Is it just me, or is this year flying by? How is it fall already? In San Francisco, this means our summer weather is just starting, so I am not complaining. It’s been a pretty decent year, which is maybe the most one can hope for in these very weird times.

In further confirmation that the end times are near, we lost three icons this month: Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and Yayoi Kusama. I’m just wondering why none of the bad people are dying? I had the crazy privilege of getting to meet Dolly Parton in person in 2019.

I thought I’d do something a little different for this month’s wears. In an effort to force myself to purge, I’ll be sending one lucky reader five bottles from my collection. I’ll select the bottles, but you’ll be able to tell me which scent families you like most, so what I choose will at least lean toward fragrances you’d wear. This is for my paid subscribers and since I’ll be shipping perfume it has to be in the US only (sorry!). To enter to win a package of 5 bottles from me simply comment on this post telling me what you’d like to smell from this month’s wears and which scent family you gravitate towards the most.

I’ll pick a winner by Friday, September 4th. You are welcome to upgrade to paid to enter to be eligible. A paid membership also supports me and the many many hours I spend writing Dry Down every month. I’ll notify the winner here in the comments and also email them to let them know they won.

Also! If you live in the Bay Area, I’ll be on a panel this Wednesday at MBC BioLabs discussing the art and science of fragrance with actual scientists, a perfumer, and me. Should be fun! You can get free tickets here. It may prompt you to join a waitlist, but there’s still space. Hope to see you there!

On to the August wears.

Read more

Today I had the pleasure of talking to Michael about how the organization is shaping up, what you can do to get involved, and some upcoming events, including one at this Friday and a bigger virtual town hall being planned for September. To keep up with the latest, follow along on their Instagram. I’m sure Michael will be sharing news on his channels as well.

I’ll share Michael’s letter below with more on the Perfumers Union. As always, feel free to ask any questions in the comments! Thanks to Michael for taking the time to share more about his vision for the union. I encourage everyone to get involved and follow along as it continues to develop!

Subscribe now

When I reached out to Anna to ask if I could feature her as part of the collection series I do for Dry Down Diaries, she warned me that she has a very small, curated collection and, true to her Substack, mostly buys samples and decants. I loved the idea of hearing more about how she keeps such a well-edited collection of bottles. She says it’s the opposite of the hoarding sickness many of us have and is kind of beyond her control. But having the opposite problem, I was eager to hear more. I love my big, overflowing collection of bottles, but it can also be overwhelming, and I wish I could do a better job of culling it down. I was also just curious to hear more about what she loves and which bottles make the cut.

Anna has a new book out, American Spirits, that the LA Times likened to “a Lynch film with a score by Lana Del Ray”, which is all I need to know to want to read it. You can find out more about Anna on her website, and follow her on Notes and IG. I hope you enjoy this look into her very well curated collection.

What are your desert island scents? You can only take three.

Glass Blooms by Régime des Fleurs. Grand-Ile by Nissaba. Molecule 01 + Iris by Escentric Molecules.

You keep a tightly curated collection of just 10 bottles and let go of anything you don't wear. Has there ever been one you regretted giving up?

I actually haven’t had much regret! If I had to pick, I sold my bottle of Eau Duelle by Diptyque because I got Architect’s Club by Arquiste and they’re extremely similar. I miss Eau Duelle occasionally, but I’m surviving. I’m a perfume minimalist and don’t spray much, so I can last a long time on a decant, which is one reason I don’t have many bottles. Also, whatever hoarding is, I have the opposite disease. I really can’t have too many things. It stresses me out. I love getting rid of things!

Tell me why each of the full bottles in your current collection deserve a spot there.

Molecule 01 + Iris by Escentric Molecules is a desert island scent and it’s just so wearable and magnetic, such a lovely woody iris, which feels crucial to any collection. And I think Geza Schoen is a genius.

Grand-Ile by Nissaba is another desert island scent—spicy vanilla is my favorite genre of perfume and this is the best I’ve found, by master perfumer Frank Voelkl and majorly underrated for some reason. I spray it on my pillows!

Architect’s Club by Arquiste is my second-favorite spicy vanilla and it’s a rare vanilla you can wear year-round, so it felt like a must.

Trimerous by Jorum Studio is the most gorgeous orris butter and it’s super wearable but smells like nothing else, which is such a rare combo.

Eau D’Issey Fraîche by Issey Miyake and Suspended Water Lily by Syd Botanica are my go-to summer scents, also I think Syd is a visionary and wanted to support her.

Waterfall by Rite of Way was gifted to me but it’s such a lovely ethereal floral I had to hold onto it.

Luca Turin said that if Sycomore by Chanel doesn’t make you shiver with pleasure, see a doctor, and I feel similarly. This one is my “feeling rich” scent lol.

I am obsessed with Universal Flowering so I have two. Lilac No. 4 is the perfect spring scent—green, dewy, photorealistic. And Poems One Through Twelve is my other sleep scent along with Grand-Ile. I often spray it on myself before bed, or in the middle of the night if I have trouble sleeping. It’s my sleeping pill. Also I just LOVE the name.

Talk to me about samples, how often are you ordering them, how do you organize them?

I order them more now that I have because it’s “work,” or at least that’s how I justify it to myself! I used to order samples like once a quarter; now I’ll order roughly once a month, somewhere between 5-10 samples. I like ordering from Scent Split, Lucky Scent, Surrender to Chance, and Decant Planet.

My organization is horrible. I basically have the ones I’m reaching for on the shelf next to my mirror. Then I have a box in my closet of the ones I love but am not currently reaching for. Then I have a drawer of ones I think are good but wouldn’t wear for whatever reason—I’ll often throw those in with friends’ birthday presents!

If I was over right now what would you spray on me and why?

Probably Grand-Ile because for some reason no one has smelled it! I’m preaching the gospel of Grand-Ile.

I need to ask you about Astrid Dahl, the main character from your book Perfume & Pain, she wore Stora Skuggen’s Moon Milk. What’s your own experience with Moon Milk and why was it right for Astrid?

Moonmilk was one of the first niche scents I loved. This is a little embarrassing but I later learned that everything I was drawn toward in my initial niche scent journey was essentially a Santal 33 dupe, probably because I’d smelled a lot of Santal 33 in the wild and it was therefore familiar and comforting. Now I avoid this type of fragrance mostly because Santal 33 is a bit played, even though I love Frank Voelkl and appreciate the scent.

Moonmilk is a little more interesting and strange than Santal 33 though. It’s a tiny bit off-putting, like Astrid. Also the name Moonmilk feels very inherently sapphic to me, and the bottle cap looks like a breast. It felt perfect for Astrid.

I noticed you have two Universal Flowering perfumes in your collection, with such a well curated collection that’s impressive. Tell me how two of her perfumes made the cut!

I am obsessed with Universal Flowering! I love the branding, the poetic copy, the bottles, the uber-original scents. I think Courtney Rafuse is a genius and visionary, and I love supporting her. I want a third, maybe Fig Leaf. I had a sample of Pleasure Portrait which I loved (a spicy vanilla, shocker) but unfortunately it’s discontinued. If I can find a used bottle, I might get that next.

What’s your advice for people who want to edit their collections? Where do you start if you have a huge collection?

I think my editing is mostly neurosis to be honest, of a type I wouldn’t wish on others. I think if you can allow yourself to have a lot of things you love and feel attached to, go for it, it seems nice. I just can’t due to clinical OCD probably lol. But also know that you don’t have to have a lot of money to get into perfume. I’m extremely cheap and still have a full-blown habit. Smelling perfume at stores is free, samples are pretty affordable, and if you keep a small number of bottles, it’s a fiscally reasonable hobby!

Anything else you want to share?

You might have noticed that Glass Blooms is a desert island scent for me but I don’t even have a bottle yet! I have a 10ml decant that I bought from Decant Planet, but a full bottle is next on my wishlist. Also I’m going to Paris next month for my birthday, and definitely plan to get a bottle there. Maybe Passage D’Enfer by L’Artisan. Whatever it is, it has to be French!

Subscribe now

Jake made up for lost time and sent me not one but three unmarked samples this time around. I took my sweet time smelling them, waiting until I had a quiet morning to really sit with one, or a day when I knew I'd be able to jot my thoughts down as I smelled. Although, most of the reviews below fell out of my head pretty fast, a tumbleweed of words my brain formed after huffing these scents on paper and then skin. I can always count on Jake to send me something that stretches me a little bit, and these did not disappoint.

I often send Jake my unedited thoughts, a crazy long, meandering stream of consciousness, and in this case he had to read what I wrote and figure out which scent it was about since he hadn't marked any of the vials. We're pretty sure we got it right!

I will reveal now that the vials were three scents from the excellent Malaysian brand, Yadiy Hadini, founded by perfumer Yadiy Hadini. Like so many of the brands Jake and Matt share with me, and that many of us discover at , this one was new to me. The scents are, as you’ll probably see when you read my reviews below, transportive. They are rich and layered and nonlinear. You can tell by smelling that they’re made with high quality materials, some unfamiliar to my nose. When I asked Jake to share a little about them here’s what he sent me:

“Yadiy is a Malaysian perfumer, and all of his materials are local. It’s rare to see a perfumer-led brand break out on the scene from a country that produces these natural resources. He is using his motherland’s story. He creates a lot of his own parts, and his composition skills are brilliant. My favorite part about international perfumery is the unique translation of concepts brought to light from an original perspective. We need more Yadiy Hadinis in the fragrance world.”

Each release is limited to between 100 and 300 bottles. You can of course order samples of these from Stéle, the only place in the US who sells them, or swing by and smell them if you live in NY. My favorite of the three was Magnifig, which is no surprise now that I know it has a fig note. It’s cozy and warm, and it brought up some sweet imagery for me. It also makes sense now that I know there’s a wool note in it.

I loved smelling all three of these. My blind smell reviews always feel more like poetry and creative writing to me, so I hope you enjoy the little journeys each of these scents took me on!

Vert Noir

This perfume is a room I want to hang out in and get buzzed in. At the opening, it’s yellow apple and almost pissy. It always makes me nervous to wear one of Jake’s secret mystery vials to work because he likes some stinky stuff and I never know how strong the scents will be, but this is turning out to be really nice.

I’m in an old tavern where everyone’s drinking cider and mead. It’s all brown wood, amber light, and a little stinky. But then it warms up and I’m smelling something a little dessert-like, not too sweet, maybe bready, a little powdery. If I had to describe the texture, it would be fluffy, like a cushion. It goes somewhere really unexpected and cozy.

At first it’s a little scary because I’m in this foreign place, but as it dries down, I start to notice the warmth of the light in the room, a beautiful amber glow. It doesn’t smell like amber, it just glows like it. And then you start to notice the worn wood of the tables, the comfortable cushions and chairs, and suddenly it becomes welcoming. You’re invited to sit at the table, but only after they’re sure you’ll actually appreciate the place and won’t gawk like an outsider. I could hang out here for a while.

Magnifig

This one is cozy and warm where as the first felt far off and medieval this one conjures up sweet things. I smell something like chocolate but also lime. It has a fuzzy texture. I maybe smell some rose in the distance.

This one is kitten fur and my cat sleeping between my feet at the bottom of the bed. My own sleep compromised, if I make a wrong move it will jolt him awake and send him fleeing. There’s a deep comfort to his heavy weight on my calves and ankles. He’s protecting me as much as I’m keeping him warm and safe.

What is it about bodies, of any kind, resting on one another that calms us? Even a small animal who could never protect me from any real dangers in the world, something about his presence, his ability to sleep so soundly, resting on me, that makes me feel safer, like I have some control in this upside down world. If he is ok I am ok. But it’s dark and there are still unknowns out there, especially at this time, in the middle of the night. Somehow I can smell things baking even though no one is in the kitchen at this hour. But it reaches my nose where I am in bed, frozen in fear I’ll wake the cat but comforted by the weight of his soft furry body deep in sleep against my own.

Crassna & Rose Otto

On paper this one is fresh and bright. On skin she goes much deeper. One spray and you can really smell her. She’s got a big presence.

First I was in a field on a bright day, yellow flowers as far as the eye could see. But now I’m getting pulled into something much more complicated.

A woman dressed for a gala stands beside her sleek black sports car. She has places to be. A cloud of perfume floats around her. It’s floral and a little sweet, and she’s doused herself in it before leaving. The tiny car is stuffed with the smell. She’s on her way to negotiate a deal, and this perfume is part of the plan. They'll be pulled in by the intoxicating dark flowers and won't notice the poison apple lingering just beneath them, a sharp yellow bitterness that hypnotizes them into agreeing with her. Her worst intentions are an invisible fog blanketing the room.

This perfume is a villain disguised in a beautiful gown made of black roses.

So when I got an email in May that the GAP scents were being rereleased with new formulations, I of course jumped at the chance to smell them and talk to the perfumers involved. Living on the West Coast means I often have to miss the in-person events and launch parties I get invited to, but most of the time I really just need to smell the juice and talk to the perfumers behind them.

Subscribe now

I’ve read a lot of mixed reviews since the release, but there was still a real excitement around this launch. It makes sense. The world is on fire, and it feels good to remember a time when it wasn't. I think it makes sense that the fragrances were reformulated for today’s tastes and trends. Of course, I’m not a loyalist to the originals.

Of the five, Grass was the one I could see myself reaching for the most. It has a depth I found surprising. It’s a humid, rich scent with a distinct tea note that brings a brightness to it. It’s a far cry from the much more literal Grass released in the ‘90s. I guess I’m not alone, as it’s the only one currently sold out on their site. The other scent I’d wear is Om. It’s a sheer thing, what some would call a skin scent, light and airy with soft woods. It doesn’t feel quite as original to me as Grass, but it’s a nice, light, easy wear.

The marketer in me remains impressed by how GAP has endured since my childhood (and well before it). There have certainly been stronger decades than others, but both the clothes and the advertising have often felt steady and reliable. I’m enjoying watching the company’s latest evolution under Zach Posen’s creative direction. And I’ll never tire of a dancing GAP ad. And just look at some of these iconic ads through the years.

You can purchase the bus shelter poster of this Steve McQueen ad for $450 on ebay.

On to what you probably came here for, the fragrances. The perfumers behind these new versions are Honorine Blanc and Nicole Mancini. Honorine Blanc, a Master Perfumer at Firmenich, was recently awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Fragrance Foundation Awards. She created the original Om for the GAP collection and returned to reformulate Dream and Om, while also creating Harmony. Nicole Mancini, a Principal Perfumer at Firmenich, was responsible for Heaven and Grass.

You have a unique history with this collection. Can you talk about your connection to Om, Dream, and now Harmony?

Honorine: Om is the one I can really take you back to, because I was involved in developing the original in the ‘90s. Revisiting it decades later felt personal, like closing a circle.

Dream I experienced differently. I’d just moved to the US from Paris in 1993, and a year later everyone was talking about Gap fragrance, especially Dream. It was everywhere, and it represented something about America - optimism, freshness, a kind of ease. Harmony is a different story altogether. It didn’t exist in the ‘90s at all, and it’s the one true newcomer in the collection, so with that one I wasn’t looking back, I was creating forward.

The Gap fragrances have become deeply nostalgic for so many people and have an almost cult following. Why do you think they resonated so strongly, and why have they endured?

