The Essenza Lake Como Philosophy
Why a Daily Scented Ritual Can Be Good for You
Smartphones, emails, notifications, social media and continuous work are making it ever harder to interrupt the flow of stimuli. The Porro Method starts from a different question: can a daily scented ritual give us back a few minutes of presence, decompression and self-care?
The exhaustion of always being reachable
The phone is often one of the last objects we look at in the evening and one of the first we reach for in the morning. A message, an email, a notification, Instagram, YouTube, a work chat: the contemporary day is crossed by an almost continuous sequence of demands on our attention.
We are not simply connected. We have become reachable. And the possibility of being reached at any moment can easily turn into the feeling of having to be available at any moment.
It is in this space that Essenza Lago di Como places its idea of the daily ritual: not an escape from reality, but a small sensory boundary between what the world keeps asking of us and the time we choose to give back to ourselves.
Digital stress
Work ends. Availability, often, does not.
Occupational psychology uses the term workplace telepressure to describe the preoccupation with, and urge to respond quickly to, digital work communications.
The message arrives outside working hours. We are not obliged to reply, but the mere fact that it has arrived can keep part of the mind still inside work.
Notifications
Experimental research shows that a notification can interfere with an attention task even when we do not interact directly with the phone.
Availability
Being always contactable makes the boundary between work and private life more permeable and can make decompression harder.
The invisible cost
Attention is not infinite
Notifications last a few seconds, but they continuously ask the mind to orient itself: should I look? should I reply? can I ignore it?
The study by Stothart, Mitchum and Yehnert observed that phone notifications, even without interaction with the device, can impair performance in tasks requiring attention.
The point is not to demonise the smartphone. Technology has made possible connections, freedoms and forms of work previously unthinkable.
The point is to recover the possibility of choosing when to interrupt the stimuli.
Silence is not an absence of activity. It can be a space in which attention becomes available again.
"True contemporary luxury may be a few minutes in which nobody asks anything of us."Essenza Lago di Como
Social media and performance
When even free time becomes something to prove
Instagram, YouTube and the other social platforms can create connection, information, entertainment and community. They are not, in themselves, a problem.
But problematic social media use has become a growing theme in research on mental wellbeing. WHO reported that, in the European HBSC sample, the proportion of adolescents classified as problematic social media users rose from 7% in 2018 to 11% in 2022.
Continuous comparison can also turn part of daily life into a visible performance: work, the body, the home, travel, relationships and even rest.
We do not always simply feel that we are living. Sometimes we feel we have to show that we are living well enough.
Scientific research does not allow depression or anxiety to be reduced to a single cause such as social media use. The relationships are complex and multidimensional. The relevant point is recognising when technology stops being a tool and begins to occupy spaces we would like to protect.
A cross-cutting problem
Men and women facing the same fatigue
Digital stress does not belong to a single generation or a single lifestyle.
Young workers who begin the day checking emails and messages, spend many hours in front of a screen and struggle to identify the moment when the working day has truly ended.
Professionals and managers who live in a culture of immediate response, efficiency and continuous availability, often during personal time too.
Men and women who, even outside work, keep receiving stimuli, comparing themselves with images, content and other people's lives, and feeling the pressure to be visible.
The shared need is not necessarily to do more in order to feel better. It may be learning to build small moments in which to do less.
Porro Method
The skin gives the reason. The ritual creates the time.
In the family tradition that Essenza Lago di Como places at the base of its philosophy, Virginia Porro passes on an essential principle: knowledge has value when it can be used to do good.
Giovanni Porro takes up this inheritance and interprets it through scientific culture, botany, officinal herbs, cosmetic research and fragrance.
From here comes one of the insights that define the Porro Method: using a gesture many people perform anyway, that of skincare, to protect a moment devoted to the person as well.
The beauty of the skin therefore becomes the entry point. But around the gesture a second dimension is built: time, touch, aroma and presence.
The skin gives the reason.
The ritual creates the time.
The aroma gives that time a sensory identity.
Skincare, botany, smell and gesture become parts of the same daily ritual.
"No longer beauty against time. Beauty as time given back."Porro Method · Essenza Lago di Como
Why fragrance
Smell as the language of memory and emotion
Smell has a particular relationship with the systems involved in memory and emotional processing. This is why a fragrance can become a strongly recognisable sensory signal.
Recognise
A familiar aroma can become part of the identity of a given moment: the morning, coming home, the evening or the ritual before rest.
Repeat
Repeating the gesture can build a recognisable routine and create a threshold between different activities of the day.
Associate
Texture, touch, setting and fragrance can together contribute to the sensory quality of a moment devoted to yourself.
The literature on aromatherapy shows promising results in some contexts of stress and anxiety, but the evidence is heterogeneous. Essenza Lago di Como does not present its cosmetics or fragrances as treatments for psychological disorders.
Officinal herbs, flowers, citrus fruits and woods define the olfactory language of the Essenza rituals.
Larian botany
Aroma is not decoration. It is part of the ritual.
