When I get stressed, I remember why I fell in love with home fragrances to begin with — a gorgeous floral candle, a cleansing sea salt bath soak, or a refreshing citrus or woodsy room diffuser can serve to lift my spirits and help me regain perspective when I return to my apartment after a long and dispiriting day. In fact, I barely consider these items extravagant as they cost less, and last far longer than, say, a massage or a visit to an aromatherapist. This is especially true when you come across a neat little product like Aura Cacia’s Aromatherapy shower tablets.
I stumbled across this product in the local organic supermarket the other day. Available in lavender, eucalyptus and peppermint, the idea is simple: to put a little water-soluble tablet on the shower floor which will release its essential oils when hit by the warm water, thereby giving you an aromatherapeutic shower. If, like me, you have tried to accomplish this yourself by dropping neat oils onto the shower floor while showering, you already know that the effect doesn’t last as the oils wash down the drain almost immediately. This tablet solves that problem by dissolving slowly throughout the duration of your shower…
The first and only time I went to Italy I was sixteen, and on a six-week trip of Europe with a large group of girls who had fundraised for the trip through Girl Guides (Scouts). Using the blitzkrieg method of Old World sightseeing favored by many generations of North American young people, we “did” Italy by spending a day-and-a-half in Venice. It was high summer and with the callousness of youth, I wrote Venice off with a few lines in my travel diary: “It’s like a museum covered in pigeon poop. The canals smell of sewage, and there is a haze hanging over the water. No oilies as of yet.” This last bit was because our uniforms apparently made us look like an enormous gaggle of young stewardesses and so we attracted camps of hopeful, slick fellows most places we went. Despite their absence in Venice, I came away with an impression of the place that might have turned me into the sort of traveler who 
