The Art of Elevated Naturals: A Plant Priestess's Guide to Sacred Aromatics

Sacred Aromatics

May 7

Written By juniper stokes

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I love wild plants. Collecting wild roses and distilling local sagebrush roots me to the land. My connection with the spiritual dimensions of the natural world are strengthened, and I really hope that these offerings help others drop into deeper relationship with the land, too.

But here's what I want you to know about my work, whether you ever buy anything from me or not: I am, first and foremost, a perfumer. Everything else grew from those roots.

Nearly Two Decades in Training

I've spent nearly two decades training in this craft—studying with masters like Anya McCoy, Roxanna Villa, and Mindy Green. I completed a 610-hour clinical aromatherapy certification. I've mentored in ancient Egyptian aromatics, Taoist anointing practices, and sacred perfumery techniques most people have never heard of.

I have an apothecary filled with tinctures of wild plants I gathered myself, hand-ground resins that took weeks to prepare, true blue lotus (not the imitation most people sadly purchase), multiple shades of precious oud, nettle absolute, boronia flower, and botanicals so rare I have to source them from single distillers around the world…and many I can't ever find again; hence the limited nature of many retiring perfumes.

This is what I mean when I joke that I'm a maximalist.

I don't use "natural isolates" (GMO lab-extracted plant compounds that technically count as "natural"). I don't greenwash (a perfume that's "95% natural" has enough synthetic compounds to increase cancer risk). And I sure as hell don't use cruel naturals (please don't buy from people who use civet or musk).

Every single Alchemessence perfume is made from 100% whole-plant, sustainably sourced materials.

This isn't the easy or affordable way to make aromatic art. But it is the way that has the most integrity, consciousness, and awareness of the ecological webs we live within.

Elevated Naturals: A New Category

The "clean beauty" and "natural fragrance" industry is huge right now. And a lot of it is greenwashing.

Big brands and indie houses both use terms like "natural" and "clean" while including synthetic molecules, GMO isolates, or just enough plant material to make the marketing sound good.

Saying I'm a "natural perfumer" doesn't feel distinct enough anymore. I sometimes use the word "botanical," but since I will occasionally tincture a stone or use beeswax, that's not totally accurate either.

So, I coined the term elevated naturals.

Here's the breakdown:

Synthetics: Manufactured aroma-molecules. "Safe synthetics," aldehydes, vague "fragrance" ingredients.
Mixed: Combination of synthetics and natural botanicals. (Most common type of perfume—marketing focuses on natural elements, but synthetics hide in ingredient lists.)
Natural: Broad category that can include "natural" isolates (GMO lab extracts) and even cruelly-derived animal products.
Botanical: Only whole-plant materials—CO2 extracts, absolutes, tinctures, essential oils.
Elevated: Pure whole botanicals + cruelty-free tinctures of non-botanical substances (sea shells, stones, honey) + energetic and spiritual attunements.

Alchemessence perfumes are elevated.

Every bottle is infused with prayers, crystals, and codes of transformation. As a plant priestess, I don't just make perfumes—I create transmissions. Catalysts for the soul's awakening.

Natural Perfumes…but Magical Ones

I smell a perfume in the spirit realms before it exists in physical reality.

Seriously. Clairolfaction at its best.

Once I connect with my intention for a perfume—a deity, animal spirit, plant ally, cosmic principle—I begin to receive its aroma in visions, dreams, and meditation. Then I spend months, sometimes years, trying to translate that ethereal scent into a physical formula.

Testing. Adjusting. Waiting for ingredients. Letting it age. Testing again.

This is why my perfumes are often years in the making. Because I'm not just mixing oils—I'm channeling something that exists first in the realm of spirit and then bringing it into form.

ARt In My Blood

I am the descendant of artists. My family tree is filled with fine artists, classical musicians, dancers, actors, writers, photographers.

And I have a stellium, including my "big three" in the Venusian sign of Libra. (The struggle is real, lol.)

From the time I could walk, I was mixing magical elixirs with twigs, flowers, and puddle water in the backyard. I graduated college with the very employable degree (ha!) of studio art.