Sage, aromatic herbs, citrus fruits, jasmine, flowers and woods belong to the botanical imagination through which Essenza interprets the territory of Lake Como.
In the Porro Method, fragrance is not treated merely as an aesthetic detail. It is part of the sensory identity of the gesture.
A texture can be associated with the morning. A more enveloping aroma with the evening. A luminous fragrance with a moment of energy. A quieter composition with the passage towards decompression.
This does not mean attributing a pharmacological effect on mood to a cream. It means designing rituals that are sensorially coherent with the moment of the day.
Four moments
A day can have different thresholds
The Porro Method interprets the ritual not only according to what the skin may need, but also according to the passage the person is living.
Before the emails, the chats and the cascade of information, the ritual can be a first intentional gesture: beginning the day by choosing, instead of beginning it by reacting.
A short, voluntary pause, with no feed, no notifications and no new information to process, can represent a form of conscious interruption.
Closing the laptop does not always coincide with the psychological end of the working day. A ritual can become a simple signal: this part of the day is over.
The evening can ask for less: less light, fewer notifications, less comparison, less performance. A slow skincare gesture, a candle or a home fragrance can accompany this passage.
The real innovation
It is not putting fragrance into a cream
Scented cosmetics have existed for a long time. The difference, in the Essenza philosophy, is the design intention.
Skincare, artistic perfumery, botanical aromas, home fragrance, gesture and time are not considered independent categories.
They are parts of a system in which the cosmetic result remains important, but around it a second architecture is built: a moment in which the person can temporarily stop performing.
This is the dimension Essenza Lago di Como defines through concepts such as inner balance, emotional wellbeing, slow living, mindful beauty, sensory skincare and scented rituals.
"In a society continuously competing for our attention, caring for yourself without looking at a screen can become an act of freedom."The Lake Como Philosophy
A fundamental distinction
Self-care does not mean therapy
Depression, anxiety disorders and burnout are conditions that may require professional assessment and intervention.
A cream does not cure depression. A fragrance does not replace a doctor or a psychologist. A cosmetic ritual is not a medical treatment.
Essenza therefore uses the word care in its everyday sense of taking care: of your time, your skin, your attention, your home and the possibility of not being continuously available.
The revolution Essenza wants to bring to cosmetics is not therapeutic. It is cultural: giving dignity and value back to the small daily moments devoted to the person.
Scientific evidence
What we know, and what we do not
Barber and Santuzzi described workplace telepressure as a psychological pressure to respond quickly to digital work communications and studied it in relation to worker recovery.
Stothart, Mitchum and Yehnert observed that simply receiving mobile phone notifications can disrupt performance in attention tasks even without direct interaction with the device.
WHO Europe reported an increase in problematic social media use among adolescents, from 7% in 2018 to 11% in 2022. WHO simultaneously stresses that healthy social media use can offer connection and support.
Scientific reviews of aromatherapy have identified promising results in some contexts of stress and anxiety, but the quality and heterogeneity of the studies do not allow aromas to be interpreted as clinical treatments.
Essential bibliography
Scientific sources
Barber LK, Santuzzi AM. Please Respond ASAP: Workplace Telepressure and Employee Recovery. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. 2015;20(2):172–189. PMID: 25365629.
Stothart C, Mitchum A, Yehnert C. The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 2015;41(4):893–897. PMID: 26121498.
World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. Teens, screens and mental health. 25 September 2024.
Hur MH et al. Aromatherapy for stress reduction in healthy adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.
The available literature suggests possible effects on stress in some contexts, but requires interpretative caution and further high-quality studies.
Frequently asked questions
Ritual, fragrance and digital wellbeing
What is digital stress?
Digital stress describes the psychological load that can arise from notifications, continuous communication, availability, information overload and difficulty separating work from personal life.
What is workplace telepressure?
It is the preoccupation with, and urge to respond quickly to, work messages and emails, even when there is no need to do so immediately.
Can a scented ritual reduce stress?
A ritual can offer an intentional moment of pause, decompression and attention to yourself. It should not, however, be considered a treatment for pathological stress, anxiety, depression or burnout.
Why does Essenza use botanical aromas in its rituals?
Botanical aromas contribute to the sensory identity of the Essenza rituals. Their role is to accompany the cosmetic and olfactory gesture with a language coherent with the different moments of the day.
What is the Porro Method?
The Porro Method is the philosophy with which Essenza Lago di Como relates skincare, perfumery, botany, gesture, time and daily wellbeing.
Does Essenza treat depression or anxiety?
No. Essenza products are cosmetics, fragrances and home products. They are not treatments for psychological disorders and do not replace medical or psychological care.
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Artistic perfumery, the Porro Method, botanical aromas and the rituals of Lake Como.
The Essenza Lake Como Philosophy
You don't have to be always reachable.
You don't have to reply now. You don't have to show this moment. You don't have to photograph it. You don't have to post it.
For a few minutes you can simply live it.
Skin.
Aroma.
Time.
Silence.
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