Honorine: I think it’s because they captured something so simple: freshness, cleanliness, comfort. They came at a time when there weren’t nearly as many fragrances on the market to choose from. Dream in particular represented the U.S. itself: a white t-shirt, jeans, that feeling of ease. Since the ‘90s we’ve lived through so much change with different wars, technology, AI, and a much smarter and more demanding consumer. I think that’s exactly why people are reaching back for the ‘90s now. It’s a comfort zone, a safety zone. Nostalgia becomes even more powerful when the present feels complicated.

What was the process like revisiting these fragrances decades later? As you reformulated them, how did you balance staying true to the originals while creating something that feels relevant today?

Honorine: Every fragrance needed a different approach. Some I kept very close to the original, some I pushed further, and Harmony didn’t have an original to hold onto at all. For Dream, I thought of it like a painting: I kept the structure, the skeleton, the ‘cloud,’ but filled it with new elements - orange flower, neroli, more vibrant wood in the base - ingredients the consumer didn’t know or wasn’t ready for in the ‘90s. It’s more long-lasting, bigger sillage, more natural, but the softness and cleanliness are still there.

Om I stayed much closer to, because it was full of incense, sandalwood, resin (notes today’s consumer already loves), so I mostly elevated the quality and the extraction rather than changing the signature. Honestly, with Dream I actually went too far in a different direction at first. We smelled it and said, “Wait, where’s Gap Dream? We lost the nostalgia.” So I pulled back. That’s the balance. You’re not choosing between authenticity and modernity; you’re using today’s technology in service of the original feeling.

How much did you think about the people who have loved these fragrances for years? Did you feel a responsibility to preserve the memories attached to them?

Honorine: I did think about it, especially because I know people have real attachments like a favorite Spice Girl, almost. You’re a ‘Dream girl’ or a ‘Grass girl,’ and that’s tied to memory and identity. But I don’t think the answer is to freeze the fragrance in time out of respect for that memory. If you stay too attached to the past, you don’t see the future, and that becomes boring. What I wanted was for people to recognize it immediately and like it even more because we kept the DNA, the spirit, and simply gave it more quality and depth. It’s respect for the memory, expressed through making the thing better, not through leaving it untouched.

What do you hope people feel when they wear these fragrances today, whether they’re rediscovering an old favorite or smelling them for the very first time?

Honorine: I want people to feel it, not just smell it. Every fragrance in this collection carries its own emotion, and you live it as much as you wear it. For someone rediscovering Dream, I hope it feels like that same cloud of happiness, that comfort of a white t-shirt and jeans, just deeper and more vivid than they remember. For someone new to it, I hope they feel that same ease without needing the nostalgia to access it. And for the whole collection, I love that today there’s less taboo and more freedom - today you’re Grass, tomorrow you’re Om. There’s no single fixed identity anymore, and I think that’s exactly right for how people actually live.

What was the process like reimagining the cult classics Heaven and Grass? Did you feel a responsibility to the people who have loved them for years? How did you approach honoring what made those scents so special while also making them feel fresh for a new generation?

Nicole: With Grass especially, I felt that responsibility, but I also knew the original was very singular; really just the smell of fresh-cut grass, a linear fragrance that didn’t evolve. When we tested a modernized version blind against the original with an external group, the new one wasn’t just preferred. It wasn’t close. That told us honoring the memory didn’t mean preserving the formula exactly, it meant preserving the feeling. So instead of leading with the literal smell of grass, I built a 360-degree idea of greenness: green mandarin, linden blossom, violet leaf, matcha for that grounding ritual, cypress and Virginia cedar to make it feel American, and Polywood, a molecule we simply didn’t have in the ‘90s. There’s still a touch of that original grass molecule in there - it’s just surrounded by so much more now.

Heaven was a different kind of honoring. Olfactively, the original read as very dated to me. The aldehydes especially don’t work with how people want to smell today. So I replaced those with cardamom and juniper for that same twinkling, effervescent lift, and built out the ‘wrapped in something bigger’ feeling with solar vanilla, honeysuckle, and a celestial musk built on Amber Xtreme. The feeling of awe and wonder stayed exactly the same, I just built it out of different materials.

We also moved the whole collection up to a 20% EDP concentration, which meant richness and longevity came with the reformulation almost automatically - that’s not something you could say about a lot of ‘90s fragrance.

Of the five fragrances in the collection, which one do you reach for most often, and what draws you back to that scent?

Nicole: Grass, honestly. The original was so literal - just the smell of grass. Reimagining it became the blueprint for how I approached the whole collection. It was never really about grass, it was about that feeling of stepping outside and resetting in the middle of a busy day. Today that reset looks different. It’s less about literally going outside and more about a small ritual, like making a matcha. I went hiking with my perfumer group a few years ago, did a forest-bathing walk on a rainy fall day, and that’s where the mood board really started for me. That’s the one I keep coming back to.

What do you hope people feel when they wear these fragrances today, whether they’re rediscovering an old favorite or smelling them for the very first time?

Nicole: I always tell people: we’re not replicating, we’re not reviving, we’re recreating a feeling and an emotion. So my hope is that people don’t spend their time comparing it to the ‘90s version in their head. Comparison is the thief of joy. I want Grass to feel fresh, grounding, and uplifting on its own terms, whether or not you ever smelled the original. For someone discovering it for the first time, I want it to just feel like a good idea, on its own. For someone rediscovering it, I hope there’s a flicker of recognition, and then something new to love on top of that.

You can still find some of the originals available for sale on Etsy and ebay.

This bottle of grass is selling for $250 on ebay and the bottle of dream more is going for $156.

And if you just want to soak in the nostalgia of shopping at GAP, this Spotify user has compiled many of the store playlists.

About a year ago I published a post on what my house smelled liked and a lot of you seemed to like it. Now that I'm in a new home, it felt like the right time to do another one. I thought a lot about what products I wanted to bring into my new apartment and which ones I wouldn’t replenish, in part because my home is not just mine and George’s (my cat) anymore. We’re now sharing a space with André and it’s important to me that he likes all the smelly stuff I bring in here.

We’ve been here about two months and I’m happy with how settled and moved in things feel. There are still things we need to do, photographs to hang, rugs to get, the list will likely never end, but it feels like home and we’re past the chaos of unpacking which I am very happy about.

The Kitchen

Not much has changed here. I am still a Mrs. Meyer’s loyalist. Although we did have a little battle over the dish washing soap, André really loves Dawn foaming soap, I hated the look of the bottle and promptly purchased a replacement we could fill it into. Although I still love Mrs. Meyer’s for hand washing dishes too and have stock under the sink. We do have a dishwasher now though, so lucky us the handwashing is pretty minimal. Of course there is no way I will ever get rid of my Mrs. Meyer’s hand soap, and yup, I currently have a bottle of Tomato Vine because you better believe I stocked up on that one. I also have a bottle of Fresh Cut Grass waiting in the wings.

Subscribe now

My kitchen candle has to be tomato. And if you have been reading for a while you know I have tested a lot of tomato candles. I still love the Flamingo Estate Heirloom Tomato candle but I have found a new love in Ranger Station’s Tennessee Tomato candle, I’ve almost burned through my first one and I may have to rotate between that one and the Flamingo Estate. This is kind of a big deal. Ranger Station makes some really excellent candles though. They also have a solid selection of fragrances.

The Bathrooms

That’s right, I said bathrooms. I feel very lucky that we have two full bathrooms in the new place, and I can’t imagine having to fight over one in the morning anymore. It’s also really nice when we have guests stay here to be able to give them their own bathroom. I’ve lived in apartments my entire adult life, so this feels like a luxury.

When André told me he loved the soap I put in our bathroom I was very happy to hear it, because it’s a new favorite of mine and this means I can keep restocking it. It’s Homecourt’s Cece Exfoliating Hand Wash and I love the smell so much, but big added bonus is the exfoliating factor which they list as volcanic pumice. This is a million times more exfoliating than the Aesop hand soap. I feel like my hands are really getting CLEAN. And they feel softer. AND I like their Cece scent very much. I want to gift it this to everyone I know, but is hand soap a lame gift?

I also went down a rabbit hole with their Room Deodorants which smell really good. I especially love the Neroli Leaf and Mandarin Basile. The only thing I don’t love about these is the atomizers. They kind of make the spray fall to the ground instead of hanging in the air in a fine mist, if that makes sense. But their smells are top notch and I have found myself spraying them in our entryway often.

The soap in the guest bathroom is from the new line of skincare Liis released earlier this year. I also have their Bo liquid soap in the shower, André is a big fan of that one too, it’s a warm spicy smell and I can still smell it on my skin after showering which is delightful. I also like the Grown Alchemist body soap and rotate between that one and Bo. They also make a really good hand soap that I used up fast after being sent a bottle.

I was recently sent a bunch of products from Tata Harper, and I am seriously obsessed with all of them. I have very sensitive skin, so even products made for sensitive skin sometimes still irritate me. I roll the dice every time I try something new on my face, but every one of the Tata Harper products has been a dream on my skin.

I’ve been using these every day, and I swear the skin on my face looks bouncier? I use this Regenerating Cleanser on my face and keep it in the shower, it has some exfoliating thing in it but is pretty gentle. Then I use the Resurfacing Serum followed by the Water-Lock Moisturizer. Then when I am putting on my makeup, as a final step I add the Brightening Eye Gel which definitely de-puffs under my eyes a little. OK I am seeing how expensive these products are, I was sent these but I would honestly buy them myself, they work so well. And I have a hard time with skincare. I also tried the Resurfacing Mask over the weekend and it made me skin feel so soft. What I really need is probably the Hydrating Floral Mask which reduces redness. I seriously swear by these products and am so happy I discovered them aka was sent them!

The Candles

This is going to sound so obnoxious because I don’t think this is available for purchase but L’Epoque founder, , sent me a candle of her very good fragrance, Delusions of Grandeur sometime last year and I love the smell of it so much. It is almost burned down completely so it sits in a pretty ceramic holder a friend made me and the cold throw is strong enough to enjoy it while you’re sitting on our couch in the living room. In our first weeks in the new house André asked me what he was smelling that was a little tobacco and leathery. He had no idea where it was coming from but he loved it. I pulled out the precious candle and showed it to him. Rachel - please put these in production!

I just finished another candle I enjoyed so much, and it was from Liis, Translucent Shifts. This was such a good one for the bathroom but I also love it in the dining room and living room. It’s a fresh, clean, tea smell but better than any other tea candle I have smelled. Liis makes beautiful candles in many scents. I also like burning their sweet Choux Choux in the kitchen sometimes. Side bar if you haven’t smelled their latest fragrance, Flower Glyph, created by Jean-Claude Ellena and his daughter Céline Ellena, I encourage you to get your nose on it while summer is still here, it’s such a pretty floral that sings in hot weather.

A candle I just received this week and can not wait to burn is from beloved Icelandic fragrance house, Fischersund. They just released KOT, which is a collaboration with Farmers Market, another amazing creative family in Iceland. Together they have created products with scents built around fire, slowness, and time spent outside. With notes of cedarwood and cypress, fresh hay, suede, and a hit of marzipan. The candle smells amazing. I was also sent the solid perfume and am very curious about the eau de parfum. I’m so in love with the look of everything they create too.

The Laundry Room

Since I last shared what my house smelled like a year ago I have only fallen in deeper with Laundry Sauce. Our place is much bigger than my last apartment and we have had many house guests in our short time here so far. And every one of them has commented on how good the sheets and towels smell and I then go on about Laundry Sauce and send them links.

This is a brand that really cares about the fragrance aspect of their product and it shows. Of course it does its job and cleans well too, but the scents are so good and there is truly something for everyone.

For my clothes I love using the Australian Sandalwood and Spanish Leather (which may not be available anymore). For sheets and towels I like using Egyptian Rose and Himalayan Cashmere.

OK! Tell me what candles, detergent, and soap you swear by. Back to more serious things next time. x

Not to be that person but how is it already August? We’re past the mid-point of 2026 and I’m already thinking about Fall. Fumed is happening again, this time in Atlanta and the dates are October 10-11. I don’t know if I’ll be going but I did have major fomo from not going last time. It is truly an indie / niche lovers perfume expo and all my favorites will be in attendance. The price for this show is pretty incredible compared to other perfume shows, only $50 for a weekend pass (if you get the early bird deal) then it goes up to $60, which is still crazy reasonable.

ScentXplore is happening the first week in November this year. Unless I am in NY I am not sure I will go to that one, although maybe if I get nominated for a writing award again? That was really special, even though I didn’t win!

We are settling in to our new place nicely. And I finally feel like my collection is in a pretty decent place. Although I will endlessly be organizing and reorganizing. There’s no real true rhyme or reason to how I organize. I have some of my favorites grouped together, some I reach for the most often, designer bottles I try to group together, the things I treasure but don’t reach for as much are less accessible.

I like to remind people when they look at my collection that I am in the very fortunate position of being sent bottles from brands. I have been collecting for a while, but my collection has grown quickly in the last couple of years as I have been writing Dry Down Diaries. I admit this is a lot, but if you get it you get it and I have stopped trying to justify my collection to people who don’t get it.

On to my monthly wears!

July 1 - Venus by Planets Perfumery - I keep coming back to this one I purchased at SF Scent Fest. An excellent new brand with fragrances created by Mauricio Garcia of Herbcraft. Venus is an aromatic white floral that sparkles on my skin.

July 2 - Prolégomènes by Notes de bas de Paje - My favorite fig. I recommended this one to a friend who was looking to get her BFF a nice perfume gift for her birthday, she shared a text from said friend telling her everytime she wears this people compliment her and it’s now her signature scent for life. I’m not lying, if you like figs you need to smell this one. It will always be in my collection.

July 3 - Syrus by Maya Nije - This perfume sings. It’s an aquatic aromatic jasmine both earthy and salty sea. It’s light and refreshing, like waking up on a quiet morning with dew still on the ground and realizing you have the whole garden to yourself. Maya Nije is the perfumer for all of her fragrances.

July 4 - Tomato by Tsu Lange Yor - More of a suggestion of tomato then the full red viney thing, but it has this velvety texture that’s reminiscent of the fuzziness of the plant stems. It leans more green and woody then tomato fruit. Perfumer is Berenice Watteau.

July 5 - Dew & Light by Nonfiction - I reach for this one so much. It’s such an easy, fresh, welcoming scent. I get compliments on it every time I wear it to the office so when I’m having decision paralysis on week days over what scent to wear it’s the first one I grab. Especially if I’m in a rush. Will be a mainstay in my collection. Perfumer is Yann Vasnier.

July 6 - Vanilj by Maya Nije - A heavy boozy spiced vanilla. This one is all emcompassing. I feel wrapped in my grandmother’s arms, full of joy and safe.

Read more

It all started with this tiny little oil sample of Bodha Plants. I have always been curious about Bodha, honestly, in part because I like the look of their bottles. I also enjoyed the sample they sent me of their collaboration with Activist, Beeswax, a lovely velvety incense that was ultimately a little too honey-forward for me. Anyway, Bodha reached out to me recently, and I was more than happy to receive some things from them. The smokeless incense is nice and especially great for people with asthma like me, where smoke is not our friend. But it was the oils I was most interested in. There are four of them, and the sample set comes in these adorable little minis. I love a mini.

