A Scent-sual Holiday

Scent is such a powerful sense. It takes you back to a time or place with so much detail and dusted off memories within seconds. Scent can turn heads or turn up noses. The world of fragrance is ancient but keeps growing and becoming more refined. There are perfume brands that have been around for centuries and then there is the trend of every brand and celebrity creating a scent of their own. Now you can find old scents that are new again, or scents from parts of the world that we never had access to or interest in are now more easily available. Wearing perfume and eau de toilettes seem to go in and out of fashion. I feel just like with coffee or wine, people are diving deeper into fragrance and getting to know accords, and base notes, and what they like and what works for their body chemistry. This year, explore scents for the holidays. Gift yourself a new eau de toilette or buy your friend a candle or counter spray (yes they have some really nice ones now) that you know he will love. Upgrade your love’s morning routine with a new daily scent or buy something special for date night to wear for her.. him..them.

Scent Starting Points

The world of perfume and scents can be overwhelming, but with the right resources it can be fun and more easily navigable. When it comes to home fragrances, for something inexpensive like a counter spray or scented reeds, you can go on gut intuition in picking a fragrance and if it isn’t for you, then pass it along on a Buy Nothing group, Freecycle or find a friend who love it. For more expensive home items or perfumes, it is a bigger commitment and you want to do a little research first. For home fragrances I have a few favourite brands that I like and I stick with them. For perfumes, eau de toilette, and cologne there are site and apps for that. A few sites to check out are: Parfumo, Fragrantica, and Base Notes. If you would prefer an app on your phone to scroll while you’re in the grocery store check out line or waiting to mail a package at the post office, then check out the Perfumist app.

Fragrance For Home

These are a splurge, but I love the scents and I am very sensitive to scent and not very tolerant of strong or harsh products. I discovered Alora Ambiance at Barneys NY and have been purchasing their reeds ever since. When you are first discovering a products line of fragrances, I find it helpful to get some samples. They Alora Ambiance site also has a quiz, which I just took, and three of my favourite scents were selected based on the quiz so I would say it is fairly effective. As I mentioned, I am super sensitive to scent and that includes unpleasant ones. What I love about the Alora Ambiance sample pack is that it is $50 well spent because they come in handy to keep in every bag or purse, your car, your bedside table, for when you just need to refresh the air around you for whatever reason. I have taken them on trains and when someone has had an especially strong meal, I spritz a tiny amount and it makes the rest of the trip so much more pleasant.

When it comes to dish soap, counter spray and hand soap, I love the scents that Stonewall Kitchen creates (although it seems they may no longer sell their own dish soap) I find the soaps and sprays at Roche Brothers locally, but many stores carry their products. One of my favourite winter scents is their Ski Lodge scent which is reminiscent of sitting by a large stone fireplace warming up and inhaling that nice wood smoke aroma.

Le Labo became a favourite of mine not through their perfumes initially (which would be the logical introduction) but I first discovered them through their collaboration with The Laundress for some of my favourite laundry scents.

Fire and Fumes

I realise that fire calms me quite a bit, if I am having a rough day or I need a little re-set, then I will light some incense or candles. At the dinner table, I think the candles should always be unscented, but if you are working in your office or reading in your bedroom or the den, then a little scent is nice. For scented candles, I abhor Yankee Candle. I can’t even walk by a store without feeling ill. I do like a lot of the scents that the Kringle Candle Company make, we used to stop at the store on our way to Mass MOCA in North Adams. I stay away from the vanilla and food and drink scented candles because those are too similar to ones I do not like, but I love the clean scented ones and one of my favourites is the Cognac and leather candle when I’m done cooking and I want to fill the air with more of an after meal scent. Another brand that makes very nicely scented candles, reeds and perfumes and is also local is Farm + Sea. Vessel Candle Co. also makes cute jarred candles with really nice scents. Carrière Frères, out of Paris also has some really nice scent options. What I like about their candles is that you can get the scented candles as tapers which look pretty and it is nice to burn them and use your own candlesticks.

I started buying incense in high school in college. They were always in stick form and had a choice of one or two scents. More recently, I have fallen in love with a couple Japanese incense brands. I love the Hibi incense and you can find them locally at Boston General Store. I also love the Kokoro incense and the APFR incense that you can get at CIBONE O’TE in Brooklyn.

You Smell Like Someone I Want To Know

Choosing a scent for yourself is an exercise in vulnerability. A fragrance can be suggestive, or sweet. It can be subtle or a statement. Not dissimilar to your wardrobe but completely invisible. Unlike home fragrances perfumes are also a bit of a chemistry experiment. How a perfume smells on me is always completely different than how it smells on my good friend who has been into perfume since she was in her early teens. I learn a lot from her, but until I try something on myself I can’t know if I will like it. It is easy to start by eliminating scents you don’t like for yourself. I shy away from strong florals and anything vanilla. I was recently sent a few eau de parfums to try out one from Le Labo which I know quite well now, one from FRAMA and a third from L’OBJET.

L’OBJET’s Blindfold has an innocence to it despite the implied situation. It was made in collaboration with master perfumer Yann Vasnier. While I don’t love vanilla in scents, I am okay with tonka bean. Blindfold’s olfactory family is: wood, powdery, musk. The top notes are:saffron, tobacco, and gardenia milk. The heart notes are: suede, sandalwood, patchouli, and cedarwood atlas. And, the base notes are: musk, animalic notes, tonka bean and amber. The powdery aspect of the scent is what gives Blindfold its innocence to me. I think it would make a nice daily scent and it is a has a sense of closeness and warmth which is perfect for fall and winter. L’OBJET is aptly named as it is a little bit of many objects that are playful, interesting, and beautiful designed by Elad Yifrach. If incense is your thing, and you want something very playful and unique, then definitely take a look at the Haas Brothers incense burners. I am slightly obsessed with the whole Haas Brothers collection.

FRAMA is based in Copenhagen whose goal is to encourage mindful living through the products they design. When I initially sprayed Painted Desert, I found it a little too vegetal and overly bright, but it quickly evened out. It is such a unique perfume, unlike any I have tried before and I appreciate that about it. Painted Desert has keynotes of sage, frankincense, cedar and sandlwood. The aroma is a combination of soil and roots (which may be what comes off so strong initially) and it is earthy, dewy, bright and ever so slightly spicy. FRAMA’s discovery set includes six scents and is $30 which is a great starting point.

Le Labo’s Thé Noir 29 has a classic aroma with undertones that fit it’s nomenclature. I have an excessively large collection of teas, and I love a black tea. Thé Noir has a nice undertone of when you open the tin to one of your fanciest black teas and you linger with the scent. The key notes of Thé Noir 29 are bergamot, fig, and bay leaves with cedarwood, vetiver and musk.