As someone with fragrance allergies, I'd love to see more on this topic. For a while "fragrance free spaces" were a thing, and now I'm just glad covid normalized wearing masks in crowded public spaces.
I live with fragrance allergies and work in fragrance free spaces so my nose isn’t used to anything scented anymore. I’ve been untrained to handle fragrances!
I’m sorta baffled by the question. Why does a perfume have “to define the “self” and differentiate it as unique”? Isn’t that too much to expect from a perfume? Can’t we just wear a scent because it smells good? Not even because it makes us smell good, just because IT smells good and it’s nice to smell something good once in a while? Why does everything we consume have to be transformative? Why do we need to rationalize every purchase to death to make it make sense? Just wear a perfume you like because you like it, it doesn’t have to define who you are or do anything more for you than just smell good!
That said, I love your connection between life and scent. My mom saw a cadaver be perfumed when she was younger (it’s an Islamic tradition), and since then she decided to wear perfume everyday because she doesn’t want to wait to be dead to experience that. “You should smell good while you’re alive” is one of her mantras (another is “you should eat whatever you want while you’re healthy and wealthy enough!” But that’s another story!)
I LOVE the suggestion of instead of trying to chase a sensation, actually experience that sensation. For example, I’m forever obsessed with scents that claim to have desert notes but I never buy them because I live in the desert and I love the desert so much and I put my hands in the desert as I garden and tend the land. Nothing smells like the high desert early morning after a rare rain. You cannot bottle it and why try? I don’t actually spend much money or time on perfume, once I find one, I tend to go with I’m going to stay with it for years. I’m more interested in lotions and body oils but not obsessively so. Rather, I am dedicated to creating relationship with the plants whose scents speak to me through growing or visiting them and am always interested in herbalism-based lines. LVNEA has an apothecary of plant-based perfumes that are gorgeous and unique.
A few random things to ponder: scent is made of vibration and the scents of plants and flowers are specifically meant to communicate to pollinators and other beings in their ecosystem. I think about how scent IS a form of communication, so I guess be intentional and interrogate what you’re attempting to communicate with your fragrance. Scent also carries memory and cultural history, I’m thinking of Bengali perfumer Tanaïs’ wonderful memoir, IN SENSORIUM, as well as their own line of scents. I’m thinking of my own indigenous ancestry that I can often only access through plants such as palo santo, which I burn to cleanse and protect my home and honor the ancestors. I think of the lives I might have lived before that brings me to certain scents again and again.
It’s so much more to explore than capitalism wants us to believe and buy. I hope this inspires someone to go on a scent journey beyond the latest trendy scent because you’ll discover so much about yourself!
Many years ago, I heard a radio interview with Penelope Cruz where she said that she bought a new perfume for each new role she was inhabiting. Ever since, I’ve thought of fragrance as a way to capture a certain period in my life, for when I want to remember it later
Yes!! As someone with MS/near-constant brain fog, scent is SO powerful as a retriever of memory for me. I love scent—perfume, tomato leaves, pencil shavings, tea olive plants, compost bins. I feel deeply grounded to the world through scent, and certain scents really transport me.
LOVED this piece. i’m a huge perfume lover, and for me fragrance is about expressing myself in ways that aren’t dictated by trends. I know what notes *I* like, and I don’t buy celebrity perfumes. perfume also doesn’t give me body dysmorphia the same way the “beauty” industry at large does. it can also be a relatively affordable hobby since samples are so inexpensive.
This is so interesting...I have seen this rise in commentary around fragrances in online spaces for sure. And I've seen those TikToks the asker is referencing. I love fragrance and always have, so I don't overthink my relationship to loving perfume that much. I think witnessing other peoples' seemingly formulated (ha!) relationships to fragrances reminds me of other peoples' seemingly formulated relationships to music. There's a lot of "I want to get into [insert artist name]" and "I've been meaning to listen to [insert artist name] but I heard a few songs and I wasn't connecting," and "I wish I liked [insert artists name] I'm gonna keep listening til I get it." What's going on fr? Why do you need to "get into" an artist? Maybe you don't like them! Maybe you're not in a place where you want to listen to much new music! That's cool! That's fine! I think it often illustrates wanting to *be* the *kind of person* they think listens to that artist. Similarly with perfumes. Wearers want to be assume an identity of the kind of person they think wears that perfume. And to that I say: maybe a lot of these people should test out being fiction writers! Lmao and I'm so serious! There's so much character building. Try out a short story of this persona you imagine wearing this perfume instead of trying to contort yourself into that person. All that to say, I fucking loovveee perfume and I am enamored with the relationship between scent and time. I find it very Godly, truly! And I always have anxiety about stinking! So me and perfumes go together real bad!!!! A scent I am really loving right now is Saffron Flour by Universal Flowering <3 <3 <3 Thanks for this informative and fun piece to start my Monday off.