I tried all four: Earth, Plants, Moon, and Air. I immediately detected the tomato leaf in Plants, so I put on a little more. It was the clear winner for me. Air came in second, followed by Moon, which reminds me a lot of another favorite of mine, Lunar Dust. It’s got this faraway metallic twang to it. Earth was a little too earthy for me.

But I couldn’t get enough of Plants. I was heading to Mosswood Meltdown that weekend, the best music festival you can attend, provided you’re a fan and appreciator of punk rock. After my shower, I slathered on Plants, a little worried I’d use up too much of the tiny bottle. Then I thought, why not really lean into the garden vibes and spray some Mantes La Jolie by Astier de Villatte on top? I never layer. But every once in a while, when I’m wearing an oil, I think it’s acceptable. And I had a feeling these two would play well together. They did.

This sent me down a rabbit hole of all the leafy, vegetal scents in my collection. I pulled them all off the shelves and spent some time with them. These are my garden scents. Not floral gardens, but vegetable gardens. Green and dank, herbaceous and aromatic. My white floral heart doesn’t spend nearly enough time appreciating them, so here we are.

Look, these are just the scents that called to me that day. Do I have other bottles in my collection that could have made this list? Definitely. Do I also have plenty of samples and probably a few travel sprays that belong here? Yes. But I’m lazy, and this is where we landed.

And yes, I absolutely want to know your favorite garden scents of all time, so please share them in the comments. I’m especially keen to hear about your favorite tomato scents. I love a good tomato fragrance.

Going back to the scent that sent me down this garden rabbit hole, Plants. Here’s why I like it, it’s a little minty, very green, there’s something cooling in it, it’s got just the right amount of citrus, it’s grounding and fresh. My only sadness is that I want it to last longer on my skin (this is usually the case with oils on me) which means I’d have to really put it all over, including in my hair and I just don’t want to burn through this tiny little bottle that fast.

Here are all the others:

Read more

Hello! I hope everyone is having a fantastic summer. I’ve been traveling so much for work that Christina and I decided to combine the June and July columns with a few extra questions and a bit about Wandering Rain, created for Future Society.

In June I attended the World Perfumery Congress and spoke on a panel moderated by , in which she asked me, Michael (Tainle) Feng (Voice from the Sky, Double Horse Flavours & Fragrances) and Christine Hassan (Givaudan) to interpret the smells of sunshine and iridescence. For sunshine, I considered part of the light spectrum that we cannot see: ultraviolet. Playing on the name, I created an accord around violet leaves and flowers. For iridscence, I was really inspired by insects like the jewel beetle; the strong purple and green tones I mirrored in a dual chord between warm, resinous incense and fresh, herbaceous crushed mint and buchu leaves.

Then I was off to ScentFest in San Francisco, where I saw lots of friends and spoke on another panel moderated by Damiana Chiavolini about perfumers as protagonists, a topic I am very passionate about. I was able to touch on creating the Perfumer’s Union (@perfumersunion), something I envision as a kind of grass-roots movement for the entire fragrance ecosystem, which is still in beta mode gathering community feedback. There will be an event at Stéle alongside a livestream on August 14^th to discuss the union and engage with all kinds of folks who are passionate about fragrance and who want to further the artform and the surrounding community with thoughtful discussions.

My last trip was to Czech Republic to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. I created a fragrance called The Cinephile with Alexmonhart—the owners Alexandra and Daniel have become, I think, lifelong friends—and did a bunch of press interviews to talk about scent and film. I even got to walk the red carpet and hang out with film luminaries I so admire: Jeffrey Wright, Juliette Binoche, Dustin Hoffman, and Kevin Bacon. Totally surreal.

I spent some time after in Prague. I met Ann of Psǐk, a community of fragrance enthusiasts who were curious and engaged in the best way; I met the folks behind the beautiful store Ingredients, where I bought Lynn Harris’s Rose with Insect; and I had a particularly memorable meal at Zlatá Praha guided by Chef de Cusine Maroš Jambor, who created, among many other things, a seemingly humble elderberry dessert that is still haunting me. It was so elegant and considered it felt like a work of art, so I asked him to tell me more about it. His reply really illustrated the commonality between the work of a chef and a perfumer: ‘it’s very simple, but simple is often the hardest thing to do well’.

Now I am back to work, both in the studio and in my gardens, and feeling so lucky to do this job every day. Thank you to everyone reading and to the folks who have shared their experiences with me these past months, and especially to the curious ones who provided questions for the column. Keep them coming!

xoxo
—Michael

If you have questions for a future column please ask them in the comments below or drop them right here.

Subscribe now

Scent people are funny because I feel like you guys like unusual challenging smells to keep things interesting for your expert noses. Are there any smells you didn’t like but now appreciate as a perfumer having worked with scent in such a different way than most people do?

I love this question, and the answer is a resounding yes. I enjoy a much broader range of smells now than ever before but I noticed specifically that fermented odours and animalic odours, even if not what I would always call appealing, intrigue me. I think studying animal notes like Civet & Hyraceum opened a window onto an entirely new—though often familiar, IYKYK—olfactory territory. Oud extracts often have these animal and fermented facets too; I’ve come to like them much more with deeper study. Spending time with raw materials and increasing my understanding of them definitely tends to enrich my appreciation.

What do you think about layering to create a different scene / experience? And would you do it on different parts of your body?

Layering allows the wearer to play with scent, to customise the experience in a number of ways. As a perfumer of course I view each of my creations as finished, so unless I personally authored two or more fragrances that I envision being worn together, I don’t really see the need. Ultimately, fragrance should feel like an opportunity to experiment and play, though; there is really too little of that in life and in the average consumer’s day-to-day experience layering happens naturally anyway: from laundry to moisturiser and everything in between, we are always combining scented products even if unintentionally.

If you could only create fragrances in one family for the rest of your life, which family would it be and why?

Though this one is quite difficult to answer, I think I would select the Chypre. The contrasts inherent to the structure of the family have always appealed to me and with the innovative raw materials available to the perfumer there is a lot of freedom to interpret the style in novel and interesting ways.

What trends are you projecting for 2027? And what’s a trend you wish would die?

One trend I wish would die is product photography with things being drizzled or poured onto packaging. It wasn’t interesting when it started and it’s even more silly looking to me now that it’s kind of ubiquitous. In the beauty space—mainly in cosmetic actives and skincare—I think the idea made a lot more sense…but do we really need to see honey or syrup subsuming another perfume bottle? There are other ideas, surely.

For 2027 I have a list of projections I think are exciting, one of which I am calling Weathercore. It’s a conceptual direction I am noticing in which fragrances and their profiles are re-envisioned through an atmospheric or meteoroligcal lense: florals with fog, dew, or rain; humid forests or brakes of ferns; chilly herbs. For Future Society I recently created Wandering Rain, which kind of embodies this concept of considering the environs where botanicals exist and building the world around them rather than simply presenting them alone. I usually do a trend presentation every year at ScentXplore so if a perfumer’s interpretation of trends interests you, I hope to see you there!

Christina here! I’m hijacking Michael’s column to ask him a few questions about his latest release with Future Society, Wandering Rain.

I really love this one, and I’d say that even if it wasn’t created by my friend and the best columnist Dry Down Diaries has ever had. It’s ethereal, dewy, and fresh. On me, it wears as softly floral, especially in the dry down. Michael told me that’s probably the blue lotus. I love how restorative it feels, like a fresh start.

I really like the direction Future Society has taken with their latest releases. The last one captured clouds, this one reveals a new dimension of rain, I think it’s a nice evolution for the brand. I’m also a fan of the new bottle design. Founder Jasmina Aganovic continues to strike a really interesting balance between science and art, which has always been one of the things I appreciate most about Future Society. And I like that their pricing is more accessible at $98 for a 50ml bottle.

I asked Michael a few questions about working on this fragrance.

What was the process for creating Wandering Rain like?

Working with Future Society and Jasmina’s team was honestly a dream come true for me. Marrying the scientific and educational aspects of perfumery with an artistic vision for me represented an amazing opportunity. After sampling actual rain droplets from the atmosphere and identifying the microbes within, the Future Society team grew them in the laboratory where the volatile organic compounds they produced as metabolic byproducts could be measured. We looked together at that data in real time and I noticed some immediate patterns that reminded me of oolong tea, blue lotus, etc.

What does rain actually smell like?

The smell of rain is not really something static, actually; it’s highly dependent on the collection site and innumerable other factors. I love that it’s impossible to say it smells of just one thing—the scent is quite literally the result of rain’s journey on a never-ending cycle, in which it picks up all sorts of fascinating things. Kind of amazing when you really think about it!

What do you hope this fragrance communicates?

I think the biggest hope I have when people experience and understand the methodology and thought process behind the fragrance that they pause to notice the world around them. Next time it rains, if one person considers how profoundly beautiful the rain cycle is, if I can pique their curiosity, then I have done my job.

Michael Nordstrand is the founder of Mythologist Studio™ and a singular voice in contemporary perfumery. He holds degrees and certifications in perfume creation and cosmetic sciences from Givaudan, ISIPCA, and The Grasse Institute of Perfumery as well as a certification in medicinal plants from Cornell University, where his focus was on aromatic plants popularised during the Middle Ages. Michael received the Art and Olfaction Award for his creation Bad Lily in 2025, and the British Society of Perfumers Award for Patchoulÿ Tartessos in 2024.

It made me so happy to have everyone in San Francisco for ScentFest a few weeks ago. There’s nothing like the action coming to your own backyard, and since I’m usually the one traveling for events, it was a nice change. I got to see perfume friends I’ve made from all over the country, meet some of them in person for the first time, and explore perfumers and brands from all over the world who flew in for the show.

It was a very fun few days that filled me up in a way I really needed. It’s cool to be surrounded by people who just get it and not have to explain your ballooning fragrance collection or answer questions you’re never quite sure are subtle digs at your obsession or genuine fascination with your passion. It’s good to be with your people.

There was so much I didn't get to smell. Between the panels, events, catching up with friends, and occasionally stepping away from the crowds, there just wasn't enough time to make it through every inch of the show. I wanted to get some other people’s perspectives in here too, so I asked some friends to share their highlights with me.

If you were there please share what you loved smelling and discovering in the comments!

The first thing I did when I got there on Friday was head straight to the L’Osmothèque room. L’Osmothèque is the largest scent archive in the world, an international research institution dedicated to the history of perfumery. They house many rare perfumes you can’t smell anywhere else. Based in Versailles, with centers in Paris and New York, many of the classics they brought are foundational to what we know and love today. I loved that their space was the first thing you encountered as you walked into the building and that they had such a big room with plenty of space to wander and smell. Smelling classics from centuries ago felt like a fitting way to start an immersive, fragrance-fueled weekend.

Subscribe now

Yosh played a huge role in making ScentFest such a success, alongside Sebastian Jara, who conceived of and organized the event, and so many other people behind the scenes. Yosh curated an incredible lineup of panels, helped bring brands and people to the event, and was kind enough to invite me to moderate one of the conversations.

Yosh has been a perfumer and a cornerstone of the West Coast perfume community for decades, and we’re so lucky she’s still out here bringing people together and making cool shit happen. Here are her highlights.

There were a few places I knew I wanted to smell pretty immediately and both were towards the back of the building so that’s where I headed after L’Osmothèque. First stop was Mitti Parfum, then Planets Perfumery, and then Maya Njie.

Ridhima and Neerav, the founders of Mitti, were just as lovely and kind in person as I had expected them to be. I was so excited to have them tell me about their gorgeous scents, which are truly some of the most unique fragrances I have smelled in a long time. I bought a discovery set and still need to wear through them but at first smell I was drawn towards Rani Pink and Virasat the most. I’ll report back after I skin test. I asked them what their highlights were from the weekend and here’s what they shared with me.

A highlight for the weekend for me was getting to talk to and spend time smelling Maya Njie’s scents. What an incredible and grounding presence she has. I loved learning about her history and background as a textile artist before launching her fragrance line. I was so drawn to the photos she pairs with each scent too, and the stories they tell. I’m working on a post as I wear through her incredible line, each scent has been really evocative and deep for me as I wear it and I’m savoring the experience.

My next stop was Planets Perfumery, I will be writing more on them soon too. This is a newly launched brand founded by two archetypal astrologers, Jenna and Coco, with three perfumes all created by Mauricio Garcia. I came home with a bottle of Venus, a beautiful fizzy white floral, though it was very hard to pick between that one and the more earthy and aromatic, Mercury.

On the Friday before ScentFest kicked off I went to the Zoologist event at Ministry of Scent which was just JAM PACKED. I immediately ran into Michy and Josh of the Fragrance Files. I appreciate what Zoologist does but their scents don’t really speak to me. Michey of course pulled out a few that I could see myself wearing, of course, I have no idea what they are now because I didn’t take photos or write them down. But it was nice to experience them through a fan who knows their line so well.

It was at this event that I started chatting with two of the nicest people, who I quickly found out were Jeff Miller and Todd Thurman, the founders of Free Yourself, a line which a friend told me I had to check out that weekend. I had such a blast talking to them and smelling through the Zoologist scents that were being passed around, they’re fun and easy to talk to, and I love their background and passion for what they’ve built with Free Yourself. There is so much good intention behind this brand and you can really feel it when you talk to them. I swung by their booth on day one and smelled through their line. Standouts for me included Terre, a beautiful warm earthy saffron, Aether, a mystical and earthy galbanum scent with a strong patchouli base, and Savor, from their mindfulness collection, which is a warm and cozy woody gourmand with some nice tobacco rounding it out. I asked Jeff and Todd about their ScentFest highlights too.

Another highlight for me was of course moderating a panel on the last day of ScentFest. Our topic was Fragrance in the Age of Influence and the panel included Asia Grant, Bryson Ammons, Cammy Kim, and Emma Vernon. We talked about what it means to be creating content in the fragrance community today, our responsibilities to our readers and followers, and how we balance the onslaught of new releases coming our way. It was a packed room and I’m so grateful to everyone who attended and asked such insightful questions.

I asked my friend Bryson Ammons, of the amazing Alloy Studio what his highlights from the weekend were too.

It was also lovely to finally meet Samira Mbang, the founder of House of Iyrah, in person. She has such an interesting story about how she got into fragrance through growing up with a mother who was born with anosmia, picking her scents for her and ultimately being her nose. She’s such a light and I love her energy. House of Iyrah’s scents are rich and bold, I’m a big fan of Opera.

Here’s what Samira shared about the weekend.

There was an incredible range of Asian perfumers and brands that were represented. It was a big highlight of the show for me and something that made it feel really different than other events I’ve been to.

Standouts for me included Wren Atelier, inspired by perfumer and founder Renato Lopena Jr.'s Filipino heritage, with some wonderfully original scents like Cerveza Rosa, an unexpected beer-and-rose fragrance. I really hope someone in the U.S. starts distributing the line. I asked them how their show went and here’s what they shared with me.

South Korean brand Mimicri, whose fragrances are all inspired by art and art supplies, I bought I Am A Pencil, which smells exactly how you think it would. Mangla, a Tibetan brand, had incredible incense fragrances that I need in my collection. SW19’s name is a nod to a London postcode, but they’re based in South Korea. I really loved their lineup, and they had an upcoming release I would have bought on the spot if it had been available. I picked up a bottle of 9pm and I'm still thinking about Midnight, which I wish I'd bought too.

