by Sylla Sheppard-Hanger | Nov 22, 2013 | Featured Vintage Aromatherapist
Let me tell you a little about Emilee Stewart, my first live aromatherapy mentor and friend.
Emilee is from London, and was inspired to pursue aromatherapy by the Micheline Arcier treatments she recieved in Knightsbridge. She trained at the clinic and got an International Diploma so she could practice in the USA. Having married a soldier from NC, she moved to Raleigh, and opened the first aromatherapy salon possibly in the entire USA during 1974, right after I left Raleigh for Florida. This was pretty brave to go to conservative Raleigh and open a “spa” in a grand hotel downtown. I sure wish I had stayed there to meet her then, but I had moved on. Her spa was cutting edge, and attracted the rich and famous of the city, she has created a wonderful book for her grandchildren and I hope to share it here one day.
By 1986, Emilee had started her business near me , having set up and run the exclusive spa called Private Universe in downtown Winter Park, Florida. I first saw her ad in a massage magazine from our state association and immediately looked her up, and drove over to see her. She inspired my new appreciation of aromatherapy with the best facial ever! She helped me see the work as a “treatment” not just a massage or facial, and shared her oils and blends, products and perfume bottles. I was so delighted to meet a real aromatherapist, and to share what I had found out thus far.
We became great friends, travelling to many of the California conferences and supporting each others’ aromatic journeys. She created her own blends for face and body, had a line of products, and imported rose oil and rose hydrosol. Michael Alexander and I went over to visit her once upon a shipment arrival and we had a blessing ceremony to make it “healing” oil as we opened and decanted it! That was the best rose I had ever smelled before, probably because it was the first time I had smelled the real thing. I cherished it. The smell of Bulgarian rose today takes me back to that time.
She also held a mini conference with Victoria Edwards among others and contributed to The World of Aromatherapy, a collective account of 35 of the women active in Aromatherapy at that time in 1996. Since the early 1970’s Emilee has continued her practice using aromatherapy for skin and body, creating her blends, teaching classes, sharing her knowledge by training many new aromatherapists along the way. she still does a few special clients and recently joined us in St. Pete for the conference. If you come to Winter Park Florida please try to meet her. She needs to be honored as an early USA Vintage Aromatherapy Pioneer!
We attended our first class together in 1989 when Nature’s Symphony hosted a seminar with Robert Tisserand, whom I had met in California at the first American Aromatherapy Association in 1988, and Colleen Dodt, a delightful herbalist/aromatherapist who deserves her own blog page!
by Sylla Sheppard-Hanger | Nov 18, 2013 | Sylla's Confessions
When many aromatherapists gathered for the 2006 Aromatherapy Conference by Michael Alexander in St. Pete, FL, my brother D, allowed us to raffle him for a dinner date for United Aromatherapy Effort, Inc. to raise funds. Jane Buckle won him and wrote a poem I shared in my recent presentation, so I want to dedicate this blog post to D. Even though my brother passed from this earth a couple of years ago he is still with me cheering me on! I really think he may have been at the conference when I did the RE start me up show, as one of those orbs in the picture.
My roots go back to North Carolina. I started this life in the tiny town of Mt. Gilead, NC in 1950 having been born Sylvia Ann Baucom in Troy, NC, where the closest hospital was. My first memories of exploring the world were following my constant companion “Irish twin” Donald or D as he came to be known. He was ten months older than me and we were raised as twins in our early lives, knowing where each other was, having that special bond siblings have.
We moved to the larger city of Raleigh, NC where I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s as an only girl with D and two older brothers (14 year gap). This may have set me up for a life of gathering “brothers” who became mentors and teachers, helping me along the way. Together D and I grew up in the 50’s and 1960s, so we remember well when the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Dylan started.
The fascination with smell began when mom would take us into woods behind our house and show us pitcher plants (what she called them). Their leaves smelled of sassafras. She would collect soil from woods. to use in her potted plants. My mom showed me sewing, practical things, listening, and unconditional love. She made clothes for herself, rarely splurged for Avon beauty products and only had a hair cut occasionally. My neighbor Mrs. Ellis, having two boys, loved showing me how to apply proper make up and perfumes from beautiful bottles with glass stoppers. I became aware of perfumes in high school, noticing the soft scent of Shalimar on the rich girls who wore the best clothes, settling on Intimate spray as gifts at 16 and Estee lauder Youth Dew when I was working and could afford more. Finally, in my 20’s, I received real Shalimar, but by then had switched to naturals so could hardly enjoy it anymore.
