Walking through the grime and grit of the Lower Haight, the smell of ripening garbage rising from the street, then turning a corner and being enveloped in the ferocious beauty of a jasmine bush in full bloom. One of my best scent memories...
Thanks for the evocative piece, as always marvelously crafted. I learn so much from reading your writing.
What a beautiful essay. So rich! My oldest son makes scents, and I'm going to forward this to him. A couple of years ago we went to the Aftelier perfurmery in Berkeley where Mandy Aftel creates scents and has "an Archive of Curious Scents"--a little museum and library. It was such a wonderful experience. We got a kit that explained the tones and sampled scents on little strips of paper. Your writing brought all that back to me. And also being pregnant (with this son, in fact) in Paris 36 years ago, overwhelmed by and gagging at every odor and scent everywhere! :-D
Absolutely loved reading this -- thank you for sharing! It reminded me of something I wrote last year on my journey in perfume/fragrance with regard to friendship and finding confidence in oneself (https://twobottlestef.substack.com/p/the-alchemy-of-aromas) -- it was validating to read others experiencing something similar ♥️ P.S. Carnal Flower is one of my favorite fragrances of all time
How beautifully written..thank you for sharing ❤️ and the story of you and the astronomer just left me in a different world, wondering about our lives in parallel universes where me made different choices...✨️
Pretty words. I loved reading this. Memories surfaced. Back when I first moved to Paris I could not afford a single thing beyond rent + veggies + a baguette a day + dance class. Not even metro. So on the three-mile walk on my way back from dance class I would pop into one of those many parfumeries (almost all gone now) to try on a different perfume, in search of my scent. In later years I met a parfumiste, my roomies cousin, who would let us try samples of her concoctions, and had another friend who had bottles and bottles to try (gifts from her father, a godsend when I still could not afford my own) and when finally I had my own bottle of chanel, it burst open on the airplane, and I could not stand the scent after that. Eventually, a decade later, in the year I met my Parisian husband, I finally had found my scent, accidentally, but mixing two of my favorites... p.s. It broke my heart reading about your loss in previous Notebook entry. Really hit home as I had such a loss the year I was 40, and it was so so hard.
Beautiful. I climbed inside your narrative as you recalled each scent…and then found myself scrolling through my own “perfume notebooks” afterward. A lovely experience. Thank you.
When I was young and visiting my grandparents in central California, my grandmother would sometimes load me into her 1972 Buick Electra and take me over to my uncle’s mother’s house to swim in her swimming pool. There was a particular scent there, a mixture of wet cement and the fragrant resin of tall bushes nearby. There’s a house I sometimes walk by here in LA that has that same scent and it instantly brings me back to those summer days in the pool of the kind woman who let me swim there.
This is heavenly "scent"! I lingered in this for such a long while, not wanting it to end. I am in Aix en Provence, finally...and I keep telling people how I swoon from the scent of tobacco (tabac) & perfume. xx
Walking through the grime and grit of the Lower Haight, the smell of ripening garbage rising from the street, then turning a corner and being enveloped in the ferocious beauty of a jasmine bush in full bloom. One of my best scent memories...
Thanks for the evocative piece, as always marvelously crafted. I learn so much from reading your writing.
What a beautiful essay. So rich! My oldest son makes scents, and I'm going to forward this to him. A couple of years ago we went to the Aftelier perfurmery in Berkeley where Mandy Aftel creates scents and has "an Archive of Curious Scents"--a little museum and library. It was such a wonderful experience. We got a kit that explained the tones and sampled scents on little strips of paper. Your writing brought all that back to me. And also being pregnant (with this son, in fact) in Paris 36 years ago, overwhelmed by and gagging at every odor and scent everywhere! :-D
Ha, oh goodness! Yes, pregnancy and perfume, let alone other city smells, can be a bad combination!
Absolutely loved reading this -- thank you for sharing! It reminded me of something I wrote last year on my journey in perfume/fragrance with regard to friendship and finding confidence in oneself (https://twobottlestef.substack.com/p/the-alchemy-of-aromas) -- it was validating to read others experiencing something similar ♥️ P.S. Carnal Flower is one of my favorite fragrances of all time
How beautifully written..thank you for sharing ❤️ and the story of you and the astronomer just left me in a different world, wondering about our lives in parallel universes where me made different choices...✨️
❤️✨
Pretty words. I loved reading this. Memories surfaced. Back when I first moved to Paris I could not afford a single thing beyond rent + veggies + a baguette a day + dance class. Not even metro. So on the three-mile walk on my way back from dance class I would pop into one of those many parfumeries (almost all gone now) to try on a different perfume, in search of my scent. In later years I met a parfumiste, my roomies cousin, who would let us try samples of her concoctions, and had another friend who had bottles and bottles to try (gifts from her father, a godsend when I still could not afford my own) and when finally I had my own bottle of chanel, it burst open on the airplane, and I could not stand the scent after that. Eventually, a decade later, in the year I met my Parisian husband, I finally had found my scent, accidentally, but mixing two of my favorites... p.s. It broke my heart reading about your loss in previous Notebook entry. Really hit home as I had such a loss the year I was 40, and it was so so hard.
Thank you Christi. Re: the previous entry, I was convinced it would kill me. I'm just trying to keep writing, in the hope that that will help.
Beautiful. I climbed inside your narrative as you recalled each scent…and then found myself scrolling through my own “perfume notebooks” afterward. A lovely experience. Thank you.
I love this piece Summer. I’m very envious. My nose is not as sensitive as yours. I miss many subtle scents. I’m a Chanel #5 dame all the way 😻
I do love those 1920s Chanels.
Inspiring, transporting, wonderful. Thanks for this. 😘
Thanks Adam
Lovely recollections.
When I was young and visiting my grandparents in central California, my grandmother would sometimes load me into her 1972 Buick Electra and take me over to my uncle’s mother’s house to swim in her swimming pool. There was a particular scent there, a mixture of wet cement and the fragrant resin of tall bushes nearby. There’s a house I sometimes walk by here in LA that has that same scent and it instantly brings me back to those summer days in the pool of the kind woman who let me swim there.
That is lovely.
This is heavenly "scent"! I lingered in this for such a long while, not wanting it to end. I am in Aix en Provence, finally...and I keep telling people how I swoon from the scent of tobacco (tabac) & perfume. xx
Wow! I loved travelling with you on your scentimental journey! :)
Some things hurt because they’re painful and some things hurt because they’re just too lovely and this was that.
An olfactory delight!!
Yes , despite his denial, it most certainly was him.