One of the most talked-about brands at the show (at least amongst my crowd) was Shanghai-based Zhufu, whose name echoes the sound of “blessing” in Chinese. I could barely get to their booth because it was so mobbed, but Karee pulled me through the crowd and introduced me to the founders, who were lovely. I ordered Above the Clouds, which has already arrived. It’s a fresh, green, cleansing scent that feels kind of perfect for my new home, where I often feel like I’m literally living in the clouds, aka the fog. I’m also still thinking about Triple Matcha, which I wish I’d bought a bottle of too. It feels inevitable that someone in the U.S. will start carrying this line. When they do, I’ll be loading up my cart.

Of course, spending time with friends in the perfume community was a highlight. We’re all online so much and I love how easy it is to connect and make friends virtually these days, but there's nothing like hanging out in person.

There were so many more brands I smelled and people I saw, but at the risk of turning this into a novel, I had to stop somewhere. I also asked a few friends who create perfume content online to share their highlights, which you'll find below.

lives in SF, I don’t see her nearly enough and loved how much I saw her face ScentFest weekend. Liz was also one of the people who helped make ScentFest happen behind the scents. She has impeccable taste and you can follow her on IG here and on TikTok right here.

It was so nice meeting Emily, aka Perfume Disco, in person. She’s so sweet and just glows. Every time we ran into her, she had another inspiring story to share about someone she’d met that weekend. If you don’t already follow her you can find her on IG here and on TikTok right here.

Sophia is one of those people I felt like I already knew when we finally met in person last year. And honestly, even if we didn't have perfume in common, I'd still want to hang out with her all the time if we lived in the same city. I adore her. She also recently left her longtime corporate job at KitchenAid to pursue a career in fragrance full time, which I find incredibly inspiring. She's now working with some excellent brands on their marketing. You can follow her on IG here and on TikTok right here.

A few more photos to cram into this extra long post. This event is definitely happening again next year. I’ll be sure to share the details as soon as I hear them. It’s worth flying out to my pretty city for!

I first met Austin aka Miss Adventure at a Scents of Wood event at Ministry of Scent two years ago. We were there early and started chatting; then, we walked around the shop and showed each other scents we liked. I love how easy it is to start talking to perfume people, especially when you meet at events and immediately realize you share a common passion.

Austin is a traveler. He’s curious, creative, and has a kind, easy energy to be around. He’s also always wearing incredible jewelry. I think I learned the first time we met that he collects vintage makeup and perfume. Earlier this year he was kind enough to send me a package full of treasures, enough that I now have a little collection of my own too.

I thought it would be fun to learn more about his collections and get a close-up look at them. I came away wishing I lived nearby so I could attend one of his epic-sounding perfume parties. He's a bit of a world traveler and will absolutely get on a plane for a great perfume event, so maybe you'll be lucky enough to meet him IRL one day. Until then, enjoy this glimpse into his beautifully curated world.

Subscribe now

What are your desert island scents? You can only take three.

Only three?? I guess I’ll have to go with Lune Féline from Atelier des Ors, Black Tie from Celine, and Oyédo from Diptyque.

Lune Féline, by Marie Salamagne, is a beautiful cardamom vanilla fragrance that I wear almost every time I leave the house. It’s mostly my fall/winter scent since it’s so spicy, but I find the freshness of the green notes in there to be great in the summer as well. It’s perfect for an invigorating morning on a desert island!
Oyédo, by Akiko Kamei, is THE summer scent for me, and is pretty much the only citrus scent in my collection. This is a yuzu, mandarin, lemon, and lime forward scent that I wear all summer, especially on sunny days here in Seattle. Yuzu has just such a nice sparkling quality to me, I can’t help but feel uplifted when I wear it. Plus I think it blends well with sunscreen, which I assume I’ll have plenty of on this island.
Black Tie, which is uncredited but probably goes to Hedi Slimane as the Creative Director, is my all-time favorite right now. It’s powdery (which I never like), filled with orris butter (which I also never like), and smells like a freshly cracked open can of A&W Cream Soda. I don’t know why, but this scent just WORKS for me. I wear it whenever I want to feel enveloped in a soft blanket of nostalgia. This fragrance will get me through many cold and lonely nights on the desert island!

The first bottle you would bring to a fragrance swap?

The first bottle I’d bring to a fragrance swap would be anything tomato leaf or fig scented. It’s not that I don’t like those notes, but rather I know everybody else loves them to a degree that I don’t quite understand. I think bringing a tomato leaf perfume to a room full of strangers would be the fastest way to make friends – it’s such a crowd pleaser!

What’s a bottle you never wear but will never get rid of?

The bottle I’ll keep forever but never wear is definitely a perfume that I made myself at Experimental Perfume Club in London. I made my semi-custom scent back in 2024 on a birthday trip to the UK and I absolutely fell in love with the fragrance. The three accords I chose to use were Cardamom Moss (clearly I like cardamom), Tonka Extraordinaire, and Ambre Iris. At the time, this blend was what I considered to be the perfect perfume. However, a little more than a year later, I’ve gone back to smell it and WOW I absolutely cannot stand it. It feels so hollow in my nose, and it reminds me so much of that sensation (and taste) of when you’re sick and your sinuses are draining at the back of your throat. I suspect it’s the iris in it (sorry iris fans, I’m really trying!). I don’t think I’ll ever wear it again, but I can’t part with it because it represents such a magical birthday trip!

In addition to perfume you also collect vintage makeup and jewelry. Tell us how big your collection is and when you started collecting.

My collection has really taken off. I have over 100 solid perfume compacts, over 100 vintage lipsticks, and probably over 200 blushes and powder compacts. I wouldn’t be surprised if my hoard collection is over 500 pieces in total. The crazy thing is I only started collecting a little over 4 years ago.

When I started collecting makeup compacts, I actually didn’t care about perfume at all. I didn’t own any perfume, I wasn’t interested in wearing it, and I always passed over perfume bottles when I went antiquing. But as I started researching my compacts more and more, I began to learn about perfume history by proxy. For instance, as I read about some of my favorite Coty compacts I learned about Chypre, the famous bergamot+labdanum+oakmoss composition that Coty created in 1917. This was the first time I actually became interested in perfume history.

Then, it wasn’t until I read The Essence - Discovering the World of Scent, Perfume & Fragrance that I actually became interested in perfume as storytelling and art. This book is what inspired me to start taking perfume classes; now I’ve taken perfume workshops in Spain (with Bravanariz) and Bulgaria (with RoseOverdose), and I’m in a year long natural perfumery class with Marina Barcenilla. I hope to one day have my own perfume brand (not that the world needs it, but who’s gonna stop me?)

Did you set out to become a collector, or did it sneak up on you? What was the first vintage makeup compact or piece of jewelry that made you think, "Oh... I'm a collector now?"

My vintage makeup and perfume collection started very innocently – I watched this video from Lisa Eldridge about her vintage makeup collection back in early 2022, and started collecting shortly after that. Looking at beauty through a vintage lens was an interesting side to makeup I hadn’t thought of before (I was doing drag at the time so I was very familiar with modern makeup). But the next day after watching her video, I was at an antique store in Highland Park and I came across some vintage blush and lipstick pieces – a Colgate mini lipstick, a Ponds mini lipstick, and an Avon rouge compact. These three pieces started my vintage collection, and it’s been downhill ever since. Every antique store trip after that has been a hunt for more pieces. I then started going to as many estate sales as I could to see what people had on their bathroom counters in Pasadena, Altadena, Brentwood, etc. (LA is quite a great place for estate sales, especially compared to Seattle). I also perused eBay a lot more frequently so I could find the next big thing I could add to my collection. I don’t think I considered myself a collector though until I started buying furniture to accommodate all my pieces.

It’s grown a lot over the years, but I still have my original Avon compact sitting in my collection; as for the two mini lipsticks? I accidentally dropped those down the bathroom drain of my Los Feliz apartment in LA. RIP.

What are some of the things you do with your collection? I remember you telling me you have friends over, teach them how to make solid perfumes, and then let them choose a vintage container to fill.

Earlier this year I hosted a solid perfume making party/workshop at my apartment; my friends came over to compose their own solid perfumes and we put them into a couple compacts of their choice. It was such a fun party, and everyone got to leave with mementos that they created themselves!

To start them off, I gave every person a blank printout with all the potential ingredients at their disposal (about 35 bases, mid notes and top notes). We then sniffed each base note one at a time and I had them give their thoughts out loud, as well as write them down on their worksheet. After that, they each began creating their base accord. Once the accords were done, I started asking them questions; “What heart notes do you want to add to your resinous base? Who wants to lean into florals more? Which top notes do you want to use to lift up your heavy woody base accord?”

A couple hours of sniffing and ideating later, and everyone had their formula. Now was the really hard part for me – I had to convert their formula from drops to grams and individually melt down the solid perfume ingredients. Beeswax, shea butter, jojoba oil, and their raw ingredients each went into a small beaker to heat over a hot plate. It was a little painstaking to do for each person; I should have economized the process. But watching my friends excitedly grab their vintage Estee Lauder or Max Factor perfume compact, filled with their unique scent, was so worth it.

Tell me about one of the most cherished or unusual pieces in your collection.

You know in Dragon Tales when the kids hold up the scale for the first time and they get enveloped in a warm glow before being transported to Dragon Land? That’s exactly how I felt the first time I held my large Coty Airspun Powder compact. Something about the size and shape of it, the weight of the compact in my hand, the textured design of the metal shell – it just felt so correct. Like I was meant to have this compact.

But these Coty compacts aren’t my only special pieces. I also have 3 of the Volupte ‘Golden Gestures’ hand-shaped compacts. These ones can be pretty hard to find, and there are many variations with each one being more rare than the last. Right now I have the plain one, the ‘Gay Nineties Mitt’ white lace opera glove variation, as well as the ‘Engagement Ring’ variation.

But probably my most prized pieces in my collection are my mascaras. Not only do I have an original ‘Lash-brow-ine’ tin and newspaper ad from 1915, but I also have its successor: Maybelline Mascara. I believe the early Maybelline cake mascaras I have are from 1917, 1922, and 1930. These are all solid blocks of mascara that come with a small brush that would dampen with spit (ew) and brush through your lashes. It wasn’t until Helena Rubinstein created the Mascara-Matic in 1957 that mascara took the first form of the wand and tube that we’re familiar with today. And yes, I have the 1957 mascara wand as well!

What’s the holy grail piece you’re still hunting for?

A holy grail for many people, myself included, is the Elgin American compact made in partnership with Salvador Dalí called Bird in Hand. It’s a really elegant compact in the shape of a bird, and it folds open to reveal a mirror, pressed powder, and a pill box. And the head can be removed to reveal lipstick! This compact is pretty rare, and even harder to find in good condition. Every now and then one will go up on eBay for about $1,500, but I’ve seen them on other sites for up to $3,000. This is one of those pieces where if I ever see one in person I will buy it immediately, no questions asked.

Do you make up stories about the people who owned these pieces?

I actually have one piece in my collection that comes with a bit more back story already – this Max Factor blush with the name Dennis Safren on it. This piece is the only one in my collection that has both a first and last name, which makes it easier for me to look up its history. Presumably, this blush was owned by him from his early film days, and he held onto it for many years.

After searching his name I found his IMDB page that lists 3 things he starred in during the 60s and 70s; Insight (1960), El Hombre Que Vino Del Odio (1971), and Mean Mother (1973). I also discovered a post from FirstStage, a playwright group in Los Angeles, that shared Dennis’ passing back in 2018. I reached out to them to find out more about Dennis, and here is what Felix from FirstStage shared:

“Dennis was an aspiring actor and playwright who performed in a number of professional productions on the East Coast and LA. For many years (at least two decades) he was the Manager/Director of FirstStage LA, the longest-running play and screenplay workshop in LA founded in 1983 by members of Sundance Institute. He was also an award-winning produced playwright himself. His play, Straights!, was developed at FirstStage, then produced at Trustus Theatre (South Carolina) and Bailiwick Theatre (Chicago); his play, Offsides, for which he was co-writer, was produced at the Stella Adler Theatre and then at Love Creek One-Act Play Festival in NY where it won first prize. Dennis was an astute writer and encouraging mentor to many aspiring playwrights, including myself.” – Felix Racelis

Has collecting vintage beauty objects changed the way you think about beauty today?

Collecting vintage makeup has absolutely changed the way I see beauty today, mostly because I see how wasteful packaging is now! When you walk into Sephora or Ulta today, you have dozens of aisles of makeup that’s designed to be thrown out – you take off the clear plastic wrapper and toss it in the trash. You hit pan on your eyeshadow palette and you throw the whole thing in the trash. You get the wrong shade of foundation so you bring it back to Sephora and they… throw it in the trash. It’s all completely disposable, and a vast majority of it is non-refillable.

Contrast that with a large swathe of my vintage collection where it’s almost all refillable, reusable, and recyclable. Most of my collection is made of metal that can be melted down to be reused, the compacts all have a space for you to replace the pressed powder, and the lipsticks have swappable cases! That means you can buy a nice quality metal compact you really like, and can KEEP IT for years and years and years. Products like the Revlon Futurama Lipstick cases were meant to last – you buy one case (or multiple) and buy the lipstick refills at a steep discount so you can fill the case, put it in your purse, and carry it forever. I think this is such a cool concept that we don’t really find at an affordable price point anymore. Dior has lipstick cases and refills you can buy, but at $530 for the case and $65 for the refill, that’s not offsetting the thousands of <$20 lipsticks in Ulta and Sephora. Lisa Eldridge, fellow vintage makeup collector (she’s kind of the blueprint really, since I started collecting because of her), has started selling cases and refills too for lipstick and eyeshadow palettes, so I’m happy that someone out there is at least trying to bring back that vintage principle of items being built to last.

You’re so generous with these pieces! What inspires you to share them and give them to other people?

There are two big reasons I’m so generous with my collection. Firstly; at the end of the day there’s nothing I love more than giving gifts to people to make them happy. Sometimes I’m worried I’m like No Face in Spirited Away, but instead of luring people in with gold I’m luring them in with full sized perfume bottles and whatever random craft I’ve hyper fixated on that week. I also love hosting elaborate parties in which a big, time consuming activity is the main focus; my party attendees NEED to leave with some sort of keepsake. Even right now as I’m writing this, I just finished up a three hour scent discovery hangout with some friends where we all smelled 50+ samples from ScentFest SF, and they left with plenty of goodies. It really brings so much joy to my heart to give someone a thoughtful gift.

Secondly, being generous with my collection is part of my ethos. Frankly it would be antithetical to my collection if I didn’t give pieces away all the time. What I love about my collection is that all the pieces can be reused, refilled, and repurposed. What good is it to collect them if they’re just going to sit in storage? Why boast about how a compact is refillable if I’m not going to refill it? That’s why I love refilling my solid perfumes with new modern scents, pressing powder into an old compact, and giving my pieces away to friends that will love them. And selfishly it helps cull the herd of my collection!

Anything else you’d like to share?

1. Read perfume books! The Forgotten Sense and In Search of Perfumes are two of my favorites. And Jean-Claude Ellena’s books are great too.

