Forest Bathing Is What the World Needs Right Now—And You Can Do It at Home

“Instead of working for peace, men ought to be urged to relax. . . . Retire to the woods!” Henry Miller suggested in 1962. The genre-bending, earth-loving American writer was certainly not the first person to tout the pacifying and healing powers of spending time in the forest, but those experiencing political and emotional turmoil—the recent appointment of Stephen Bannon as Donald Trump’s chief White House strategist comes to mind—would do well to take his advice, if only for a few brief resetting moments. It seems we’ve already started.

Just last week, following her devastating presidential campaign defeat, Hillary Clinton was first spotted on a quiet trek through the fall foliage in Chappaqua. As of last month in downtown Brooklyn, the MetroTech Commons became home to a miniature forest of 4,000 live dawn redwood trees installed by eco-conceptual artist Spencer Finch. And earlier this fall, in Paris, participants entering a yoga class at the new cult destination Le Centre Élément in the Marais were invited to first spend three minutes breathing in an active ingredient derived from pine resin emitted from an oxygen machine called le Bol d’Air Jacquier, which claims to counteract the damaging effects of urban pollution on the body by improving the transport of oxygen to the cells. What the world seems to be after is called “forest bathing,” a Japanese term (Shinrin-yoku) for simply being in the forest—which, whatever the name, has a transformative effect on the nerves, mind, and spirit.

According to studies, a walk in the woods can reduce stress as well as boost the immune system. Increased access to nature has been tied to reduction in anxiety, depression, asthma, and even crime. Chemical changes and air pollution effects aside, in a world that is moving at ever-increasing speed, to be surrounded by trees that dare to simply stand still for thousands of years is, at the very least, perspective-shifting. What a relief to, for an hour at least, consider a life as simple as theirs. See if you are not quieted waking up beneath a canopy of redwoods, or reinvigorated when literally bathed in the cold mist falling from the branches of cypress in the Pacific Northwest, or mentally cleansed by the white noise formed when thickets of birch tree leafs rustle in the wind—a sound Percy Bysshe Shelley called “a secret correspondence with our heart.”

That something profound happens to us in the woods is not lost on today’s beauty brands, which are making forest bathing more accessible—and literal in meaning—than ever. Juniper Ridge’s Trail Soap is made from raw, naturally occurring materials sourced directly from the area each scent was named for—Big Sur, Mojave, and most recently Topanga Canyon—mixed in and sap-inspired products will bring the forest bathing to you. When warmed against your skin in the shower, it turns your bathroom into an olfactory mirror of its origin, lingering around your bathtub and sink long after you’ve turned off the water, but leaving only the slightest trace on the skin as not to compete with personal fragrance. There, too, you can borrow from the arbor, as with Régime des Fleurs’s latest launch, Falling Trees, an evocation of an East Coast autumn romp worthy of a former first lady turned presidential candidate. Captain Blankenship’s spruce-, pine-, and eucalyptus-spiked bath salt will summon your inner wood nymph, while each inhale of Hermès’s celadon candle will paint a mental picture of wet moss thriving beneath a thick canopy of leaves. When you can’t make it to the actual woods, these nine leaf-, bark-, and sap-inspired products will bring forest bathing home.

 

 

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