Hiatus

Stocking up on new scents for the New Year. Please suggest your seasonal favorites in the comments, and take deep breaths to make more memories for the future. Cheers, and check back soon.

Santa Ana Winds

This is one of those scents you have to catch early in the morning, before all the moisture’s been leached out of the air and you can’t smell anything at all. First is the last vestiges of the cool morning air that’s rapidly warming up, followed by the rarely encountered smell of mature leaves blowing against each other–there’s eucalyptus, sure, but also additional green smells from the olive, citrus and avocado trees in the back yard–that aren’t as pungent or moist as freshly mown grass, but are still identifiably vegetal. The wind-chimes and rustling leaves add to the excitement that the Santa Ana’s always seem to bring, and there’s probably already a spiky-stemmed palm frond or two on the front lawn that needs to be carefully carted to the side of the house. Later in the day the smoke from the inevitable wildfires reminds everyone of one of the downsides of living in the Golden State.

Denipaire – Autumn morning

The oily, acrid smell of workhorse smoke from wood that’s being used to heat the homes in the village. Mixed in are the scent of rain on cow fields and tree leaves, and the exhaust of the bus that comes to pick us up for school. The 15 mile ride takes us through similar fields and villages, and, somewhere in the middle, a small but dense forest in which ET would’ve felt completely at home.

Lake Arrowhead – Summer

The carpet of sunwarmed pine needles smells like dry earth and dust and also the beginnings of a possible fire – not a bit of the fabled christmas tree fragrance to be found. A fleeting feeling of cognitive dissonance, because it’s frankly too warm to really be “in the mountains.” There’s a slightly rotting or maybe just fecund smell from the mud by the lake, but there isn’t time for me to go see which one it is.

“Seasonal” Fragrances

Up in the northern hemisphere, we’re moving along toward winter. This is among my favorite times of year, scent wise: more parties, cooler weather, and more people choosing to adorn themselves with scent. There’s something festive about entering a crowded room where the majority of adults present are perfumed in some way–the clash of scents provides a backdrop that heightens the expectation of a good time to be had by all.

There are obviously heavier scents that work best when it’s colder. You might not want want to be wearing a spicy, warming scent when it’s already 90 degrees outside, though months later it feels like another layer warding off the chill. A different winter strategy is to seek out tropical or exuberantly floral scents that would have brought the bees buzzing when their antecedents were in season. I especially appreciate the coconut warmth of Mountain Ocean’s Skin Trip moisturizer in the dark of November, the heavy sweetness  of ylang ylang, jasmine, or gardenia, or the bright juiciness of mango or grapefruit when the rains are pouring down.

Candy Necklace

If a smell could connote stickiness, this one would be a top contender. Pastel sugar sweet with a faint suggestion of orange flower. Running after the ice cream truck, then wearing the necklace for as long as I could stand the temptation. At intervals, I would bite the sweet and just barely salty candies one by one right off the elastic, which was still stretched around my neck. The tugging at the edges of my mouth combined with the dull powdery crunch of the breaking candy disc was as much a part of the experience as the smell and taste of the candy itself.

Mountain Cabin – Winter

Dry heat, drying wool, and some kind of wood – cedar to keep the moths away, or the smell of a burning fire. If you’re lucky, there’s a bit of mulled wine or spiced cider from the kitchen. The door opens and the fresh cold snow smell blasts in for a moment, and then the smoke from the fire’s blowback takes precedence. There’s a tiny bit of mildew underneath, but you only notice it when you’re getting ready for bed in the upstairs bedroom.