2. Take perfume classes! I like taking classes through the Institute of Art and Olfaction, and with specific perfumers like Marina Barcenilla. And the two perfume retreats I went on have been great highlights in my life.

3. I didn’t use AI to write any of this, I just really like using emdashes because I do a lot of copywriting at work lol. (editor’s note - it’s true this went through Pangram and these beautiful words are all his!)

Thank you for sharing this look into your world with us Austin!! I’m so grateful for your time and feel lucky our paths crossed. 💖

Summer literally rolls in in San Francisco. Sheets of white fog blanket the city. Covering us from any hope of heat or sun. In my new home we’re above the tree line and often in the clouds. A view of the ocean and Golden Gate Bridge to the right and Sutro Tower to the left of us—a giant tower that can be seen from almost anywhere in the city—is magically gone from view some mornings when we wake, hidden by thick white fog. It’s as if someone was drawing the landscape and decided to erase it and start over from scratch. Sutro Tower, under a mile away from us is enormous and looming and to see it disappear so often from our back deck will probably never stop amazing me.

So you can probably guess that San Francisco summers are cold. They're our chilliest season in a city with no regard for seasons. I apologize to visitors every summer if I forget to tell them to pack coats and sweaters. If you're looking for heat, you won't find it here in June, July, or August. Maybe you'll get lucky with a semi-warm day that hits 68 degrees, but it's rare.

The east coast fall months are when the warmth comes for us. Something I’m finally used to after two decades of living here. Most people who live here are a little off beat so why shouldn’t our weather be too?

All this to say, I love that I can wear my sweaters and my heavy scents in summer. I’m not one for recommending a season for a perfume but it’s easy shorthand and I’ve been guilty of it before. I recently sold my bottle of Promises Promises by Kerosene, I have enough vanilla ambers and I just wasn’t reaching for this one. The woman I sold it to also lives in SF and told me she was saving it for winter but the next day she wore it and said it was perfect for the weather. I saw a photo of her in a puffer jacket on instagram and could smell the scent through the screen, a Thanksgiving vibe on a June day.

The move went well. We’re still hanging art and rearranging things. Settling into the place as it gets used to its new occupants too. George likes all the closets. New places to hide when strangers come over and perfect for the hours spent napping the days away. I have an entire room for my perfume collection and I will never stop appreciating the luxury of that. I love this place in the clouds high above parts of the city. And I know when summer rolls around in September we’ll wake up to blue skies and endless stretches of sea and mountains.

It’s been a busy few weeks. Scent Fest SF was incredible, mostly because so many people I adore in the fragrance world flew to my city and the action was here for once. But the brands, panels, and events were all excellent too. I hate giving people FOMO and it can be boring to drone on about an event not everyone was able to go to, but there were some incredible new brands I discovered so I will be doing a recap soon.

I was the one answering questions for a change for , a very fun fragrance Substack by the great writers Anna Dorn and Crissy Milazzo. You can read it here to learn what top, mid, and base notes I describe myself with along with some other fun questions.

Onto the monthly wears which you get to read if you’re a paying subscriber. Btw, thank you if you are a paying subscriber. 💖

Read more

It’s a world I was immediately taken with when I first discovered it. So when she reached out and asked if I’d be willing to share the story behind her latest release, Fée Du Lilas, a deeply personal fragrance created in memory of her sister, I was honored and immediately said yes.

A pastry chef for 15 years and counting, a former ballet dancer, and a self taught perfumer since 2020, Odette is exactly the kind of person I love talking to. I left our conversation feeling an incredible sense of calm. There’s something so authentic about her, and it was satisfying to meet someone who feels so true to the world they’ve created and the work they’re putting out into the world.

Subscribe now

Odette will release Fée Du Lilas on June 30. For two years she grappled with bringing this fragrance, inspired by and dedicated to her sister, to life. What does the memory of a person smell like? If you’re creating a fragrance inspired by someone you loved and lost, do you lean into what they actually wore? The smells that evoke their presence? Or do you try to capture something less tangible, how they made you feel, what they loved, their humor, their lightness?

These were all questions Odette wrestled with while creating Fée du Lilas. Her sister’s life was tragically stolen by gun violence, and in her honor, all proceeds will be donated to Brady United, an organization dedicated to ending gun violence.

Fée du Lilas (Lilac Fairy) is a delightful fragrance. Built around lilac, her sister’s favorite flower, it’s meant to evoke childhood days spent playing in their grandmère’s lilac-filled garden in France.

This is one of the more floral-forward scents Odette has released, but her signature delicacy and sweetness still come through. It’s fresh and playful, powdery and softly dewy. There’s something undeniably magical about it. It feels like a purple veil drifting through a sunlit garden, surrounded by endless green and friendly creatures popping out of the forest lining the landscape. It whispers rather than shouts. It carries you gently through the day. And if it’s any reflection of what Odette’s sister was like, I wish I had known her too.

A note: I intentionally do not share her sister’s name in this piece in order to respect her family’s privacy.

Christina: Tell me about your sister.

Odette: I’m the youngest of three. We were all into ballet and perfumes. We were really close, also closer in age, and she was way into perfume before me. With everything, I followed in her footsteps. She had Darcy Bussell posters hanging in her room, who’s a fantastic dancer that I love.

She definitely got me into fragrance, and I would sneak into her room and take her stuff. Like any older sister dynamic, we were really diametrically opposed about what we liked, so that’s why this fragrance was really hard for me. She was very into bright, citrusy, chalky white florals. She wore the early 2000s Chloe, the one in the ribbed bottle. She was a Coco Mademoiselle girl. She liked Gucci Flora. She liked Fragonard. She really liked bright, dewy aquatic florals.

Christina: When did you start working on Fée Du Lilas?

Odette: I started immediately after she passed. So two years ago. I really threw myself into my work when she passed. She’d only been able to smell three of my formulas. So the year she died, I was pumping out so many different releases because work became my focus. But this one was difficult to develop.

It took a long time because I couldn’t get it right, and I believe I was approaching it the wrong way. At first, I wanted to make something that I thought she would have worn. After a while, I realized that wasn’t the right direction to go because white florals aren’t my strong suit and aren’t a huge interest of mine. It didn’t come naturally. It was difficult and involved lots of trial and error, waste, and tossing things away, which was really frustrating.

I don’t know, there’s some psychology in there. I really wanted it to be something she would have loved, and I could never quite get there. So I reframed it as an homage to her because she’s not here to say whether she’d like it or not.

Christina: What did she think when you first started making perfume?

Odette: She was very supportive. I’ve made no decisions in my life without consulting her first, we were that close. Down to what shoes are you wearing to this, or what are you eating. We were really knit together.

I’ve described her loss as being like losing a lighthouse in a storm. Or, if I was a balloon, she was the one holding the string. I’ve kind of been floating around without her. It’s been an immeasurable loss, truly.

So anything I can do to honor her matters to me. She was vehemently against guns and gun violence, and it’s such a tragedy in so many ways that that’s how her life ended. I think she’d be happy with this as a way to contribute because she was a big charity giver. She was generous, volunteered, gave blood, and really spent her life showing up for other people.

The name Lilac Fairy makes sense because she really was one. In Sleeping Beauty, the Lilac Fairy is the one who comes in after Carabosse puts the spell on Aurora and helps set things right. It just makes sense. All roads kind of lead back to that.

As a lifelong ballerina, it feels especially fitting. She was much closer to being a professional dancer than I ever was. I never made a career of it, but she came very close before ultimately becoming a chemical engineer.

Christina: What smells remind you of your sister?

Odette: Well she wore Coco Mademoiselle, of course, but she eventually stopped because it started to smell like bug spray to both of us. I’m trying to think of other things I associate with her. Pointe shoes, rosin, jet glue, ribbons, sewing pointe shoes, rubbing dental floss against a candle to get enough wax on it so it would slide through. A lot of the smells from my parents’ house. She loved birds and had a bird of her own, so I associate feathers and that soft downy smell with her as well.

But mostly, lots of white florals. She loved that category of fragrance. I’m the total opposite. I like fuzzy, musky, warm, slippery, buttery, textured kinds of fragrances, which you can probably tell.

Christina: You’ve spoken so beautifully about your sister and how close you were. I’m curious what living with that loss has actually looked like. How do you carry her with you day to day? And how has your relationship with grief changed over time?

Odette: Goodness. Every day is different. There’s so much writing and spoken word about grief, and I think the only description that has ever really stuck with me or resonated is that it’s like the tides.

Sometimes the waves come in and knock you over, and sometimes you can walk alongside the water and know it’s there. That’s the only thing that has ever really described what it feels like for me. Every day is different. You never know what the water will be like, or what the waves of grief will be like.

Aubrey Plaza was on Amy Poehler’s podcast and she described grief as a valley. You can go up to the edge of it and look down, or you can stay away from it. That resonated with me too. It feels pretty accurate.

It’s just an immeasurable loss. She was such an incredible person in so many different ways.

Fée Du Lilas (Lilac Fairy)

Christina: Tell me what the process was like creating Fée Du Lilas.

Odette: So this one was hard for me. I ended up realizing that this fragrance is kind of my dream of what a Lilac Fairy would smell like. That’s the best way I can describe it. I don’t think it’s a photorealistic lilac. I wasn’t trying to recreate lilac bushes or verdant rolling hills. I wanted it to be lilac by way of my own aesthetic, something sheer, sensual, and a little dreamlike.

That’s how it eventually came together, but I was banging my head against the wall for a long time because I wanted it to be something she would have worn. Eventually I realized I needed to approach it differently. It became less about recreating her taste and more about creating an homage to her, an ode to what she meant to me. That’s the direction it ultimately went in.

Christina: Tell me a little bit about how you constructed it. How did you pick the notes? What did they represent about her?

Odette: Lilac was her favorite flower, so a huge part of the formula was reconstructing that flower, but not in a photorealistic, green, sprightly way. I left out a lot of those bright, appley, grassy materials and focused more on the core of lilac itself.

It was her favorite flower, but it also carries a lot of memories for me. We had one grandmother in France and another in the United States, and both had lilacs, but the lilacs I think about most were in my grandmere’s backyard. She had these huge bushes of them. We always talked about how those were the best summers ever. It was lush and beautiful, and I’ll always associate lilac with my sister because of that. Being little kids with grass stains on your skirt, running around, playing hide-and-seek. That sense of childlike wonder has really stayed with me.

Then there are elements that are more me. I created a tiaré flower milk accord that’s a little lactonic, a little tropical, almost coconutty, almost magnolia petal-like. I worked on that, and then found that olibanum and cedar paired beautifully with the lilac and helped round it out.

From there, I leaned on a lot of my usual suspects: musks and sheer, satiny materials that give everything a soft-focus effect. I like that in all of my fragrances. I know some people think if you’re going to do lilac, you should really go for it, make it loud and unmistakable. But I like things to feel softer.

Part of that is because I like to reapply perfume. I like carrying it with me and spraying it throughout the day. I don’t formulate with the goal of filling a room or suffocating a space. I’m always chasing a kind of old-fashioned vanity fantasy, swan down powder puffs, ballet slippers, beautiful objects on a dressing table. That’s the world I’m usually trying to create.

Christina: When is the release date?

Odette: The fragrance launches on June 30, which is actually her birthday. It felt like the right way to celebrate her and honor her memory.

Every year I also do a birthday sale for my own birthday, which is July 18. This year I’m turning 35, so everything will be 35% off. If people want to wait and purchase it during the sale, they absolutely should. The most important thing to me is getting the fragrance into people’s hands and raising as much money as possible.

That’s really the heart of the project. More than anything, I want people to know who she was. Raising as much money as possible is important, of course, but so is sharing her story and keeping her memory alive.

Christina: What do you hope this fragrance brings to people?

Odette: I really believe in escapism. Especially right now, when the political landscape, the geopolitical landscape, and so much of the world can feel frightening and overwhelming. I think perfume is incredibly important because it gives us something to escape into. A fantasy, a story, a fairy tale. I think that matters.

I know I need it. I wear perfume every day, and it’s something I instinctively reach for when the world feels heavy. We keep living through these “unprecedented times” over and over again, and perfume offers a small respite from that. So I hope this fragrance provides a little whimsy. A little escape.

Creative Process

Christina: With Fée Du Lilas, the origin story is so clear. But for something like Rose Adage or any of your other fragrances, where does it start? Do you see a scene in your head? Talk to me a little bit about how an idea becomes a perfume for you.

Odette: I feel like I have a couple of lines in my brain running parallel, almost like train tracks.

One project of mine is to create a fragrance for each ballet in the classical repertoire. Fantôme de Forêt is based on Giselle, Rose Adage is based on Sleeping Beauty, and now Lilac Fairy. Eventually I’d love to do Manon, Le Corsaire, and Cinderella. I think Cinderella would be especially fun.

So that’s one track in my brain. I want to represent the entire classical ballet repertoire through fragrance. I also have Fée Dragée, which is my Sugar Plum Fairy fragrance for The Nutcracker.

The second track is gourmands. I love gourmands and I love working with them, so that’s where fragrances like Madeleine and Petite Gâteau come from.

The third track is memorial fragrances for family members. Lapinou was really based on my grandmother and spending time with her. I’ve teased this a little bit, but I’m also working on something inspired by my dad. My dad, Alois, is an oil painter, and I have such distinct memories of being in his studio and what it smelled like. He smoked pipe tobacco, and his clothes always smelled like tobacco. I’m also passionate about immigration and being first-generation, so I wanted to create something in honor of him. It would be a fragrance about Alois through the lens of being his daughter.

Christina: You started perfumery in 2020, what inspired you to start?

Odette: I’ve always had this idea in the back of my mind. I have sketches from when I was a kid of wanting to have a beauty line. I loved brands like Lollia and TokyoMilk. I was an Anthropologie kid and would go there every chance I got. I also loved Tocca and the way each fragrance was built around a different female archetype.

I remember wanting to create something like that when I was young. I’ve always loved the idea of having a signature fragrance. For years and years I was searching for something that felt completely like me, something where I could say, “This is my smell.”

I love those old Hollywood stories where everyone had a signature perfume. Marilyn Monroe had Chanel No. 5. Audrey Hepburn had her fragrance. I’ve always been drawn to that idea of creating something distinctive and personal. That’s really where Pas de Chat came from. I was trying to create the fragrance I had been searching for forever.

Christina: What do you wear?

Odette: So most of the time I’m wearing a modification or something I’m actively working on. I’m usually the guinea pig. I’m wearing it, testing it, living with it, and figuring out what needs to change.

There’s a really small brand called Stardust and Stems. It’s like a fairy tale. I recently bought one of her spring sample sets and ended up with something like 30 different samples to try. They were wonderful. Everything feels fantastical. One of them was called Alpine Kisses, and the notes were things like fairy wings and buttercream. It’s all very whimsical and imaginative. I think her work is fabulous. Just a lot of fun.

Ballet, Pastry, & Perfume

Christina: French pastry is such a technical discipline, and there’s so much knowledge and precision involved in doing it well. Do you see any similarities between creating perfume and creating pastry, or do they feel like completely different creative processes to you?

Odette: I do see an overlap between classical French pastry and being classically trained as a ballerina. There’s definitely a connection there.

