I’m a day early posting this week, because I’m taking today off work! And The New York Times has a great article about scent, which asks: “What Does It Smell Like Where You Are?”, which I thought many of you would enjoy.
Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Thursday, October 15, and I have good news — my daughter, who caught COVID-19 a couple of weeks ago through her job as a teacher, has recovered and is out of isolation! The rest of us will still be in quarantine until Saturday, per the guidelines, but she can join us upstairs again instead of living separated in the basement level of our house. It’s pretty comfortable and has its own bathroom, but she was lonely no matter how much Facetime she did with us and her friends. She has lost most of her sense of taste and smell — that happened about a week into her illness. So fingers crossed those both come back soon. I read an article about using essential oils to re-train someone’s sense of smell, and I’ve been joking with her that I AM READY to help, with my large collection of fragrances.
To emulate the Times, what does it smell like where you are? Even more specifically, the article asks: “What scents would you put in your own ‘personal smell museum?’ What is the smell that, for you, is so singular and specific that you wish you had one word to describe it?”
Here, I smell damp earth still, after all the rain we had last weekend, mixed with the smell of fallen leaves, and occasional whiffs of autumn roses and tomato leaves from what remains of my summer garden. I do think those autumn roses may be the sweetest of all, coming as they often do one at a time, unexpectedly, with the promise of summers to come. Time to pull out my spicier roses, like Rose Flash, Tudor Rose, Cabaret, Elisabethan Rose …
What’s new in your world? Any new fall fragrances?
Serenity Now Scents and Sensibilities 
I’m so sorry to hear your daughter has the coronavirus. I hope everyone else in the family escapes it. Teachers are having such a tough time all over the country. My Mom was a middle school and junior high school teacher for over 30 years so I know what a difficult job it is.
Here it smells damp still, but there’s a bit of dryness moving in, smells of pine straw and pine trees and boxwoods in my yard. Inside my house it’s candles and perfume. Right now I’m burning Cire Trudon Ourika, an iris-centric candle that I am loving. In another room, I’m burning Ganesh’s favorite candle for him, “India” by Homesick candles.
The scent I would most like to name and capture is the smell of corn growing in a field, the green, the corn sap, the loamy soil. It’s the best smell ever. I grew up on a farm and the happiest smells are the smells of things growing and the warm scent of animals. The smell of horses always makes me swoon. I loved brushing the horses and burying my nose in their necks. And I love the smell of cows and sheep also. Cow manure can be a bit much in an enclosed space, but outdoors it mixes with grass and florals and it’s fine.
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Thank you — the rest of us have all tested negative since her positive test, and we all feel fine, so I think it has missed us. I love your descriptions of smells you like! Have you tried any of St. Clair Scents’ fragrances? You might really love First Cut (lots of hay) and Gardener’s Glove (self-explanatory!). She’s a dairy farmer who also makes lovely perfumes.
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So glad the rest of your family is OK. Thanks for the recommendation. I will definitely check out the St. Clair scents. I was not aware of them. I love the scent of freshly cut hay also. Divine!!
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My post may be in your spam filter. It’s not showing up. Thanks.
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Thanks for letting me know, I found it!
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I’ve been wearing Hermes’ L’Ambre des Merveilles, which I was able to get in a tester bottle, and I’m really loving it! Another Jean Claude Ellena hit, and excellent for fall.
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Huge JC Ellena fan here! He’s so brilliant. I don’t love every scent he created, but I do like about 90% of them and love 75 to 80%.
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I agree. I love the Jardin series, Apres La Mousson is my favorite. And at the other end of the spectrum, I acquired VCA’s First this year, and enjoy that very much too. And his Muguet Porcelaine for Hermes is just lovely.
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It’s a nice scent, very edible orange caramel to my nose, good for fall
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Oh, had forgotten about that light amber, must dig out my bottle!
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Glad your daughter is on the mend and that everyone else escaped. I would be quite sad to lose my sense of smell! I love the smell of horses, too. I own Sonoma Scent Studio Equestrian, which evokes the idea of a horse farm to me. Today I’m wearing Olympic Orchids Amber-Labdanum Oil – in the fall I definitely gravitate toward my ambery perfumes.
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We’re hoping taste and smell come back; apparently they normally do, but the time can vary. I haven’t owned many amber-based perfumes, but I had tried L’Ambre des Merveilles a while ago, still had a sample, and when I pulled it out a few months ago, I was struck again by how nice it is. So when I saw a tester at a reasonable price, I went ahead, and I’m glad I did!
