Welcome to the Friday 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 Friday, February 10, and next week is Valentine’s Day! It is traditionally a peak season for fragrance sales, since perfume is often considered a romantic gift. I may just put my new bottle of Mitsouko eau de toilette in a Valentine’s gift bag and re-give it to myself on behalf of my husband. We don’t often go out for Valentine’s Day, but we’ll probably make a special dinner at home and maybe share a nice bottle of cava or Prosecco. I won’t mention here what I’m giving him, as he sometimes reads this blog!

Meanwhile, the spring flowers have started popping out all over my neighborhood after recent balmy spells. Yellow daffodils abound, but also forsythia, and my beloved pink magnolias. I just hope their blossoms don’t get nipped by a late frost, which often happens. I must go for a walk around the neighborhood this weekend to enjoy and sniff them, I think their fragrance is just gorgeous. I’ve not yet found a perfume that matches it, though I’ve tried many, many “magnolia” fragrances. The pink ones that bloom in the spring have a lighter, more lemony scent than the heavier white flowers of the Southern evergreen magnolias; we have several of those in our back garden along one fence line, so I’m very familiar with their scent.

Speaking of scent in the garden, our mahonias have been blooming for weeks now. They are the strangest plants — they look very forbidding, with their spiky, leathery leaves and weird forms like some kind of illustration by Dr. Seuss, but they smell like lilies of the valley, one of my favorite scents. Their fragrance tends to drift across the garden, emerging unexpectedly when one is occupied with various seasonal tasks like renewing mulch.

Do you have any big plans for Valentine’s Day, or a fragrance you’re hoping to receive? Has spring arrived where you live?