They’re both very disciplined pursuits, and I’m attracted to that. I like order and structure and corrections. I love all of that. French pastry is very unforgiving, just like ballet. You have to follow the recipe. There’s a technique to it, and I love that.

With perfume making, there’s still a minute detail side to it. You’re making tiny corrections, adjusting dilutions, adding different materials. But I think it’s a little freer than baking or dancing because you can paint with a broader brush. You can add a dash of this or a dash of that.

That’s really how I work. I’ll make something somewhat haphazardly at first, just trying to get the idea out and smell it. Then I’ll go back and start scaling it properly. When I’m sketching, I want to get the concept down first. After that, I’ll go back and do the scientific calculations and the math.

Christina: How did you start with the french pastry?

Odette: A friend of mine got me into it. She had gone to culinary school and taught me everything she knew. I already knew how to cook French food from my family, but classical French pastry is a different thing entirely. There’s a huge technical side to it, and she really taught me that discipline and technique.

The Future of Odette Parfum Co.

Christina: What are your hopes for Odette? And what’s next?

Odette: I would love to collaborate with another dancer. Working with Gillian Murphy was truly the highlight of my career. She’s at the very top, and it was such an incredible experience. I have other heroes I’d love to work with too. Darcy Bussell, who I’ve mentioned before, and Sarah Lamb at the Royal Ballet in London. If I could replicate that experience with other dancers, I would love to do that. Getting their perspective as artists and superstars is so inspiring.

Working with Gillian was a dream. I’d love to do more collaborations like that. I’d also love to collaborate with another brand. I’d love to work with Matt Morris too. I love his work and I love his writing.

I’m open to a lot of things, but I’d love to collaborate more, whether that’s with dancers, writers, or brands. I loved what we did with Pearfat, and that collaboration is actually coming back this fall.

I love picking a subject and building a fragrance around it. I love the idea of doing a ballet and having it become a collaboration, and I would love to do more of that. The possibilities feel truly endless to me. I have a list of ideas a mile long. My mind is constantly spinning with different series I could create, different pastries I could explore, people I want to honor through fragrance, films that inspire me.

My middle name is Edith, after Edith Piaf, and I would love to create a tribute to her one day. They called her the Little Sparrow, that was her nickname, and I love the idea of creating something for her. Maybe a gin-soaked iris and geranium fragrance or something along those lines.

I’m constantly inspired by ballet and films. And honestly, places too. Have you ever been to Paris? You have to go.

There’s a carousel right next to the Eiffel Tower, and I’ve become obsessed with the idea of creating a fragrance inspired by it. I’d also love to create a fragrance inspired by a music box with a ballerina inside. I think that would be such a fun project.

There are just so many things I want to make. I never want to stop. I want to keep going.

It’s funny how much smaller a place can look without your things in it. That’s what struck me the most after I finally finished packing and all of my belongings were cleared out of my Irving street apartment. What once felt layered and big had transformed to tiny. Like some fun house illusion my apartment seemed to be laughing at me, already ready for the next occupant to settle in, transform the space, expand the walls and floors with the weight of their own life. Standing there in the middle of the living room, it all just felt so small.

Subscribe now

This place was good to me. I moved here after a 12 year relationship ended, and because I go head first and impulsively (yes Aries) into most things, I was also starting a new job at the same time. New home, new job, ending of a relationship. They say just one of those things is enough to turn your life upside down, and somehow I found myself doing all three at once.

It was one of the most transitional times of my life but I felt lucky to be doing it in my 40s. How many people get married, have kids, and get stuck in their unhappiness. Having done all the things they thought they were supposed to do and still not finding joy there. Here I was feeling reborn from a mess I was able to walk away from. New job, new home, newly single. I was scared but ready.

If there was a scent I would pair with those early days in my new home, in my new life, it would be Lunar Dust by Mabelle O’Rama. Unfamiliar and cold at first, it takes me somewhere foreign, a place I’m not entirely sure is hospitable. Over time it begins to warm. There are woods and other things my nose recognizes, but there’s something exciting and unfamiliar there too. A musky iris with an earthy, slightly metallic quality that keeps me grounded.

My apartment was like that. It took a while, but eventually it started to feel like home. I made it a home. It was a new version of me, one I could shape more intentionally. Oh it was lonely too. And there is a haunting loneliness to Lunar Dust at first, the feeling of standing somewhere new without a map. But then you start exploring. Things become familiar. The edges soften. What once felt cold starts to feel hopeful.

And this new place became a home. I invested more than I should have in nice furniture, new art, and rugs I loved. I wanted this place to ooze me. I wanted all the pink my ex would have never allowed in our old place. And so I got it. I made that sweet 1920s apartment with its quirky corners and beautiful curved ceilings a home. My home. The place felt like a physical manifestation of my insides.

And then I lived there. I lived there hard and I lived there well. I was so proud of the nest I built for myself. A place to prop myself back up, make mistakes, live a little messy, and do all the things I never thought I would do again.

The comfort of it smelled like my old friend Ambre Sultan. Just a solid, reliable, steady thing. Not trying to be more than it was, just a new nest to fall into at the end of the day. A thing that didn’t change much once you settled into it.

I dated people I had no business dating. Thirty-year-old coke dealers who would call me at 6 a.m., still on benders, asking if they could come over. And yeah, of course they could. Men I had learned to avoid decades earlier. Why not? I was in a new fuck around and find out era.

Momento Mori by Mandy Aftel is the smell of that period in my dating life. It’s an animalic stank of a scent. A little dangerous at first, something you’re not sure you want to pull close. But then you do, and once it’s on your skin you can’t stop smelling it. I remember the first time I wore it. I put it on before bed and woke up to the ripest smell of sex lingering on my wrists. It’s exciting, repelling, horny, and unlike anything else I’ve ever smelled. Maybe it’s the antique civet. Mandy’s materials and creations are always opening new pathways in my brain.

The dating was fun. My single friends maybe hated me for a little while as I reveled in this dating app world I had never explored before and absolutely loved. Never before had sex felt so easy and accessible, and honestly, that was all I wanted at the time. Nothing serious. Nothing deep. Just fun. I was high on the energy of strangers. I’d seal the smell of that period in my dating life with Sur Tes Lèvre E.Q. by D’orsay too, which coincidentally means “on your lips”. It’s such a good musky, slightly floral, ambrette scent. Soft, clean, cozy, but also sturdy and velvety.

I made new friends while living there. Friends who turned into family, the kind of people I can’t believe weren’t in my life all along. I navigated the ups and downs of a demanding job during a particularly unsteady period of growth. I found my people. I spent more time with the friends who had already been there too, the ones who felt like backbone when my knees were too weak to stand on their own. The people who showed up, over and over again, without being asked.

And I fell in love again.

My new friends, who now feel like very old friends, if I had to bottle that smell of comfort and laughter and joy they bring me, it would be my very favorite fig, Prolegomene by Notes de bas de Paje. I have just a few dregs left in this bottle. It reminds me of my good friends at Stéle and my family friends in San Francisco, and I feel confident and well loved and safe when I wear it. I might also add in Pony Boy by Jorum Studio here. This one just has so much joy in it, I laugh when I wear it, it’s impossible for me not to smile when I smell it on my skin. A bright rhubarb thing that sparkles and dances.

And the smell of falling in love, well that’s too many bottles to name. But if I had to pick just one it would be Dee April by Dee April ok and Dark Vinyl Musk by Bohoboco. Both were scents André loved wearing as much as I did once they found their way into my collection. Tobacco, leather, orris, musk, saffron, amber. All the notes I love. Unfolding and enveloping and addictive.

There’s something sweet and sad and so perfectly clear about moving in and out of a home. It’s such an easy marker of an ending and a beginning. But it’s all the things you uncover in the dusty corners that I love, and dread, the most. The sun-faded carpet you didn’t realize had changed color until the couches were gone. The dents and scrapes and holes revealed when you take the art off the walls. The little traces of a life lived there. And then there’s the version of you that stays behind. Like a layer of paint or wallpaper hidden beneath something newer. You leave a piece of yourself in every place you’ve ever lived.

I’d like to think I left a calm, renewing energy behind on Irving Street. A vibration in that house that relaxes the new tenants. Something grounding that supports them in the same way the apartment supported me. A bright pink hiding just beneath the freshly painted eggshell white, still energizing and vital even if no one can see it.

And if they ever caught a whiff of my energy there, it would have to smell like a white floral. Jasmine, specifically. The kind I stole from the neighbor’s front yard on my walk home from work. Bubblegum pink blossoms that smelled fruity and just slightly indolic as they lived out their short lives in the vases I scattered around the apartment.

If I had to leave behind actual fragrances for the next occupants, though, it would be a menu of jasmines to choose from: The Point by Clue, Arabian Jasmine by Amer, Vanille Riviera by Maison Rebatchi (forever on my to-buy list tbh), Verdades by Maison d’Etto, Lately at Five by Linen Tu:Tu.

It was a good home. I cared for it and it cradled me while my bones grew stronger and found new aches and pains to obsess over. It was there long before me and it will be there long after me. But maybe all we both need for our next chapter is a fresh coat of paint, a deep clean, and an openness to whatever walks through the door next.

I have not taken this long of a break from Dry Down since I started writing here three years ago. I am blaming it on my move, which honestly, I’m sick of talking about and hearing myself talk about. Does moving get harder the older you get? And how have I accumulated so much stuff? Perfume bottles aside, because those are my precious and I have no regrets. I’m a proud maximalist but I may have one too many trinkets.

In any case, I have some fun things I am working on and you may just get several posts in a week soon. But for now I thought I’d take a minute to share the brands I’m excited to check out at ScentFest SF which is happening next week! If you can’t be here hopefully this is just as interesting as you can check out these brands online too.

Subscribe now

First off, my panel, Fragrance in the Age of Influence, with Asia Grant, Bryson Ammons, Cammy Kim, and Emma Vernon, will be at 1pm on Sunday, June 28th. Later that day at 5pm, we’ll all be hanging out at Ministry of Scent talking about our desert island scents and sipping cocktails, so if you’re in the Bay Area and not going to ScentFest you can still meet everyone there. You’ll just need to RSVP.

Alloy Studio - Because of course. I have never met co-founder and creative director of the brand, Eddie, and I am very much looking forward to it.

El Morocco Perfumery - I’ve shared how much I love their discovery set here, and the scents are just as solid as the presentation. I am looking forward to meeting Isaac and Lillian in person.

Hellenist - They make one of my very favorite orris scents, les bras de Morphée, maybe this will be the time I buy a full bottle. She belongs in my collection.

House of Iyrah - I met the founder, Samira Mbang, at ScentXplore last Fall and she was a delight to talk to. I love their travels set and I have been meaning to do a bigger piece on her and the house for a while!

Imaginary Authors - I interviewed Josh and Ashod on zoom for this interview a year ago and I am so looking forward to meeting them in person. They have always stayed true to their vision and have been at it for a very long time, well before perfume exploded into what it is now. These guys are the real deal.

Jijide - I have smelled some of their line at Ministry of Scent and am so curious about learning more and smelling all of their scents.

Maya Njie - This one has been on my list to explore for a very long time and I am so glad I get to do it in person. Really looking forward to meeting Maya too as she seems like an incredible person.

Mitti - I have smelled a few of their scents at but not the full line. I have a feeling I will be going home with a bottle. Also the founders, Ridhima and Neerav seems like such delightful humans and I have heard such good things from the community about them. Thrilled they will be at ScentFest.

Nose of Gatsby - I think I met the founder and perfumer at a event at some point, but I have never smelled his line and I am dying to get my nose on his creations. Have heard wonderful things.

Sarah Baker - She’s an excellent person and I loved getting to chat with her at ScentXplore. I hated seeing the pile on that happened to her on TikTok. But I digress, her scents are lovely and I like her 30ml bottles.

Strangelove - A brand I’d love to be on the PR list for, mostly because I can’t really justify the spend on their scents. But they are incredible, and I’m very excited to smell my way through all of them.

Tankhouse - I have seen these a lot online but haven’t smelled them. I love that their scents are inspired by New York and they just seem like an interesting brand with a unique point of view.

Villa Erbatium - I like this brand and I know there’s a lot more to explore in their line that I haven’t smelled yet. Hotel Cotton is one of the cleanest, most laundry-fresh, line-dried scents I have ever smelled.

Here’s how the unpacking is going. I have many more perfume boxes to unpack. Please send help.

My apartment is half packed, my couches are gone, which has stressed out my cat George as much as it has me. I have 15 boxes of perfume packed, with a table of my most recent acquisitions still waiting to be dealt with. I also have a cold, which I was sure was just allergies two days ago. Wishful thinking. But it might actually make the next few days easier when it comes to deciding what to pack. Since I can’t smell, I’ll just have one or two bottles to chose from. Easy scents that I know others will enjoy since I won’t be able to.

Subscribe now

Speaking of, the biggest compliment-getter I’ve worn so far this year is hands down Nonfiction’s Dew & Light. What they call a modern-day chypre, it’s fresh, earthy, clean, and slightly mossy. It sounds basic, but it’s beautiful and breezy to wear. People I didn’t even think could smell were stopping me in the office to ask what I was wearing. It was wild how many people commented the day I wore it to work. Honestly, it will probably be the one I reach for while I’m sick. It’s so good and if I can’t smell it at least I know people around me will like it.

I was also sent the new rose perfume from DS&DURGA, Rose Pacific. I really like Rose Atlantic, it’s counterpart, and maybe I am biased because this new one was inspired by the California coast, but it’s the stronger of the two by a mile.

First off, the bottle design is beautiful. It opens with a sharp, almost eucalyptus-like quality to my nose, even though that note isn’t listed. There’s a camphorous edge that completely evokes driving along Highway 1. It doesn’t last long, but just enough to pull me in. Then it quickly shifts into a sweet, jammy, fruity rose, likely from the apricot and peach notes, with a bit of green running through it. And boy does this dry down into a pretty pink flower on my skin. A really gorgeous release. Its limited edition, although DS&D sometimes says that and then brings the popular ones to their permanent collection. I’d be shocked if this didn’t make it there.

I bought the incredible discovery set from El Morocco Perfumery, a new project from husband and wife team Isaac Lekach and Lillian Shalom of Flower Shop. The five scents are inspired by Club Morocco, the iconic New York nightclub where old Hollywood used to gather. They’re meant to transport you back there: “Here, the whispers of gin, traces of cigarette smoke, and echoes of last night’s gossip return in accessible fashion, bottled and meant to be worn with discernment.”

Lillian told me they went deep on the research for this project, and that it represents five years of work. You can tell from the packaging alone.

Because I’m sick, I sadly can’t smell these yet, but I was blown away by the presentation. The discovery set is housed in a very heavy, well-made case designed to look like a cigarette holder, which opens to reveal the five scents set into the center.

I bought this based on a photo alone, and knowing the concept and who was behind it, I had a feeling it would be a good one. It’s the kind of case I’ll travel with. Such a fun way to bring samples along. I might even keep it in my bag regularly. It’s elegant, beautifully made, and I can’t wait to actually smell the fragrances. If the packaging is any indication, they’re going to be fantastic. Rodrigo Flores-Roux is behind one of them, along with Celine Barel, Alexis Grugeon, and others.