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I smell wet earth and leaves when I bike to work, plus a big waft of pig manure when I pass the pig farmers stables. SOTD is Felanilla
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I hope the Felanilla helps distract your nose from the pigs!
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The rain has finally caught up to us in MA, so we are getting to smell some petrichor and wet mulch.
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YAY for non infectious daughter and family. That must have been terrifying OH?
Smells? Today there was a Sausage Sizzle at the hardware store. One whiff and we were hooked. There’s something so good about that particular smell and it raises so much money for desperately underfunded everything.
We had rain for the first time in ages last night. It has lightly dampened the earth and I’m hoping now it has done that we may see more this week. I love the smell of it raining and the next days.
Lastly, my dogs. They are two weeks out from their bath and starting to smell doggish again, which I love.
Currently wearing Eau Duelle EdP that I bought from a Sale doc on FB. Much richer and more flamboyant than the EdT.
Portia xx
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It was scary but I couldn’t show alarm in front of her, she’s only 22. She was so brave, though there was one night when she felt very lonely and scared, and it was so hard not to run to her and hug her. We figured out a safe way for her to spend safely distanced time with us at night indoors, and that helped a lot. It involved masks, fans, an air filter, and a rolling desk chair!
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WOW! Sounds like you had EVERYTHING ready and organised. What a cool Mum.
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I’m glad your family is fine: it should have been a scary experience. Sending healing vibes your daughter’s way.
We have a heatwave again (I hope the last this year), so whenever I come outside, I switch into the survival mode (I don’t like any temperature extremes), and don’t notice any scents, especially through the mask. But last week during my staycation, we went for a couple of hours hike, and I tried to pay special attention to scents. The two that were the most prominent and memorable were eucalyptus and fallen leaves. It was so beautiful!
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Thank you for the healing vibes, all positive vibes are happily accepted! Your hike sounds beautiful, I love the smell of eucalyptus but I don’t get to smell it in its natural habitat. My husband and I were able to go on our own excursion yesterday to one of my favorite botanical gardens, and it was so nice to breathe in all the fresh air and early fall smells.
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Do you mind me asking: how closely were you communicating with your daughter before she was quarantined?
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She and I both work full time, and she works at a school, so we don’t see much of each other in the morning when she leaves early, and we aren’t together all day. When she gets home, she often wants some quiet time before dinner and reads or listens to music in her room. So the week before she had any symptoms, we were having dinner together (with my husband and other daughter) most nights, and then chatting and sometimes watching a movie in the evening. Not wearing masks in the house, but everyone has been very careful about washing hands and cleaning surfaces, and I run air filters in the house that have HEPA filters. She definitely spends more time daily with the kids in her classroom than with us, except on weekends. The day she first felt unwell was a Saturday, so that’s when she started isolating herself here at home.
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Thank you for the detailed response. I realize that these are anecdotal evidence, but since this virus is with us to stay for some time, I’m trying to get some feeling about the situation.
I’m glad that for your family it hasn’t resulted in anything more serious.
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I know, it’s so hard to figure out relative risks and appropriate preventive steps. I do think that at home, opening windows to let fresh air circulate, maybe running air filters, and keeping hands and surfaces clean may have been helpful to us.
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Like you, I have the smell of wet earth, plus the sappy smell of newly trimmed hedgerows along my road. The odd waft of the cattle in a nearby field when the wind is blowing in a certain direction. The smoke from peat and wood fires. I love it when we get cold and sunny days, the smells seem to intensify.
Good to know that your daughter has recovered and that nobody else in the family has fallen prey to the accursed virus. Hopefully her senses will return soon. It’s horrible feeling to lose them, the appetite also disappears. My daughter is a teacher also and I have a bit of low grade anxiety about her catching it. She’s asthmatic and quite prone to infections. VC & A First Intense is on the go today. A different animal from its predecessor.
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Yes, she struggles a bit with appetite, though temperature and texture do help with that (I’m sure they trigger taste memories even when the sense itself is dulled). What grade does your daughter teach? Mine is a co-teacher in a US fourth grade class, so the kids are about 9-10 years old. The school is very careful and strict about social distancing, masks, hand sanitizer, nightly deep cleaning, etc., but still. My daughter has never had respiratory issues, but I made sure I had one of those pulse oximeters on hand a while ago, and I was glad to have it as a backup while she was ill. We never needed to use it, thank goodness. I hope your daughter stays well!
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