In high school, after looking to no avail for a summer job, I decided to go to beauty school instead. I thought at the time beauty was external and important! My early role models were my sister in laws, Joyce and Arlene and they had curly hair. Once when I wanted curly hair as a pre teen, my Mom was gave me a painfully rolled, uncomfortable and smelly perm. When I complained she said something like “one has to work at being beautiful” (or to have curly hair.)….so I thought it was something you had to pay for, to cultivate and work on, etc. Somehow I didn’t understand how the frizzy hair that resulted from my perm did that for me!
By high school, my thinking was what better way to have access to beauty ‘secrets’ than to go into the field. At the time I believed that beauty was something one “did”….with make up and hair instead it coming from within, but hey, I was young! I did the 1200 hours through my last two years of high school in my free time every Thursday night after school, Saturdays, holidays and all of summer vacation. I got my license at 19, a month after graduating from high school. Once working, I moved into my first apartment, my Dad passed away, I met and married my neighbor, and then before the year was up we divorced with me keeping the name Sheppard! Shortly thereafter I moved to Florida, settling in Tampa, and proceeded with my life away from my hometown and family.
While becoming “Sylla” (nick name from friends), I also attended a couple of years at University of South Florida, and feeling beautiful, I lived the organic hippy life for a while. I earned a degree as a natural health care practitioner (LMT) in 1979 while I cut hair at a local unisex salon.
By the mid 70’s I began my collection of these scented oils that were so magical. Long before I found the Valnet and Tisserand books, I realized this could be something big. Who would ever think from then to now, what adventures I would have. I really thought I invented it!
by Sylla Sheppard-Hanger | Nov 14, 2013 | Memoirs Of a Vintage Aromatherapist
I grew up in North Carolina in the 1950-60s and moved to Florida in early 1970. At that time I didn’t know aromatherapy had started with Gattefosse’s work, followed by Valnet’s book Aromatherapie which came out in France. Then Marguerite Maury, an Austrian biochemist, began teaching in Paris and London in the 1960’s. In the 1950’s, Marguerite Maury pioneered the beginning of modern or true aromatherapy – the use of essential oils for the promotion of holistic well-being. While she was working with a surgeon in Alsace she read a book: Les Grandes Possibilitiès par les Matières Odoriferantes, by Dr Chabenes (published in 1835). The author later taught R.M. Gattefossé, one of the founders of aromatherapy. The book became Marguerite Maury’s Bible.
Through Maury’s years of research and practical application, she discovered the value of the active zone aromatic particles and recorded the effects with scientific probity. She lectured and gave seminars on the subject throughout Europe and opened aromatherapy clinics in Paris, Switzerland and England.
Madame Maury felt that the external application of essential oils by way of massage could be especially beneficial, and she established the first aromatherapy clinics in Paris, Great Britain, and Switzerland, and studied the rejuvenating properties of essential oils. She developed the early massage techniques from which today’s aromatherapy derives. Her treatments were initially designed for skin rejuvenation but her clients reported many additional benefits such as better sleep, pain relief and general well-being. Such results inspired Madame Maury to pass down her ‘hands-on’ knowledge to a select group of aromatherapy students at her private practice in London.
Maury trained many students including Daniele Ryman, who became her protégé, or “spirit child,” as she says. Early in her life Daniele attended the Institute des Beaux Arts in Paris. She met and became the protégé of the legendary pioneer of aromatherapy: Marguerite Maury, working with her in research and development in both the Paris and London clinics.
I was privileged to be the spiritual child, pupil and disciple of Marguerite Maury. She inspired and changed my life. I have continued her work for over 30 years. She possessed some of the eccentricities of genius, but she was also one of the most generous and lovable of women, a magnetic and charismatic person. She was a veritable whirlwind of energy and enthusiasm, working ceaselessly until quite literally she died on the 25th September 1968. Her last manuscript was found beside her bed. It began: ‘The aromatherapy involved in cosmetology can lead to the most extraordinary of results. -Daniele Ryman
Visit her site here.
