Makes Scents to Me...
Life's little luxuries are choices well made. Let's chat fragrance and memory.
Hello!
The weather here in Southwest Missouri is frigid cold, snow and ice on the ground, and school is out of session. It makes getting out after 5 pm an almost impossible task. However, my word of the year is “choose wisely,” and sometimes that means ignoring the black ice and below-freezing temperatures, driving to a friend’s for champagne and charcuterie, and doing a perfume sampling night.
I don’t know if this is a ‘thing’, like a wine-tasting party or an Oscar night party, but for a perfume enthusiast like me, it was a dream come true. I brought my favorite ‘signature scent,’ plus a vintage bottle of violet perfume from my Grandma and some day-to-day sandalwood scented oil (affiliate link). We sampled eight different La Perla perfumes and explored a seasonal subscription-based fragrance.
Scent is a powerful tool. I don’t love the smell of cigarette smoke indoors, but in the right conditions, like outside in a park setting, I’m immediately transported back to Paris picnic. Hot melting asphalt smells like childhood summers in Georgia. And a damp basement makes me want to breathe in so deeply because of the association of a childhood bff (I won’t breathe in deeply around mold, promise!). So if these potentially offputting scents can bring back such joyful memories, what do beautiful scents do to us?
I’ve started a chat on the Substack app asking about it, so feel free to chime in. I’d love to hear what some of your favorite scents are. For paid subscribers, I’ve got some “Latest Crazes” to go down the perfume rabbit hole, plus a download of a watercolor painting I did of a bottle of Coco Mademoiselle (it was a commission, and due to copyright, I never post it anywhere…but I won’t lie when I say it’s one of my favorite pieces I’ve made!).
So on that (top) note…smell ya later!
Nicole C.