I was also sent the new Garden Collection by Tsu Lange Yor. I love the packaging on this one as well, and I will always be happy with a travel size. Perfumers for this collection are Michael Nordstrand who did the Orange Grove, which is a very green and ripe orange that has a dark twist that keeps it interesting through the full dry down. Berenice Watteau created the Fig and Tomato. I love the Tomato in the collection too, and am sure I will run through it quickly. The Fig is not my favorite and I wish I liked it more. But I do have plenty of figs in rotation already.

Speaking of good figs, Studio Scent by Kismet isn’t new but I was just sent a bottle along with a sample of their new Vetiver, Vetiver Supreme. Studio Scent is such a solid fig, I have bought it for friends many times. It’s one of those scents most everyone likes. Happy to have a bottle in my collection now. Also at $132 for 50ml it’s a pretty good deal.

If we’re perfume friends, you’ve probably already heard me talk about Rite of Way’s newest release, Waterfall, a beautiful aquatic tuberose created by Joey Rosin and the third release from this very solid brand.

I love the range Rite of Way has, and I really appreciate how slow and thoughtful they are with their releases. Just one at a time, three over the course of about a year. All really strong scents that offer a unique perspective.

I was also lucky enough to receive a bottle of the new Vanille Planifolia Extrait by Guerlain. This one lasted a solid 24 hours on my skin, no joke. It’s a rich vanilla, powdery and thick, and it reminds me of vintage fragrances. I probably did six sprays, which is far more than you need with this one, and I woke up at 8am the next morning with my wrist under my nose, still smelling a very strong vanilla bomb. I love, love this one. It’s extra in the best way. It’s not cheap, and I don’t usually care much about longevity, but you really get a lot from a little here. She’s a powerhouse and I’m a fan.

And if you’re looking for the exact opposite of that, I’ll point you toward the latest release from Escentric Molecules, Cologne One. This is a bright, fresh, almost photorealistic gin and tonic of a fragrance. Perfect for summer, light and airy.

Fragrance has no gender, but I’m sorry, this smells like a freshly cleaned dude. And that’s a good thing. Big juniper berry and citrus, with that classic Iso E Super, ambroxan, and musk base. I also love the fun packaging.

May wears are below. This month it’s just a list of what I wore, no descriptions. Blame the chaos that is my life right now. By the end of June things should settle a bit. I’ll be in the new place and have some time off, which means those of you waiting on perfume recs will finally get them. Thank you for your patience!!

Speaking of the end of June, I’ll be moderating a panel at ScentFest SF on Sunday, June 28th at 1pm. I have an all-star group joining me, including Asia Grant of Scent Social Club, Bryson Ammons of The Alloy Studio, Cammy of Cammy Reviews, and of Perfume Room.

We’ll be talking about how scent moves from something deeply personal and invisible into something shared, viral, and culturally relevant. We’ll get into how creators build trust and taste, how perfumers think about audience in the age of TikTok, and what happens when an art form that’s traditionally slow and private meets platforms built for speed and visibility, along with plenty more. I can’t wait.

May 1 - Inner child by L’Epoque

May 2 - Temper by Foolish

May 3 - Faux Flora No. 1 by Fischersund

May 4 - Gaiac 10 by Le Labo

May 5 - Ginger Chao by Yosh Han

May 6 - Dew & Light by Nonfiction

May 7 - Inner child by L’Epoque

May 8 - Studio Scent by Kismet

May 9 - Waterfall by Rite of Way

May 10 - Nymphéas by Kismet

May 11 - Dew & Light by Nonfiction

May 12 - Smolder Rose by January Scent Project

May 13 - Studio Scent by Kismet

May 14 - Tuberose Tantrum by Kismet

May 15 - Lunar Dust by Mabelle O’Rama

May 16 - Lust in Paradise Extrait by Ex Nihilo

May 17 - Gris Dior by Dior

May 18 - Lust in Paradise Extrait by Ex Nihilo

May 19 - Parisian Musc by Matiere Premiere

May 20 - Waterfall by Rite of Way

May 21 - Luster by Alloy Studio

May 22 - Vanille Planifolia Extrait by Guerlain

May 23 - Missing Person by Phlur

May 24 - Into the Oud by Astrophil & Stella

May 25 - Venus in Tuberose by Universal Flowering

May 26 - OroNardo by Xinu

May 27 - Inkcense by Aromag

May 28 - Venus in Tuberose by Universal Flowering

May 29 - Inkcense by Aromag

May 30 - Mysur Sandalwood by Soma Ayurvedic

May 31 - Waterfall by Rite of Way

Hi, everyone! Keeping it short and sweet this month. I’ve been gardening like a mad man, catching up on studio projects, and preparing for some exciting things in June.

Orange Grove, the perfume I created for Tsu Lange Yor, launched this month as part of their Garden collection. I really love it because it combines all my favourite things about the Colonia family—bright citruses, herbaceous notes and orange blossom—with an electric jolt of black currant. It’s just the first of a few releases I’m really excited about (one for American Perfumer among them).

I will be on a panel moderated by (Perfume Room) at World Perfumery Congress in Monterey to present two accords I made in a parallel brief with three other perfumers, then I will be off to ScentFest (San Francisco) to speak on a panel and preview the fragrance I created for Scent Trunk. July I am back in Europe for a few things but I will wait to officially mention any of that until the June column.

As always, I love reading all your questions, so please keep sending them! Until next time…

—Michael

If you have questions for a future column please ask them in the comments below or drop them right here. We love all of your questions!

Subscribe now

Beyond perfume, what does an ‘untrained nose’ miss out on in life?

I frequently say perfumery is the art of noticing. Your sense of smell is so powerful that any conscious efforts to develop or cultivate it reveal layers to existence beyond the everyday. The best part of this is you don’t need to be a perfumer to do it.

It’s late spring now, and on my drives to and from the studio I frequently catch the scents of all sorts of flowers. I can usually tell what they are, and where they are, even when it’s dark outside. I can often tell what stage the blooms are at, if the plants were watered recently, etc. I could just as easily drive to and from work only listening to music and enjoying the view of gardens on my way, but being able to smell them—for me—is like experiencing technicolor when most people are only getting black and white.

If someone is foregoing the formal education and teaching themselves, about how many years will it take someone to become proficient in perfumery? And by that I mean can recognize materials, formulate, and everything else needed!

There are a lot of variables in learning perfumery. Some people need more time and more types of education than others. I have a unique hybrid of self-training as an autodidact combined with periodic infusions of formal or more traditional education. It took me about 5 years to feel proficient, but even now, more than 15 years into doing this work, I learn new things everyday. Formulation I think will take the longest for most people to feel proficient in as it represents how everything you learn coalesces around the ultimate act of creating the perfume.

My best recommendation is to find a mentor or some kind of apprenticeship if you are foregoing most traditional education, as much of what you should learn is difficult without shadowing the right person, or people. The bottega style popularised in renaissance Italy is the model on which I run my own studio, teaching my team the craft as they work on projects for me, but I know this is not necessarily realistic for everyone. If that is the case, try to find members of the perfume community with more experience and expertise than you and seek their guidance where and when you need it.

What notes did you think were incompatible, but surprisingly worked well together?

Jean-Carles, who famously created a methodology of learning raw materials used in every perfumery school in the world today, said:

The perfumer should be totally unprejudiced, should entirely disregard his own tastes. Woe to him if he hates vetiver, if he cannot stand aldehydes. He should be aware that there are no incompatibilities in perfumery, that apparently clashing materials will blend successfully on addition of another product playing the part of a binding agent and making their odors compatible.

There are are certainly raw materials I like more than others, or those whose usage to me is not justifiable due to lack of character or impact, regulatory or sourcing issues, pricing. I consider all these things as formulas come together, but I never exclude any raw material for my taste alone. One of just many things I love about my work is finding an accord between unexpected materials; it’s like a lightning bolt to the nose.

I will say occasionally I will read a notes listing for a release with skepticism at the pairings I see; but I think to myself that perhaps the perfumer will achieve something new and interesting, and I seek it out.

Blanc Kogane by Benoist Lapouza surprised me at first with this kind of contrast. It’s structured around a very musky patchouli with white flowers—nothing new overall—but the almost-gourmand nuttiness of vetiver alongside more than 60% of helvetolide kissed with vanillin and coumarin contrasts beautifully with the very fresh, inedible aldehydes in the top note.

That same tension is essential to the DNA of the far more famed Acne Studios par Frédéric Malle (Perfumer: Suzy Le Helley), which is very clearly based directly on Blanc Kogane: the musk note is simply dialed back and the gourmand note cranked to blasting (more than 3% ethyl maltol) alongside a novel (if vague) orange blossom note with dihydromyrcenol. Suzy simply increased the tension in the formula, winning her the brief and an award or two.

Michael Nordstrand is the founder of Mythologist Studio™ and a singular voice in contemporary perfumery. He holds degrees and certifications in perfume creation and cosmetic sciences from Givaudan, ISIPCA, and The Grasse Institute of Perfumery as well as a certification in medicinal plants from Cornell University, where his focus was on aromatic plants popularised during the Middle Ages. Michael received the Art and Olfaction Award for his creation Bad Lily in 2025, and the British Society of Perfumers Award for Patchoulÿ Tartessos in 2024.

Subscribe now

Yesterday I arrived in New York for a big work event we’re hosting here that has been consuming a lot of my time and brain space. Of course, one of my first stops was to visit my sweet friends at Stéle and huff all the new things on the shelves since my last visit. The calm I feel when I walk through those doors turned an otherwise weird off day into a good one. Here’s some of what I smelled. I’ll definitely be back before this trip is over, though I’m trying to control how much I buy as I purge ahead of my move.

I was so drawn to these Brume Orpin bottles. Unusual bottle shapes and colors always get my attention and these looked so good in a row together. Brume Orpin is a Parisian perfume brand founded in 2024 by Tiphaine Cogez Cousseau, a veteran of the Francis Kurkdjian and Balmain fragrance worlds. Of course of Perfume Room has already interviewed her. You can listen to that episode right here.

They use fewer than 50 local, biodegradable ingredients per fragrance and what they call a green chemistry process, which was recognized by the Fragrance Foundation France with a “Responsible Innovation” award in 2025, so it’s not just lip service. I smelled a few of these but didn’t spend enough time with them to have a meaningful take. I’m like an animal chasing shiny things at Stéle, so that first visit back after being away is usually pretty frenetic.

The last three times I have been to Stéle, on my first visit each trip, Starr is magically there (pictured here with Jake). It is so wild and such a coincidence that makes me very happy. Starr has incredible taste and you can read more about her and her collection right here. I’m always happy to see shop dog Charlie, pictured here with co-founder of Stéle, Matt.

I have wanted to smell M.Hainey’s fragrances for a while now so I was thrilled to see them on the counter at Stéle. This is such a good line. Ethernet is a very original green scent, a good one for vetiver lovers, and Vintage Leather is a leather I probably need to add to my collection. It’s a lighter, summer-like leather, just a little fruity and woody. A well worn golden brown leather.

I did end up buying a bottle from Voyde, a brand based out of New Hampshire and formulated entirely by perfumers Macaul Neenan and Miriam Shechet. I went home with Roxo, a full bodied lilac fragrance. Roxo means purple in Portuguese and this one vibrates the color. These are incredibly well priced at $68 for 50ml. I also really loved Stellar Bloom, which is a rich white floral with jasmine grandiflorum and gardenia. But I just couldn’t justify adding another white floral to my collection. I like the bottle designs and vibe of this brand, definitely worth a smell if you’re curious.

Setchu will hurt your wallet a bit more, but the scents are beautiful. And the bottles were mesmerizing. The brand was founded by a Japanese fashion designer based in Milan who has lived and worked in Paris, London, New York, and Japan. The name “Setchu” means compromise, reflecting the blend of Japanese and Western concepts and the meeting point between those cultures. I kept coming back to the Yuzu scent but Tatami was also captivating. I fear I may be going home with one of these as well. Such a unique concept with original smells and an incredible package.

Everything is treated as art on the marble shelves of Stéle.

Bluegrass from American Perfumer is a beautiful, crisp lavender with orris, oakmoss, and vetiver. It smells like a bright, perfect morning on a porch, looking out at a vast field of green. Teapot Sonder is a lovely citrusy, slightly sweet tea scent that I kept going back to. It’s a really solid one from Ode Ona.

Loved seeing House of Mammoth on display. You & I (Will Die) is one of my favorites from them.

I was also really excited to smell through more of Barre Perfume. I kept going back to Dolly, a sweet orris scent. These also feel well priced to me at $118 for 30ml. I love the bottles and labels too. I always forget how much I like Luce by WA:IT, it’s a solid spicy floral.

I’m only now realizing that Dominique Ropion is behind one of my favorite Aromags I smelled today, Wild Garlic. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s a beautiful green tomato scent, perfect for hot summer months. I smelled through all of the new Aromags, which Stéle will have online and in store soon, and it was nearly impossible to choose a favorite. I’ll be sharing more on this brand soon, they have some good ones.

You guys, I have never been busier than I am right now. I’m two weeks out from a huge work event I’ve been planning for the past six months, and at the same time I’m packing up my life to move into a new place with André, plus a few other projects I’m helping with. I’m very excited, but between travel, work, deadlines, and the world still being on fire, everything feels like a lot at the moment.

To lighten my load for the move I am selling some of my collection. You can watch my somewhat sad attempt at letting bottles go here. I’ll also be sharing what’s available for sale in my IG stories, so follow along there if you don’t already.

So I don’t have a new post for you this week, but I hope some of you will enjoy this personal essay, especially those of you in the Bay Area. I felt a pull to edit it before sharing it here, but that’s a project I don’t need to take on right now, so just know there are a few things I’d probably tweak. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Be back soon with more smelly stuff. xx

Subscribe now

Ben texted a photo of Dylan’s today which is now called something else. The perfect little local bar on the corner of 20th and Folsom where we used to drink away almost every night of our 20s and then our 30s before we started to drop off into marriages and new cities and jobs that became more important than late night conversations with friends.

I never seemed to get hungover back then. Was it because we drank so much that our livers were in the best shape of their lives? Strong and ready to fight off the booze sweats, focused on their job of keeping things filtered and running, keeping us going.

San Francisco holds a million secrets to a million lives I’ve lived and it’s amazing that three of us on that text thread are still here, haunting this city. We’ve all threatened to leave it so many times that now it just rolls its eyes at us when we go on about better cities, cleaner streets, more vibrant places. It takes a big hit of weed and blows it on us in a disguise of fog ‘shut the fuck up’ it says as we pull hoodies over our heads. We’re still here. Through kids and many jobs and so many different lives. All of us slowly creeping towards 50. How the hell did that happen. I swear we were 25 two seconds ago. Drinking endless gin and tonics going home with bartenders and regulars. Being the night creatures we now cross the street to avoid.

It’s not a sad state we’re in. It’s just different. We used to chain smoke and now we sip tea in front out of our giant monitors. We try not to stay out too late or drink to much. We’ve swapped bourbon for edibles and well whiskey for expensive champagne. We spend our money on nice meals and fancy shoes. And San Francisco just lets us be, throwing us a good time in a sunny day every once in a while.

