The terms aromatherapy and essential oils appear on almost every bath and skin-care label these days, so it's easy to take them for granted. What a revelation, then, to open Geraldine Howard's 100-percent pure oils: the wafts of, say, frankincense seem as transporting as a trip to a Syrian spice market, or the heady rose to some centuries-old English garden in June.

Howard, who runs London-based, world-renowned Aromatherapy Associates, likens it to trying a really good Chardonnay after years of guzzling plonk. Then, as she sits in the Absolute Spa at the Century, part of the local chain that will purvey her products for the first time in Vancouver, she comes up with another simile. "It's like ripe and unripe tomatoes: you know the difference when you've suddenly had one straight out of the garden, but if you've never tasted one, you don't know," she says, her icy-blond crop and upper-crust English accent giving her a slight resemblance to the Lady Di.

Aromatherapy Associates, a company practically credited with bringing this fragrant trend to the English-speaking world, makes a point of reminding people that despite what labels say, not all natural scents are created equally. The company distills its highly concentrated extracts from carefully chosen plants into concoctions with no pesticides or synthetic colour and preservatives. "When a label says something is a 100-percent pure oil, what it could be is, for instance, a combination of rosemary and eucalyptus, because eucalyptus is cheaper. There's lots of that kind of thing happening," Howard says. "The problem has become that people use these kinds of products and say, 'I don't think this really worked' and become disillusioned with aromatherapy."

Hers are not the essential-oil products you buy at your local tie-dye/granola shop, and they don't look like them either. Packaged in sleek designer-fragrance-style bottles or boxes and tubes in fashion hues of periwinkle, turquoise, black, and hot pink, these are meant to make aromatherapy cool and sophisticated--and to be sold at some of the world's chicest spas. "I hate the word holistic; that takes us back to that whole sandal brigade," Howard says.

When Howard got into the business 30 years ago, aromatherapy was not even a known term. She had started her career studying science but couldn't stand the clinical, sterile environment of those studies, so she ventured into cosmetic development. "That's when I met probably the only aromatherapist in London, who was French, and she took me off to this college in France," Howard recalls of her training under pioneers Micheline Arcier. "I had never heard of essential oils and there were no books on it in English, only in French. People thought it was completely crackpot. When I told them what I did, they'd say, 'Aroma-what?' "

Throughout the '80s, Howard taught aromatherapy at the U.K.'s exclusive Champneys spa chain's college. She also became a founding member of the International Federation of Aromatherapists.

By 1985, she and business partner Sue Beechey had begun Aromatherapy Associates to develop treatments and then take-home products to sell around the world. AA sources its plants from all over the globe. Take the soothing lavender oil, one of the line's most important scents: "We go to France to get that, because we think it still grows the best lavender. We'll probably test about 40 different kinds each season to find the best," she explains. Not all lavender oils have this kind of quality, she insists. "It's important to know, when they distill lavender, is it from one source or are they buying the drag ends of lavender from all over the world, which is much cheaper?"

Howard and Beechey have organized one end of their products--bath and shower oils, candles, home fragrances, muscle gels--by the function of the base extracts. The De-Stress line is meant to relax a person without making him or her drowsy. "The classic ingredient is frankincense: it's like blowing fresh air through the mind," she enthuses.

That's not the case with the unwinding Relax collection. The line's top seller (and recently ranked 10 out of 10 by a London Times feature on aromatherapy products) is the Deep Relax Bath Oil with vetivert and camomile. "We nickname it 'the knockout drops'." Other categories are the citrus-based Revive energizers and the Rescue group aimed at hormonal balancing, with lavender for headaches.

Aromatherapy Associates is also expanding its skin-care lines, with face products that have healthy doses of rejuvenating primrose oil or moisturizing rose-hip-seed oil. .

The prices reflect the quality of the plant extracts but are no more than that special vintage of wine. A 10-millilitre bottle of rose serum is about $30, a 200-millilitre shower wash is about $48, and a 55-millilitre shower oil is about $68. (The good news is you only need tiny amounts.)

It's telling that this pioneer in the field is still so convinced of the restorative powers of essential oils after this many decades in the business. She's come a long way since the days of "aroma-what?". "I cannot imagine life without them," says Howard. "I think it's that you don't just get the physical benefits, you get the emotional lift as well. One helps you sleep; another helps you relax--there are always these lovely little bonuses."