I have raged for years about artificial scents. I want my house and my clothes to smell like NOTHING. All those ads for Gain and Downy and Febreeze… please just STOP.
There are scents that hit me with nostalgia - graham crackers and old books and Easter ham in the oven… but by and large, I only want a smell if it comes naturally from the thing producing it. I think the only smell I have appreciated coming back in recent years is vanilla musk. It’s soft and slightly sweet but deeper than that. Earthy. Beyond that, no smells please.
My MIL gave us some scented garbage bags one year and I had to hold my breath every time I used one. The smell was awful - so incredibly plastic and fake. Same with Bath & Body Works or Yankee Candle. Bleugh!
As an CranioSacral Therapist for 24 years + aromatherapist trained by EU instructors: French, UK & German I'm very conscious of the powerful sense of smell and how it unlocks emotions from the limbic system- where the olfactory bulb resides. I surround myself in ever more scarce natural scents. I shower with tea tree and mint gel, prepare my own after-shower oils, mists to spray my mattress on sheet changing day. I add geranium or lavender essential oils to wool dryer balls. I light Bhutanese Nado Phozonkiang natural Himalayan herbs and flower incense.
I can't stand chemical or artificially scented anything. So I use Ffern delicious seasonal concoctions. Now using Spring with Rhubarb and Grapefruit. And Sophia Mattias oils.
Jessica-- I'm curious if you've heard of a haircare brand called Inner Sense? You probably have but just in case you haven't, I think you'd find their very intense self care marketing and packaging interesting
As someone with fragrance allergies, I'd love to see more on this topic. For a while "fragrance free spaces" were a thing, and now I'm just glad covid normalized wearing masks in crowded public spaces.
I live with fragrance allergies and work in fragrance free spaces so my nose isn’t used to anything scented anymore. I’ve been untrained to handle fragrances!
I’m sorta baffled by the question. Why does a perfume have “to define the “self” and differentiate it as unique”? Isn’t that too much to expect from a perfume? Can’t we just wear a scent because it smells good? Not even because it makes us smell good, just because IT smells good and it’s nice to smell something good once in a while? Why does everything we consume have to be transformative? Why do we need to rationalize every purchase to death to make it make sense? Just wear a perfume you like because you like it, it doesn’t have to define who you are or do anything more for you than just smell good!
That said, I love your connection between life and scent. My mom saw a cadaver be perfumed when she was younger (it’s an Islamic tradition), and since then she decided to wear perfume everyday because she doesn’t want to wait to be dead to experience that. “You should smell good while you’re alive” is one of her mantras (another is “you should eat whatever you want while you’re healthy and wealthy enough!” But that’s another story!)
The Prophet (PBUH) loved perfume! I love that your mother made this choice, it feels very life-forward.
I LOVE the suggestion of instead of trying to chase a sensation, actually experience that sensation. For example, I’m forever obsessed with scents that claim to have desert notes but I never buy them because I live in the desert and I love the desert so much and I put my hands in the desert as I garden and tend the land. Nothing smells like the high desert early morning after a rare rain. You cannot bottle it and why try? I don’t actually spend much money or time on perfume, once I find one, I tend to go with I’m going to stay with it for years. I’m more interested in lotions and body oils but not obsessively so. Rather, I am dedicated to creating relationship with the plants whose scents speak to me through growing or visiting them and am always interested in herbalism-based lines. LVNEA has an apothecary of plant-based perfumes that are gorgeous and unique.
A few random things to ponder: scent is made of vibration and the scents of plants and flowers are specifically meant to communicate to pollinators and other beings in their ecosystem. I think about how scent IS a form of communication, so I guess be intentional and interrogate what you’re attempting to communicate with your fragrance. Scent also carries memory and cultural history, I’m thinking of Bengali perfumer Tanaïs’ wonderful memoir, IN SENSORIUM, as well as their own line of scents. I’m thinking of my own indigenous ancestry that I can often only access through plants such as palo santo, which I burn to cleanse and protect my home and honor the ancestors. I think of the lives I might have lived before that brings me to certain scents again and again.