Now I carry forward my lineage of artistry with every perfume I create—but I do it as a wild priestess. Opulence and luxury can create a direct line to spirit, but only when done with reverence and respect for the natural world.

to Work with Living Plants

Wearing a purely natural, artisan perfume is not like wearing one made with synthetics.

Natural perfumes don't cling to you for 12 hours like synthetic fragrances do. They might have color differences or plant particles in them. And they're more expensive.

And these are features.

Here's why:

They harmonize with your individual chemistry. Alchemessence perfumes seep into your skin and create a completely new, unique experience on every person.

They transform over time. You'll experience top notes first, then a lush heart, then a long-lasting base that's completely different from what you first smelled.

They're unfiltered. I don't filter my perfumes because filtering removes healing molecules. You might see slight cloudiness, color variation, or separation—that's the full aromatic and spiritual experience each bottle is capable of offering.

They have real botanicals. And real plants cost more. A higher price point means that you are supporting the cultivation of real plants by family farms around the world, not factories.

They carry energetic frequencies. When you apply perfume, it goes into pulse points that impact your entire system. You do not want synthetics going into these sensitive spots.

Reapplying is a ritual. Every time you anoint yourself, you re-engage with the intention and healing held within each bottle. It's not a chore—it's a treat.

Lighter perfumes last a couple hours. Richer ones might last all day. As with fine wines, each batch varies slightly with the seasons, country of origin, and availability of ingredients.

This is what it means to work in partnership with nature. Nature is always changing—and so are these perfumes.

A Year of Roses: Heart Medicine

Behind the scenes: I've been grieving for a long time, and about a year ago, a well-intended healer removed some of the protective energy around my heart center. As a result, my heart has physically hurt for almost a year.

It is from this place that I felt the call of roses. They kept coming in as allies, weaving my grief back to love with their beauty, fragrance, and medicinal gifts.

This summer I gathered roses from three completely different places:

The Badlands - At a playa in the high deserts of Central Oregon, where endless sagebrush seas and ancient junipers gave way to an oasis of wild pink roses
The Coast - Where rosa rugosa—wild beach rose—clings to bluffs, getting battered by salt spray and ocean wind
Private Organic Gardens - Where I had access to huge fragrant rose blossoms in pink, yellow, and white

In the past, I've always been very restrained when it comes to wild rose medicine making. Roses are such an important food source for pollinators in the summer, and their blossoms become rosehips that feed all the forest creatures throughout the fall and winter when food is scarce.

The forest needs the roses more than I do, so I take only a few blossoms for my immediate needs.

But this year was different. Roses were everywhere—and I was lucky enough to have access to a huge patch that no one else was using. So…

I infused precious wild rose petals into vodka and honey to make magical elixirs that will get me through the winter months.

I turned giant rose petals into plant paint that will add rose's healing frequencies to my finished art. (The paint is a vibrant light green!)

And I infused all the roses into organic oils for the most opulent skin care creations ever.

I sipped rose teas with rose honey and anointed my heart daily with my first rose creation: an absolutely divine Rose Anointing Balm.

The heart pain is gone, for the most part. And I have enough of the magical balm to share.

Rose is not only a heart healer—all the gifts of Venus are expressed through the rose: love, relationship, value, sensuality, and of course, beauty.

The Maximalist's Approach to Beauty

Quick reminder: I'm a maximalist. A wild-loving and lux-loving maximalist.

Which means that my face care offerings don't just have rose…

I infused my nourishing, organic oils with even more freshly harvested plants:

Calendula, lavender, and red clover blossoms from my garden
Wild yarrow and sweet clover gathered in the high desert
Protective evergreen resins collected from mountain trails

And then I added the rare stuff. The indulgences my inner opulent maximalist craves:

Neroli - Distilled from bitter orange blossoms, supports cellular regeneration and elasticity.
Immortelle (Helichrysum) - Legendary for tissue regeneration. Called the "immortal flower" for a reason.
Green Caviar - (Not fish eggs!) Marine algae from pristine waters, extraordinarily high in minerals and omega-3s.
Blue Tansy - Rare Moroccan chamomile that turns electric blue during distillation. Powerful anti-inflammatory.
Amazonian Lily - Royal water lily that detoxifies its environment by absorbing heavy metals. Rich in tannins and oils for skin smoothing.
Sea Buckthorn - Himalayan berry oil containing rare omega-7. The secret of Tibetan and Russian beauty traditions.
Sandalwood Nut CO2 - Rare extraction from Australian sandalwood seeds (not wood), incredibly rich and sustainable.
Evening Primrose - Sacred to the moon cycles, this omega-rich oil supports skin's natural regeneration during nighttime renewal.

