seasonal scents: 39 posts

One evening my husband and I strolled through the Beguinage in Leuven, a university town in the Flemish part of Belgium. Beguinages (or begijnhofs as they are called in Dutch) were medieval lay sisterhoods in which women led lives of piety and charity without taking permanent vows. At best, the Catholic church had an ambivalent attitude towards the beguines. Women weren’t supposed to have this much freedom or to exist independently from male control. The sisterhoods were prosecuted and labeled as heretics, but despite all of this they maintained their order. Belgium had the highest number of beguinages in the world, and about 30 remain today (albeit non-functioning). If the desire to live free from men counts, then the beguines might very well represent the earliest form of the women’s movement.

Although today Leuven’s Beguinage is a UNESCO heritage site housing university students and faculty, there is an aura of serenity pervading its narrow streets. The setting sun tints the grey cobblestones a rich gold and plays on the still water in the canals. The swallows paint delicate arabesques over the sky, making me strain my neck as I admire their graceful spins. The red geraniums spilling out of the window boxes give off their dusty metallic scent, and each tiny streets ends in a small secret garden awash in roses and privet. The beguines may have vanished, but their oasis of quiet beauty remains. Continue reading →

Summer is a wonderful time to wear fragrance.  It’s the season to break out the cool, the sparkling, and the refreshing.  It’s the season to leave behind the warm, the dense, and the heavy.  Orientals that smelled sumptuous at Christmas smell overstuffed in summer, a lesson I learned when I sprayed a thick woodsy vanilla on my wrist in Manhattan one hot July day.  Hours later, I couldn’t remember what the scent was, but I remember how it smelled.  The vanilla note that was so beguiling in winter had turned sour and unattractive.  The woods smelled not of a curl of smoke but of a soggy, recently doused fire.

I live in a place that I like to refer to as the “heat locker.”  It’s imperative that I have a library of scents that can carry me through six months of the year, most often in high humidity.  The scents I choose range from the effervescent to, paradoxically, the plush. It’s all in the nose (and skin) of the beholder!

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“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” Although Mark Twain never actually uttered this phrase famously attributed to him, had he spent the summer in Belgium, he would surely have come up with a quip along these lines. What do you think of when you hear about Belgium? Beer, chocolate, rain, Hercule Poirot? I haven’t spotted much of Poirot around, but beer, chocolate and rain are the leitmotifs to my Belgian impressions. And since I will be in Belgium for the next few months some time, I might as well get used to the rain.

Still, I can’t believe how cold the summer has been. On any given day, I wear a sweater and a jacket. I keep sunglasses and umbrella in my purse, because even if it’s sunny, the chances of rain are high.  The beer somewhat makes up for the cold weather, but since I shouldn’t rely on beer alone, I’ve been seeking solace  in other things. First of all, the warm, oriental style perfumes. Bombshells like Chanel Coco or Guerlain L’Heure Bleue are too much on days when the sun is warm and generous, but incense rich Diptyque Eau Lente, Annick Goutal Myrrhe Ardente, By Kilian Rose Oud, Chanel No 22 and Christian Dior Mitzah feel just right, whether it’s rain or shine. A recent discovery, Olfactive Studio Lumiere Blanche, with its creamy sandalwood drydown is another perfect warm accessory.

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Spring flashes past me in a flurry of pink cherry petals. Every year I anticipate it with the same impatience, whether or not the winter tested me with too many snowy days. I just love the rejuvenation I feel in the air, the promise of something new, and fresh scents all around me. I immediately want to clean out my closet, throw things away, wash windows—what madness!—plan an exciting trip, read new books, learn a new language. I don’t make New Year resolutions; my springs are all about making changes.

In tandem with my bouts of energy, I also crave uplifting perfumes. Because I wear fragrances to match my mood, rather than my seasons, I noticed over the past few years that my springtime staples tend to be invigorating and energizing. They give me an extra jolt when my spirits begin to sag thanks to the nasty colds I catch as the seasons change, and they also make it easier to go through the day when the morning are still too dark and the evenings are still cool.

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What is a romantic perfume? A few years ago, I structured my Valentine’s Day post around the perfume notes that I found romantic and seductive: jasmine, saffron, sandalwood and furs & ambers, leather, honey, fig. I still like the idea of conveying a certain mood through scent, but I realize that there is much more to the romance of perfume than its list of notes. The most romantic perfume is not a magic potion designed to seduce him, but rather a fragrance that makes me feel beautiful. An opulent composition like Annick Goutal Grand Amour does the trick on some days, while on others the austere Bulgari Black seems more appropriate.

However, a range spanning Grand Amour to Black encompasses just about all fragrance genres. To narrow them down to a list of ten, I included those perfumes that both make me feel good and elicit compliments from my friends, family and my Valentine. In other words, they are the fragrances I enjoy wearing and sharing with those around me. And what is more romantic than sharing pleasure!

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