It’s so much more to explore than capitalism wants us to believe and buy. I hope this inspires someone to go on a scent journey beyond the latest trendy scent because you’ll discover so much about yourself!
Many years ago, I heard a radio interview with Penelope Cruz where she said that she bought a new perfume for each new role she was inhabiting. Ever since, I’ve thought of fragrance as a way to capture a certain period in my life, for when I want to remember it later
Yes!! As someone with MS/near-constant brain fog, scent is SO powerful as a retriever of memory for me. I love scent—perfume, tomato leaves, pencil shavings, tea olive plants, compost bins. I feel deeply grounded to the world through scent, and certain scents really transport me.
LOVED this piece. i’m a huge perfume lover, and for me fragrance is about expressing myself in ways that aren’t dictated by trends. I know what notes *I* like, and I don’t buy celebrity perfumes. perfume also doesn’t give me body dysmorphia the same way the “beauty” industry at large does. it can also be a relatively affordable hobby since samples are so inexpensive.
This is so interesting...I have seen this rise in commentary around fragrances in online spaces for sure. And I've seen those TikToks the asker is referencing. I love fragrance and always have, so I don't overthink my relationship to loving perfume that much. I think witnessing other peoples' seemingly formulated (ha!) relationships to fragrances reminds me of other peoples' seemingly formulated relationships to music. There's a lot of "I want to get into [insert artist name]" and "I've been meaning to listen to [insert artist name] but I heard a few songs and I wasn't connecting," and "I wish I liked [insert artists name] I'm gonna keep listening til I get it." What's going on fr? Why do you need to "get into" an artist? Maybe you don't like them! Maybe you're not in a place where you want to listen to much new music! That's cool! That's fine! I think it often illustrates wanting to *be* the *kind of person* they think listens to that artist. Similarly with perfumes. Wearers want to be assume an identity of the kind of person they think wears that perfume. And to that I say: maybe a lot of these people should test out being fiction writers! Lmao and I'm so serious! There's so much character building. Try out a short story of this persona you imagine wearing this perfume instead of trying to contort yourself into that person. All that to say, I fucking loovveee perfume and I am enamored with the relationship between scent and time. I find it very Godly, truly! And I always have anxiety about stinking! So me and perfumes go together real bad!!!! A scent I am really loving right now is Saffron Flour by Universal Flowering <3 <3 <3 Thanks for this informative and fun piece to start my Monday off.
I have raged for years about artificial scents. I want my house and my clothes to smell like NOTHING. All those ads for Gain and Downy and Febreeze… please just STOP.
There are scents that hit me with nostalgia - graham crackers and old books and Easter ham in the oven… but by and large, I only want a smell if it comes naturally from the thing producing it. I think the only smell I have appreciated coming back in recent years is vanilla musk. It’s soft and slightly sweet but deeper than that. Earthy. Beyond that, no smells please.
they advertise on "smelling clean" but if something is clean... it has no scent!!!
EXACTLY!!!!!
My MIL gave us some scented garbage bags one year and I had to hold my breath every time I used one. The smell was awful - so incredibly plastic and fake. Same with Bath & Body Works or Yankee Candle. Bleugh!
I bought those once by accident, and guilted myself into using them. BLARG.
Also guilted with the garbage bags. MIL guilt can be strong - haha!
Throwing up into a scented trash bag was one of my least favorite scent experiences.
I love the suggestion to approach what we want directly instead of smelling like we are getting what we want.
As an CranioSacral Therapist for 24 years + aromatherapist trained by EU instructors: French, UK & German I'm very conscious of the powerful sense of smell and how it unlocks emotions from the limbic system- where the olfactory bulb resides. I surround myself in ever more scarce natural scents. I shower with tea tree and mint gel, prepare my own after-shower oils, mists to spray my mattress on sheet changing day. I add geranium or lavender essential oils to wool dryer balls. I light Bhutanese Nado Phozonkiang natural Himalayan herbs and flower incense.
I can't stand chemical or artificially scented anything. So I use Ffern delicious seasonal concoctions. Now using Spring with Rhubarb and Grapefruit. And Sophia Mattias oils.
*a CST
Jessica-- I'm curious if you've heard of a haircare brand called Inner Sense? You probably have but just in case you haven't, I think you'd find their very intense self care marketing and packaging interesting
Yes, I second this!
I like how you plumbed the depths on this one. It is full of original thinking and made me think of this story by Shelia Heti. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/my-life-is-a-joke