Why it’s more than just 'scented liquid'
Fragrances and perfumes mean different things to different people. There are not too many things in life that excite me, that I can get completely lost in. Scents do that. I can spray on a perfume in the morning, go to work and be sure, I smell good to other people. I do enjoy the feeling of having a cloud of inoffensive pleasantness around me. But that’s not what it’s all about. At least not for me. The magic happens when I come home and spray on things that are not that easy to like from the getgo, that are different, strange, questionable at times and more often than not marketed towards the opposite gender.
It is all connected with emotions. If it does something with me, if it evokes a feeling and it doesn’t even matter if it’s a good or bad one, if a scent manages to make me feel SOMETHING, that is when it has my attention.
It fascinates me how strongly scents are influencing our memories. Out of all our senses, it is probably the one that works most unconsciously. I can walk on the street and randomly catch a whiff of something and it immediately transports me to a place or an event that I had consciously already forgotten about. The most primordial and pure sense. You wrap a baby in a blanket that smells like their mother and they immediately stop crying. Utterly fascinating.
Fragrances are also my refuge, my hideaway, something that brings me comfort when nothing else does in that moment. They bring back memories and people, they make me dream for a second and forget the world. They hug me, they soothe me, they put my mind at ease.
To me, a note in perfumes that does provide a lot of comfort is immortelle. For some reason it makes me feel very peaceful and calm and I always associate it with the sense of warm sunlight on a late summer afternoon, the smell of old dusty books and people I trust and love. I carry a little decant of Annick Goutal's Sables in my purse, probably the most distinct and pure immortelle perfume there is. It genuinely makes me feel better just smelling the cap whenever I get anxious or upset during the day.
I love perfumes, scents, fragrances, for all those reasons.
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This is for Sables and for one wonderful human being
It was like being stranded on a golden island in the middle of nowhere.
Years of swimming through an endless ocean, every part of my body sore and exhausted. When the only purpose of a heart was to push blood through veins in order to keep swimming. With no direction, no purpose, no meaning other than staying alive. And it was only when I stopped fighting against drowning and gave in to the waves, that I suddenly found myself washed ashore on a piece of land, so beautiful, so exciting, yet so peaceful.
I lay down in the warm sand and let the sun above me dry every tear, even the ones I had never managed to cry. Nothing hurt anymore, in fact, nothing even mattered in that moment. I took a deep breath and smiled. I took another deep breath, inhaling the smell of your skin. You loved one that had been stranded on the same island, healing your scars under the same sun. I squinted my eyes against the bright light, turned my head a little and looked at you. The most desirable and precious human being, so perfect that it technically shouldn’t exist. I studied every line, every dimple, every little hair. I never wanted to lose that picture.
Then I took one last deep breath before the big wave came crashing in. I grabbed your hand in despair, trying to hold on to you, to the moment and all it’s beauty and bliss. I wasn’t strong enough. It pulled me back into the ocean where all I can do is try to breathe. I am swimming again in this big sea of futility. No direction, no purpose. I am trying to breathe and all I smell is you while the outline of your face is still flashing and glowing in every corner of my mind.
Sometimes it’s hard to breathe.