Plus: frankincense, carrot seed, German chamomile, Cape chamomile, cistus, raspberry seed, blueberry seed, plum kernel...

I could keep going. (And I did! lol)

Psst: Healing salves and balms are released in special batches throughout the year. Keep an eye on the apothecary to grab yours.

The Alchemy of Hydrosols

As potent as perfumes and face oils are, there's another form of plant medicine that I absolutely love: hydrosols.

Not all hydrosols are the same. Every plant I distill is grown or wild-tended on my high desert property, harvested at peak potency with my own hands, and distilled in a copper alembic during a half-day ceremony.

I don't separate the essential oil from the plant water, so you get the full spectrum of plant medicine.

Here's a bit of why I love hydrosols:

Gentle enough to spray directly on your face
Powerful enough to shift your energy instantly
Hydrating enough to replace your toner
Subtle enough for spiritual practice
Effective enough to feel it working
Easy enough to use multiple times a day
Sustainable enough to use liberally and know the Earth is happy
Just as effective as sacred oils for anointing practices

Daily Uses That Make Everything Better

Morning: Mist my face after washing. Usually lavender, marigold, or sage. I know my skin loves this, but it's almost more of a mood boost than anything else.

Midday: If stress or fatigue hits, reach for the hydrosol. This is when I mist my entire aura. Hydrosols are labor intensive to create but really ecologically sustainable, so use them freely! This is my way of energetic tending while working online all day. My choices for this are the plants that purify—mostly wormwood, ponderosa, larch, and big sagebrush.

Evening: I mist my pillow and sheets before bed—mugwort for dreams, or lavender for peace…or both, most often. If I'm feeling sensitive, I'll add yarrow for extra energetic protection as I sleep.

With crowds: Yarrow before I leave. Then: You can clear your energy field immediately after any crowd or awkward interaction with head to toe misting. The plants are wise and know how to do this on your behalf. They all work for this—they all restore you back to yourself.

Anointing with Hydrosols

Yes, you can anoint with hydrosols! Actually, in many cultures throughout the world, water infused with plants was used for rituals and sacred anointing practices.

There are two approaches to anointing with hydrosols:

1. Full Body Blessings

During my travels, I got to experience Hindu blessing ceremonies where floral waters were poured over our heads in India and Bali. When I studied with a Mayan shaman, we would receive full body anointings with buckets of water filled with herbs and flowers. After these sat in the sun for several hours, we would pour the herbal waters over our heads and drench ourselves in plant medicine.

How to give a full body blessing: Add a few tablespoons of hydrosol to a bath. More is fine if you want to add several different plants—this is gentle medicine. Soak up their vibrational and aromatic gifts.

2. Anointing Intentional Points on the Body

In ancient Taoist practices, practitioners would anoint acupressure points with hydrosols for soul-level transformation. If you know a few acupressure points or do any sort of tapping, you can do this too.

You can also anoint with hydrosols in the Myrrhophore tradition: Dip your fingers in the plant water, and then touch your third eye, heart, hands, and feet with intention. You might intuitively be drawn to specific areas—the crown, your lower belly, back of neck, or places that feel tender or need healing.

Basically, anywhere you would anoint with an oil, you can anoint with a hydrosol for equal results.

How to anoint with hydrosols: Place a small amount of hydrosol in a bowl. Dip your first and middle fingers in the fragrant water and touch your third eye, heart, and lower belly. Breathe and tune into the sensation of the plants' energy interacting with your own.

This makes a beautiful daily meditation practice.

