.”
“I need to survive in business,” he says. “I saw myself become diluted and polluted by companies that didn’t care about what I cared about in manufacturing. They just wanted to make a profit.”
Horst is the first to admit that aromatherapy has been around long before he helped popularize it. Many ancient cultures, including the Egyptians, the Aztecs and Chinese, documented the use of essential oils to treat physical disorders.
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Indeed, the three Wise Men’s gifts to a celebrated baby included frankincense and myrrh, said to calm the nervous system and evoke inner strength.
Aromatherapy revolves around absolute essences--plant’s molecular gases. A distillation and evaporation process breaks the plant down into liquid form. It takes 4.5 million jasmine petals to create just 450 grams, or nearly a pound, of its essential oil.
In Aveda’s fragrant aroma lab, Ko-Ichi Siozawa dips a testing stick into a vial of frankincense. The stuff is tart, clean-smelling.
Siozawa, Aveda’s chief perfumer with more than 25 years of experience, works with essential oils that come from all over the world: roses from Bulgaria, oak moss from the former Yugoslavia, myrrh from Somalia, pimento from Jamaica, to name just a few.
Working at Aveda is different than working for a more mainstream perfumer. “Virtually all of the formula of a regular perfumer consists of chemicals. I have to forget all that,” he said.
Although science has yet to document medical benefits from aromatherapy, studies have shown that scents do alter moods. A study at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., found pleasant fragrance can improve one’s demeanor. Scientists at the University of Cincinnati determined that volunteers who inhaled peppermint scents while working on computer tasks made fewer errors than those in an unscented control group.
Dr. Richard Costanzo, a neurologist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, says a strong link between emotions and smell isn’t surprising.
“It’s a powerful sense and deals more with emotions and feelings,” Costanzo said.
So why is the sense of smell undergoing a renaissance?
“Smell was neglected before. It was the sense that was used for seduction, allure, power,” said Steele, an archeologist until he discovered plant essences. “The aromatherapy movement is based on healing rather than image, balance and restoration of the body’s innate capabilities. . . . Using fragrance to alter moods, not just to make an impression on somebody else.”