I recently communicated with Daniele and she informed me of her new book on her memoirs with Maury called The Gift. She also recently found a movie that Maury made when her book Le Capital Jeuenesse originally came out in French in 1961. Daniele republished in English as Marguerite Maury’s Guide to Aromatherapy, The Secret of Life and Youth in 1989. She has never been here to the USA and I think that we need to correct that and bring her here in the near future, before she is gone too. You can find a taste of her expertise in her “Aromatherapy Bible, found here.
Other students who studied with Maury, include Wm. Arnold-Taylor who created the ITEC programs in the UK, and Micheline Arcier, one of the very few people to work at her pioneering salon and to be trained personally by Marguerite Maury. Micheline Arcier studied and worked with Maury and Valnet and their combined techniques created a form of aromatherapy that is now used around the world. She opened a clinic in London and taught many early aromatherapists. Sadly, she and her daughter have passed away but you can read her story here.
One of Arcier’s students was Emilee Stewart. I will focus on Emilee on the next blog as she may be the first USA first Pioneer Vintage Aromatherapist.
by Sylla Sheppard-Hanger | Nov 4, 2013 | Sylla's Confessions
I started out as a child of wonder, in a natural world of soft, furry animals that would let me rub their ears on my upper lip. We had woods in which to discover nature and build secret camps. I rolled down hills, I ran in grass, and witnessed the seasons of change as I marked my years up to 19. After moving to Florida I lost track of time as my second journey of using healing scents unfolded in the form of aromatherapy. Vintagearomatherapist.com is the house of the story of that long aromatic journey of forty some years; my version of the history of aromatherapy as known in the USA.
My Irish twin brother “D” and I grew up together and in our mid teens in the 1960’s. Bill Cosby was just a new young comic and one of his first recordings was titled “I started out as a child”.
Not his best, but we knew every line with all the accents. So in writing this, this line came to mind and I thought a good place to start.
The point is: we started out as children, but this blog is MY journey from start to finish from the 1950s forward. My daughter, Nyssa, pointed out a lot of ways I have grown yet am still child like. I am easily delighted and always looking for the good in others. There is a huge difference in child like and childish. These days I am much more wise and I can see that there is much work to be done. Nyssa quoted me in saying that I wanted to be known as a “woman who was up to something,” surely during my Landmark Education days when I became “authentic’, let my silver hair grow out and be more true to myself.
So here I am now, heart open, ready to confess. Stay tuned 😉
by Sylla Sheppard-Hanger | Nov 2, 2013 | Sylla's Confessions
Dawna Markova wrote the poem,
I Will Not Die An Unlived Life
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
She could have written that for me, and often it seems as if she did. When I received this gift from Robbi Zeck in 1998, I was going through radiation for breast cancer. I read the poem, put it up on the wall, read it again, and in a few years the poem became my mantra. I learned to say it out loud to the point that it was not only very empowering, but affirming.
As can be understood, I had a fear of falling and I avoided heights. As a child I did not like going over bridges in the car or walking on the pier at the beach high above the ocean deep, with little gaps between the boards.
I had the fear of catching fire since someone bumped into my arm at a college party with a cigarette, causing a bad burn when I was a teen. Ten years later, at another party, I was donning some wild and heavily hair sprayed hair, and sat next to a candle that lit the ends of my do, giving me a layered look. Lucky for me a biker had his jacket handy and covered me before any damage, but it really STUNK up the party. After my older brother lost his home to fire I became obsessed with the element for a long time and still don’t use candles.
Despite my past experience with fire, I am happy to say I no longer have those fears and can quickly dismiss fearful pop ups when they occasionally happen. In my sabbatical away from AT I was able to release that through some powerful work called Heart Forgiveness, which allows one to release anger and gives tools to continue moving forward with a peaceful heart. This is done in four sessions with a facilitator with follow up home work with a CD.
The Heart Forgiveness sessions allowed to feel that I can look at the past now and deal with anything that resurfaces, putting it to rest and being free.
A result of being free are Confessions of a Vintage Aromatherapist being developed, as well as this blog project where I can recount the history as I have lived it. It will include the viewpoint of guests who can add their knowledge to our histories database. As many myths of aromatherapy are being busted, I hope the insights of my friends and I will add to the historical data of the field and provide entertainment so that when my time comes, I can screech out, all used up, yelling whoohoo!