Plant Profiles: This Year's Allies

I wish I could tell you that you can order these anytime…but I can't. Small-batch means limited quantities. Seasonal means one harvest per year.

Here are the plant allies available from this summer's harvest:

Rabbitbrush: This hardy plant was prized medicine among North American tribes, used to treat everything from coughs to toothaches to menstrual pain. As a parallel, it's a beautiful all-purpose energetic protector with an affinity for releasing possessions—the Shoshone even used it to prevent nightmares.

Wormwood: Made on solstice, this one is really special. Wormwood as a plant is a powerhouse for parasites—and the energetic hydrosol cleanses parasitic energies from your field. (This one also has a higher amount of essential oil in it—external use only!)

White & Big Sagebrushes: Both are cleansing and protective and sacred plants. The white sagebrush feels especially meditative to me, while the big sagebrush is powerhouse strength and resilience. These are also both great for skin cleansing.

Mugwort: Protective and clearing like all artemisia family hydrosols, mugwort also has an affinity for dreams and visions—and women. All women's issues are helped with mugwort. (In Taoist alchemy, mugwort can be used to anoint the pubic bone for healing any challenges related to women's sexuality, from hormonal changes to trauma.)

Apple: I love this one, made from my own backyard apple tree. Apples are deeply intertwined with healing the divine feminine—from Eve's taste of wisdom to the Isle of Avalon, which was covered with apple orchards. This sweet mist brings blessings and healing for anyone tending cosmic balance. (I add a teaspoon of mine to flavor my water, too!)

Yarrow: My favorite protector plant. Whenever I mist myself with yarrow, I just feel like I can relax and know my energy is my own.

Marigold: This bright blossom has an affinity for the skin—it's excellent for aging or dry skin. And it's a beautiful threshold plant: Marigolds are added to Dia de los Muertos altars to call well ancestors for a visit with their bright colors and sweet scents. The hydrosol can be used to mist ancestral altars.

Ponderosa Pine: Tall and regal, with long needles and huge pinecones, ponderosa hydrosol comes from sacred evergreens that offer us protection, inner strength, and connection to heaven and earth. Purifying for the air in general, too.

Larch: The only evergreen to turn gold with the seasons, larch is sweet and protective around transitions. And like all evergreens, a wonderful air purifier on physical and mystical levels.

Lavender: Lavender is an all-purpose healer—everything from bruises and burns to stress and anxiety can be supported by this fragrant plant.

Lavender & Sage Codistill: A codistillation happens when the plants meet in the alembic, creating a unique alchemy as they marry into a single fragrant water. This one smells amazing and brings the medicine of both plants together in a truly sacred way.

Shop Hydrosols

Coming Back to the Source

With all the new offerings—the face oils, the hydrosols, the healing salves—I wanted to remind you (and maybe myself) what this all started with.

Perfumes are my heart work.

They're the thing I trained for. The thing I spent decades studying. The thing I'll still be making when I'm 80, hunched over my blending desk, talking to myself about amber and oud.

Everything else I create—the seasonal apothecary, the wildcrafted skincare—it all grew from this root: the belief that beauty is the soul of life, and that sacred aroma can awaken something in us that words never could.

Botanicals & More

Scents for Spring: Seasonal Botanical Perfumes Are Here

Spring is here and with it comes new life and fresh scents.

From sweet cherry blossoms to balsamy fawns, soft florals and starlit skies, this set of spring aromas will meet every mood to carry you through our new season. Smell unique. Make magic.

» Explore the Collection

NEW!BESPOKE FRAGRANCES

After years of requests, I’m finally opening spots for custom perfume and anointing oil creations. I’ve laid out the entire process here — please take a look and let me know if you have any questions!

ONE-ON-ONE SESSIONS OPENING SOON

I’ll be opening a few spots for personal healing sessions soon. These come around a few times a year and tend to sell out quickly. Get on the waitlist here.

Juniper Stokes is a botanical perfumer, soul alchemist, intuitive astrologer, and rewilding guide through mythic landscapes of nature, spirit, and the cosmos. For over 25 years, she has been guiding soulful humans back to the heart of who they are and why they're here.