Eau de Allston

What does Allston smell like to you? For some, it might be a combination of beer and burgers, or pool chalk and the inside of a guitar case, or maybe fresh-cut grass and soccer cleats. But for local aromatherapist Cher Kore, bottling Rock City's essence for her Allston Spice blend of essential oils is about the feelings she gets when she walks around the neighborhood.

''Allston is my home, and I wanted it to be spicy like Allston is, Allston's diverse community and all that," she explains. ''You have to put in allspice when you're talking Allston, and then there's clove, cinnamon, tangerine, because it balances out the spice and it's also very relaxing, balsam peru -- that has a strong vanilla hint -- and then nutmeg's the top note. It's really an intuitive thing."

Kore, 38, came up with Allston Spice and hundreds of other blends at the kitchen table of the Commonwealth Avenue condo that has been her home since 1988. It's also the headquarters of her one-woman company, Kameleon Healing, but it looks less like an office than, say, the city apartment of Glenda, the good witch from the ''Wizard of Oz": Hundreds of pink paper hearts, left over from Valentine's Day, line the walls and spill out onto the landing, mingled with artwork and photos of friends and relatives. Even on a gray afternoon recently, it's the perfect setting for Kore to turn a hobby from her childhood in Peabody into something for the wider world.

''When I grew up, there was a forest in my backyard. I'd take dried flowers and make sachets, or put them in the tub, and do things with pine needles, whatever I found," she recalls, explaining that her backyard foraging was the basis for her first grownup creation, a warming lotion made during a particularly cold winter. ''I bought clove, cinnamon, anise, and I made a chai body lotion. And I was walking to work from here to Kendall Square, and it kept me warm."

Incorporated on Halloween 2002, Kameleon Healing offers a range of products from massage oils and colognes to soaps and bath oils, all made in small batches from natural ingredients.

''If you look at the food industry, you see people looking at what they put in their bodies, [and saying] 'I don't want to put this chemical in my body.' So why should you want to put it on your body, and let it sink into your skin?" she asks. ''Like a chef, you've got to start with the best ingredients: The best chefs buy the fish that day, they buy the vegetables that day. With essential oils it's a little bit different. You don't buy it that day, the freshness maintains, but I buy in small batches, and then I keep maintaining the freshness."

A sample of that freshness is fairly inexpensive: $8 for a two-ounce bottle of massage oil -- enough to last most people a few months, she says--or a two-shot sample of bath salts for $3.50. Pre-made products can be ordered through her website or found at boutiques like the Hair Design Center and Ritual Arts in Allston, Condom World on Newbury Street, Grand Opening in Brookline, Hubba Hubba in Cambridge, and even Cathedral Crossing, an Episcopal bookstore downtown, for which Kore created a ''Bible blend." But the heart of her business, whether it's dreadlock oils or aphrodisiacs, is custom blends, put together after a consultation with customers on their needs and sensory preferences.

''I can make calming oils for everyone that's stressed, but it'll work better on you if it's personalized to what your body reacts well to," she says, adding that along with the customer input, she tests everything she makes on herself first. ''I like to make sure that I'm sending someone home with a good product that smells good and feels good."

It's a complex process, beginning with the customer smell-testing dozens of essential oils, all arranged into groups like citrus, floral, sweet, woody, and spice. Next, she measures out oils like sweet almond and hempseed for a base, then mixes them, drop by drop, fine-tuning until the right mix is achieved. Balancing rosewood with cinnamon leaf or valerian with basil in near-microscopic quantities might sound a little esoteric, but one former skeptic says it works.

''I'm definitely not a massage therapist or a New Age healer or anything like that -- I'm just a regular software engineer who has problems like every other guy," says 26-year-old Sam Headrick, Kore's neighbor, whose hands had paid the price for the relentless typing required in his line of work. Aspirin and arthritis medication had dulled the symptoms but not the cause, but Headrick says he was able to stop taking both after he started using a custom blend Kore had made for him. ''To my surprise, it worked quite well. I had more mobility in my fingers and wrists, and less pain."

Right now, Kore performs all of the jobs in her young company -- ''I'm the designer, I'm the mixer, I'm the maid, I'm the accountant" -- all packed in around her part-time job with local realtor Forest Properties and writing a twice-monthly Web column about aromatherapy. It's more than full-time work, but business knowledge learned at Simmons College and applied at various Boston-area companies has taught her that for things to grow properly, they need to be grown carefully. Eventually, she'd like to open a separate manufacturing center, for which she'll hire and train homeless people -- a step, she says, that's still a ways off, but that's all right.

''The reason why I'm doing this is because I love it, it's not really to make a lot of money," she says. ''All it takes is to be smart and persistent, and it might not happen this year, it might not happen next year, it might not happen for 10 years, but when it happens, I want to give back."

To learn more about Kameleon Healing, go to www.khealing.com. Will Kilburn can be reached at wkilburn@globe.com.