Aromatherapy, commonly associated with complementary and alternative medicine, is the use of essential oils and other aromatic compounds from plants to affect someone's mood or health. The word was coined in the 1920s by French chemist René Maurice Gattefossé. While pleasant scents can be relaxing, lowering stress and related effects, there is currently little scientific proof of the effectiveness of aromatherapy. Like many alternative therapies, few controlled, double-blind studies have been done, as there is little incentive if the results of the studies are not patentable. Some proponents of aromatherapy believe that the claimed effect of each type of oil is not caused by the chemicals in the oil interacting with the senses, but that the oil is contains a distillation of the life force of the plant from which it is derived that will balance the energies of the body and promote healing/wellbeing by purging negative vibrations from the body's energy field. Arguing that there is little scientific evidence that healing can be achieved, or that the claimed energies even exist, most scientists, health professionals and skeptics reject aromatherapy as pseudoscience or even quackery. I don't understand how people can waste good money on such nonsense.

Except for the obvious, that it is nicer to sniff a pleasant odour than a foul one, this has zero basis in reality.