snowcake season

My neighborhood is not messing around, sunset-wise.

The week before last, Boston got a foot of snow. It all melted, and I was in Atlanta at the time, but the chill is still here, even as some fire-colored fall leaves keep hanging on, too. It seems I'm constantly talking about how fall is my favorite season, so it will surprise no one that I'm in no rush for winter to arrive. There are, though, a few winter-is-coming olfactory pleasures that help assuage any anticipatory angst: the smell of our ancient free-standing radiators when they clang into action after a long rest is so beautiful, and still surprises me most mornings; the smell of cold weather clinging to people's clothes, that almost-visible mix of static electricity and thin fresh air that makes those come-in, come-in hugs all the more essential; and the smell of Snowcake, my favorite Lush soap (described in last year's gift guide as the sudsy equivalent of a comforting embrace), which is back in season, and back in my regular shower rotation (used in conjunction with Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Liquid Soap, it's as Chrismassy as tinsel and twinkly lights). Stay gold forever, fall; I miss you even when you're around.

back to school smells

It's the first day back-to-school for my graduate-student husband and he has a new backpack, filled with very old books. I have the itch to buy pencils and something plaid. I smell like L'Artisan Parfumeuer's Séville à l’Aube, a fragrance I've been wearing nearly every day for two weeks, with the occasional interruption from Güd's Vanilla Flame Natural Body Mist, which sounds like it would be a Yankee cupcake candle sugarbomb, but is instead a subdued, creamy, beachy vanilla perfectly suited for summer's last gasp.

It was love at first spray for me and Séville à l’Aube, as it immediately reminded of elements of other favorites: the incensey chewiness and powder of L'Artisan's Nuit de Tubéreuse, the sweet orange flower of By Kilian's Sweet Redemption, and just a splash of the root beer cream of Acqua di Parma's Mandorlo di Sicilia. But Séville à l’Aube is more changeable than any of these, and every time I go to sniff it, it shifts a little, always leaving me curious, wanting more. I don't love lavender in perfume. The plant itself smells wonderful, and I usually enjoy it in food or drink, but in perfume I often find it off-putting. As strange as it may sound, I swear the lavender in Séville à l’Aube smells different in each nostril, like dried lavender sachet in the left nostril and a bit like iris and basil in the right. I'm not familiar with Luiseiri lavender listed in the notes, but maybe my right nostril is? Séville à l’Aube has a hint of that plastic jasmine beloved-but-forgotten-childhood-toy smell, a creamy cloud of beeswax, and loads of beautiful benzoin. Its erotic origins are well-documented, but it doesn't read animalic to me, which makes it sexier in some ways, an invitation to provide those sweatier smells yourself, beneath a tree turning towards fall, with the help of your own black-clad soon-to-be lover.