MARRYING ANCIENT WISDOM & LEADING NEUROSCIENCE

Founded on the belief that scent has the power to change how you feel, we have combined ancient Ayurvedic healing practices with leading olfactory Neuroscience and technical capabilities. Learn more about how and why we have integrated active ingredients into every perfume to create mood enhancing perfumes. 

What is Ayurveda?

Some rituals slip quietly through centuries, unchanged by trend or time. Although increasingly recognised and popular in the Western world, Ayurveda is one of the world’s oldest continuously practised systems of wellbeing. With its roots stretching back more than 3,000 years and some scholars argue as far as 5,000 years, its origins are deeply entwined with the Vedic civilisation of ancient India. 

This ancient Indian philosophy treats wellbeing as a finely tuned balance between body, mind and spirit: holistic before “holistic” became a wellness buzzword. At its core lies a surprisingly modern idea: that scent does more than adorn. It can heal, ground, elevate and restore. 

A concept further built on by René-Maurice Gattefossé in 1937, when he published his influential book Aromathérapie: Les Huiles Essentielles, Hormones Végétales, which formally introduced the term ‘aromatherapy’ to describe the medicinal use of essential oils.

Ayurveda translates as the knowledge of life, and nothing in its practice is incidental. From daily routines to dietary choices, every action has purpose. 

Fragrance is no exception. Oils and perfumes chosen for their energetic properties as much as their beauty, are applied not only to smell appealing but to influence mood, physiology and energy.

The word Ayurveda comes from Sanskrit:

“Āyus” (आयुस्) means life, vital force or longevity.
“Veda” (वेद) means knowledge, wisdom or science.

So Ayurveda translates as “the knowledge of life” or “the science of life”

THE PRINCIPLES OF AYURVEDA

At its core, Ayurveda is a system of balance. Each of us is shaped by three elemental forces, or doshas:

• Vata (air and space), which governs movement and creativity;
• Pitta (fire and water), which drives transformation; and
• Kapha (earth and water), which provides stability and structure.

Health depends on keeping these in harmony, a shifting equilibrium shaped by seasons and daily habits. Interwoven with this is the chakra system — seven subtle energy centres that map the flow of vital energy through the body. When doshas or chakras fall out of balance, the other responds. Ayurvedic treatments work to restore harmony on both levels, combining herbs, diet, massage, oils, movement and ritual to bring the body back into sync with the natural world and cultivate lasting wellbeing.

Traditionally in Ayurveda, a few drops of oil were warmed between the palms and pressed onto pulse points, chest or spine. As the day unfolds the scent mingles with the body’s own rhythms.  Unlike a more modern spritz-and-go, the use of oils in Ayurveda are less performative, more a healing and balancing ritual.

Sandalwood cools and centres. Rose opens the heart. Vetiver anchors. Champaka softens.

A few drops warmed between the palms and pressed onto pulse points become a quiet daily ritual, far removed from the hurried spritz at the door. Each perfume oil has been used for centuries, selected according to an individual’s constitution or dosha to nudge the system gently back into balance.

Leading Neuroscience: The Science of Wellness

What ancient practitioners intuited, modern neuroscience is now beginning to map with precision. Scent has a direct line to the brain’s limbic system, (the seat of emotion, memory and mood regulation), bypassing rational filters entirely. A single inhalation can trigger a cascade of neural responses, shifting emotional states in milliseconds.

To harness the transformational power of scent, we worked exclusively with our partner IFF to create our perfumes. Their best in class LMR natural oils are not only exquisite ingredients, but their pioneering 40 year olfactory Science of Wellness research and AI program (using MRI scans) and perception data identifies the emotional and cognitive benefits of those ingredients.

This allows us to design scents with measurable emotional, cognitive and physical benefits so our perfumers now draw on vast datasets and a best-in-class ingredient palette to create fragrances that do more than smell beautiful — they are engineered to enhance mood, focus and wellbeing.

In a culture increasingly attuned to the societal detriments on mental health, scent is emerging as one of the most elegant and immediate ways to influence how we feel.

Each of our active ingredients has been chosen for a specific therapeutic effect in the following categories:

COGNTIVE BENEFITS
Mindfulness, Self Esteem, Memory, Attention

EMOTIONAL BENEFITS
Happiness, Seduction, Relaxation, Energy

ATARATMA PERFUMES

By integrating this cutting-edge research with time-honoured Ayurvedic principles, we are able to create transformative perfumes that are both intuitive and evidence-based. 

Each fragrance in our collection is composed with active scents for their mood-enhancing properties, harnessing the power of nature and the precision of science to support emotional wellbeing through scent.

We don't want to dictate how they will make you feel, we are all unique, with unique cultural, environmental and sensory idiosyncrasies and desires, so explore our nine exceptional perfumes to discover how they make you feel.

Created by master perfumers, in four intentional collections based on Happiness (Ananda Collection), Seduction (Kama Collection), Empowerment (Zakra Collection) and Spiritual Balance (Atma Collection). 

IN MORE DEPTH...

We work with a partner called IFF to develop our perfumes not only because of their exceptional perfumers such as Paul Guerlain, Nelly Hachem-Ruiz and Fanny Bal, but also because of their pioneering expertise in the olfactory Science of Wellness. If you would like to find out more, you can watch the video below. If you have any further questions on this please contact our team namaste@ataratma.com.