I am starting to think when people tell me they don’t like San Francisco it’s more a reflection of them than the city. New York is easy. She opens herself up for everyone. You’d have to be a really miserable person to not find something you like about New York. There’s so much packed in per square inch. LA is cool again even though the New York kids still like to trash it. But it’s never been cool to say you like San Francisco. Too full of tech bros and startups and the streets are dead and the homeless population is out of control even Fox news says so.

I don’t know how to change that perception and I guess I don’t care anymore. But I’ll automatically think less of you if you come to San Francisco and try to tell me what a horrible place it is. Unless I already like you then I will just roll my eyes at you and feel sorry for you for not being curious enough to find the good stuff. The tiny art galleries and restaurants out of garages and crusty old dive bars hosting aging punk bands and the new indie sleaze. Maybe it’s not your thing but there’s a culture waiting to be found here if you just pop open the lid.

I grew up in New Jersey where we were taught at a young age that New York was the center of the universe. We went to Brooklyn to visit my grandparents every Sunday since I was little. My Dad grew up in Bay Ridge, my Mom moved to the Bronx from Sicily when she was 12. New York runs deeps in my blood and yea there’s no place like it. But I was still confused when my college friends started moving there. Brooklyn was for family and old people. And yes I’m writing this so you know I experienced New York before you. I have the magnetic pull of a pigeon to go back there. But it hasn’t prevented me from appreciating other cities and I stopped judging places by how cool the restaurants were when I was in my 20s.

I couldn’t hate San Francisco if I tried to be honest. My history is too wrapped up in its concrete. In the buildings that have been torn down and rebuilt. In the dank floors of dive bars and the tall green grass of Golden Gate Park. The fog holds my name. The streets keep my secrets, they have heard me crying on the phone with my mother, shouting at a lover in a drunken rage at a stupid age, seen me laugh with joy and trip after first kisses. It holds all the friends no longer living and all the years that got swallowed up before we could write them down and remember them. I couldn’t hate this place if I tried.

Which is maybe why I get so defensive when coworkers and friends from other cities talk about how lame SF is. Who goes into someone else’s house and tells them how horrible it is? Without respecting the layers of bark, the gnarled roots spilling out from the walls, without admiring the language only the trees of this place can comprehend. Without taking the time to ask, what do you love most about this place? Show me.

Sorry I’m getting this Monthly Wears post out so late! It’s been busy times over here. I also still need to send the pins to people who commented for them a few weeks ago. 🙃 I promise June will slow down for me, well that’s a lie, I’ll be moving in June. But I will get those packages out! Got a good moving scent rec? One that will calm my anxiety? I hate packing.

SF ScentFest is happening from June 26 - 28 and I will be there and moderating a panel, more to come on that soon. But if you are even remotely considering coming for it you should !! ! We so rarely have big fragrance events like this in the Bay Area and this one is at Fort Mason right on the water with some great exhibitors including Dusita, Jijide, House of Iyrah, Notes of Gatsby, Alloy Studio, ScentTrunk and more!

The finalists for the Art and Olfaction Awards have been announced. This marks the 12th ceremony hosted by the incredible Institute for Art and Olfaction (IAO). I went last year, and if it weren’t in Greece this time, I’d absolutely be back in LA. It’s such a fun weekend. Already looking forward to it returning to LA next year. Congrats to all of the finalists.

Comment on this post and let me know which scents you’d most like to try from what I wore this month, and I’ll pick one person to receive some decants. I usually choose three, but I’m already a bit behind on shipping. Also, this post is typically just for paid subscribers, but once a year or so I open it up to everyone, so enjoy!

Subscribe now

April 1 - And The World Is Yours by What We Do Is Secret - this is such a good beachy floral. I can’t resist a Dominique Ropion scent and this one is no exception. Bright with orange bloosom, sexy with cumin, and warm and inviting with sandalwood and vanilla. This one is a beauty.

April 2 - Bee’s Home by Twenty Second of May - Bee’s Home is comforting. It’s layered with spices, rose, jasmine, and amber and it just sings on skin. Perfumer is Christian Carbonnel. I like this brand a lot and I like how big and bold this one is when I wear it.

April 3 - Butterfly Tamer by Syd Botanica - When I interviewed Syd of Syd Botanica, the brand founder and perfumer for this line, she told me that Butterfly Tamer is about gentleness. She also called out that there’s no actual apple in Butterfly Tamer, but there is an accord. A champaca flower that smells like the flesh of an apple. She made 18 mods until she landed on the final version. This is one of my favorites from her line. It’s is a very green fougére and I love it.

April 4 - Lores by Sept & Venus in Tuberose by Universal Flowering - I got an email from Sept founder, Tanya Khurana, a year ago about the perfume line she was developing. Tanya was born in Thailand and raised in India. I asked Tanya why she had the fragrances made in France considering her South Asian roots and the inspiration for the scents themselves and she told me that she lived in Paris in her late teens and twenties, where she studied and worked. Fragments of the culture, art and atmosphere stayed with her, along with memories from time spent across the Mediterranean.

“As a third culture kid, I’ve always felt you carry the places you’ve called home in fragments. This is my way of entwining two distinct cultures, but also different phases of my life. I’m Indian and still live in India, so certain notes and references show up instinctively. Rose runs through every fragrance, alongside sandalwood, oud, and saffron that can be traced back to India.”

Lores was my favorite of the three, but they’re all solid scents that I would gladly wear. Tanya told me Lores is inspired by her home, and the ruins of Delhi. It’s a woody, aldehydic scent that feels warm and inviting. Camille Chemardin is the perfumer. Their website is WIP but they should be launching soon!

Also wore Venus in Tuberose in the evening. Every time I come back to it, I’m reminded how good it is. It keeps earning its place in the imaginary permanent collection I keep in my head, the one I’d have if I ever had to whittle everything down.

April 5 - I-Dream by Maison d’Etto - This is a vanilla for people who don’t want to smell like a cupcake. Lasts and lasts on my skin. I wish the leather notes stuck around longer. Ambroxan is not listed but I’m pretty sure I get a heavy dose of it here. Perfumer is Rodrigo Flores-Roux.

April 6 - Le Dix by Balenciaga - This pretty powdery iris has become my fancy scent. The one I reach for when I am getting a little more dressed up than usual or just want to feel like a fancier lady than I really am. The beautiful bottle, the vintage vibes (even though it’s new), the orris.

April 7 - Lunar Dust by Mabelle O’Rama - It opens cold and slightly metallic, then softens into something woody in the dry down. It feels like being in outer space, but the landscape is somehow familiar, you’re home, but not. Disorienting, yet comforting. So happy to have this one in my collection. It’s an easy reach when I can’t decide what to wear. Mabelle O’Rama is also the perfumer for this one.

April 8 - Annabel’s Birthday Cake by Marissa Zappas - Another adult gourmand, more sexy than sweet. It’s angel food cake, light and fluffy, Pink Sugar all grown up. And it includes one of my favorite floral notes— rose. This is sweet, sexy, and warm, and ends on a woody marshmallow note with a hint of cocoa. Sweet but not saccharine. Another one I’d put in my permanent collection. Perfumer is Marissa Zappas. I wear this on my birthday every year.

April 9 - Vietnamese Coffee by d'Annam - This is a really beautiful, rich coffee scent. Kind of exactly how I thought it would smell except a little less sweet and a there’s a surprising but subtle floral note (lily of the valley). You get what you think you’re going to get from it, and honestly, sometimes that’s exactly what you need. Top contender for the permanent collection. Perfumer is Anh Ngo.

April 10 - Purple Night 1992 by Les Bains Guerbois - A favorite tuberose perfectly blended with patchouli and tobacco by one of my favorite perfumers, of Dominique Ropion.

April 11 - Carnal Flower by by Frederic Malle - Another beautiful white floral from Dominique Ropion. This one is an intoxicating scent with eucalyptus on top, softened by creamy coconut, then drenched in tuberose. It’s an overdose of white florals. It has a sharp green edge to it that makes it a little vegetal, floral, but earthy with a little spice. I wore this to my birthday party.

April 12 - With the Candlestick by Clue - I bought this with Jennifer when she was in town visiting me and it reminds me of that day whenever I wear it. It’s a rich cinnamon-y incense scent with some melted wax a just blown out candle wick. Perfumer is founder of Clue, Laura Oberwetter.

April 13 - Hidden Habits by Temporal - I miss smoking. I miss the smell of cigarettes on clothing and the forced breaks in the day. The ones that got me outside and let me pause. Five to ten minutes with coworkers, or friends outside bars and restaurants. Meeting strangers who asked to bum a cigarette. Hidden Habits is the debut from the new LA-based brand Temporal, inspired by a relative trying to cover up the smell of their smoking habit. It opens with minty green notes, leather, and of course tobacco, layered with jasmine, amber, and vanilla.

At first spray, it was almost too close to the real thing, like I had just been smoking in a crowded bar. But about thirty minutes in, it softens into something more familiar. The faint trace of smoke on my mother’s leather jacket, fresh sticks of gum in the pockets, a white floral perfume sprayed on top. It made me feel nostalgic, and a little sad, thinking about how far we’ve come from my much simpler college years. But I’d wear it again in a heartbeat.

April 14 - Rinse Cycle by Noyz - This one is really good. Probably my favorite Noyz to date. I get sent all of their new releases and candles and this is the one I have reached or more than any other on my shelves. As you would expect it’s clean and fresh and feels easy.

April 15 - Lost in a Fluffy Nest by Tada - A fluffy, cotton candy, musk dream. Makes me happy. Perfumers are Tada Archawong and Prin Lomros.

April 16 - Penuche by Atwood Parfum - An animalic gourmand that pleases me so much. André has started wearing this one when he’s over my house and I love how it smells on him. A little leather and vanilla. Perfumer is Atwood founder Luke Anapolis. Very excited to smell their newest release coming soon, Saltbox.

April 17 - Delphes by L’objet - I hadn’t explored L’Objet’s fragrance world before a publicist reached out to send me their latest, created by Jean-Claude Ellena. I was taken with the bottle the moment I saw a photo, and the real thing in my hands did not disappoint. Blue glass, a crackled porcelain cap, it feels truly special. The scent lives up to it. There’s something about it that feels a little haunted to me. A kind of dampness with an almost cold quality. It’s woody and green, and it’s my first perfume with olive wood in it. Really beautiful.

April 18 - Rinse Cycle by Noyz and Debaser in Bloom by DS&DURGA - I like Debaser in Bloom more every time I wear it. It could easily be a daily wear for me if I didn’t have a ridiculous number of bottles to chose from every day. Perfumer is David Seth Moltz.

April 19 - Pu’er Tea by One Day - I don’t know what pu’er tea tastes or smells like so I don’t know how accurate this but I love the dry, green, tea smell of this one. It feels cleansing. My first bottle from One Day. By perfumer Michael Wong.

April 20 - Parisian Musc by Matiere Premiere - For the longest time, I called this Parisian Music in my head, and it gave it this poetic feeling whenever I wore it. I don’t reach for this musky, almost fig-like scent enough. It’s one of those easy-to-wear fragrances that goes on easy and doesn’t shout too much. Perfumer is Aurélien Guichard.

April 21 - Moon Ring by Sage & Salt - A fig that doesn’t smell like your typical fig, this scent is bright, green, and alive. Earthy and very grounding. Founder of Sage & Salt, Corbin Chamberlin tapped Sarah Horowitz as the nose for this one. Both have a background in energy work, and Chamberlin is a practicing witch, which is why I think this scent feels so magical. Tomato, fig, jasmine, sandalwood, and tobacco all round out this soothing scent.

April 22 - Miami Split by Abel - I was so surprised and delighted by this scent. It opens with a big green banana smell and then mellows out into a woody labdanum-heavy treat.

April 23 - East by Akro - I love an oud with some sweet notes, in this case, raspberry. Add in some leather and ambroxan, and I’m sold. A comforting scent I don’t reach for enough.

April 24 - Rinse Cycle by Noyz (she’s good!)

April 25 - Patchouli Noir by Mandy Aftel - I picked this one up when I went to Mandy’s wonderful museum again with some friends when they were visiting. I have it in solid form and it’s such a spicy, green, rich patchouli. It’s created from four patchouli essences: patchouli absolute, patchouli essential oil, the natural isolate patchoulyl acetate, and a one-of-a-kind hundred-year-old antique patchouli (taken from Mandy’s website). It smells a little campfire smoky and makes me feel like my head is in a tree even though I’m sitting at my desk staring at my computer for too many hours.

April 26 - Mysur Sandalwood and Bombay Fleur perfume oils by Soma Ayurvedic - Arjun Sampath, the founder of Soma Ayurvedic, reached out and asked if he could send me some samples. I love a perfume oil you can roll on and I was also very intrigued by their Jasmine Body Oil, which is such a beautiful smelling light oil. The formula is excellent when it comes to body oils. But the perfume oils! I was really surprised by how much I immediately liked almost every one I rolled onto my skin. Sandalwood isn’t ground breaking but this is a really good one. And the Bombay Fleur is a spicy woody floral. These oils are also the perfect travel size. Really excited to wear them all.

April 27 - Vanilla Muse by Soma Ayurvedic - This one had much more of a spicy kick than I expected from the name. I barely got any vanilla on first sniff, but it does include one of my favorite synthetic notes, galaxolide, which gives it that clean, musky feel. If you’re expecting a traditional vanilla, this isn’t it, and that’s exactly why I like it.

April 28 - Spring 26 by Ffern - I’ve always been curious about how Ffern operates. I don’t love the idea that their scents are only available if you sign up for a waiting list, or the somewhat opaque process behind getting accepted. I understand it’s good marketing, but it feels like unnecessary friction. That said, I’ve consistently heard good things from people who have managed to get their hands on their fragrances, which has kept me curious. They do have a store in London where you can walk in, skip the waitlist, and shop freely, which I appreciate.

So when a publicist reached out offering to send their latest release, Spring 26, of course I said yes. I wanted to see if the hype held up. They sent both a candle and a bottle of the fragrance, created by their in-house perfumer, Elodie Durande. The scent itself is lovely. Nothing groundbreaking, but very pretty and easy to wear. It’s a citrus-forward floral with an aromatic freshness that feels clean and uplifting.

What really stood out to me, though, was the packaging. I wish I had taken unboxing photos. Everything was so thoughtfully presented, and opening it felt like a special experience. The candle comes in a heavy metal container that feels substantial and luxe. The perfume includes a smaller size for testing, along with beautifully designed materials that walk you through the story and inspiration behind the scent. It all felt considered, like receiving a little treasure. I can see the appeal of subscribing and receiving something like this each quarter. It’s the most fun and delight I have experienced unboxing new perfume in a while. So I get it Ffern lovers! If you want to learn more about how it works head here.

April 29 - Jasmine Des Anges by Dior - I received a very generous package from Dior this month and this is the first one I opened and sprayed on skin immediately. It’s pure jasmine bliss. There is a brightness layered in with the peach and apricot that makes this jasmine just different enough from any others I already have in my collection. So excited to wear this on repeat.

April 30 - Gris Dior by Dior - This one was created by Francis Kurkdjian. It surprised me! For some reason I thought this would be a deeper, darker scent, but the flowers really came through quickly. I found myself wishing it lingered longer on the earthy oakmoss of it all.