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Fragrances of the Week

• Lattafa Ameer Al Oudh Intense Oud
• Bath & Body Works Mahogany Teakwood
• Bath & Body Works Viva Vanilla
• Body Sprays: Lattafa Asad, Bath & Body Works Mahogany Teakwood, Bath & Body Works Floral Fantasy, Bath & Body Works Wild Vanilla
• Body Wash: Bodycology Cozy Fireside S’mores
• Shampoo: Personal Care Coconut Vanilla

My theme for the week was “Autumn Woods.” It’s so hard to keep in the spirit of the season when the weather is still giving me Summer at 80º, but I tried! I think the mix was pretty woodsy, sometimes overly so.

Bath & Body Works Mahogany Teakwood is just classic woods. It so nice and cozy, but not as warm as others. It is perfect for a woodsy feel in unpredictable weather. It would have worked just as well on a cool fall day as a warm one. I did find layering the cologne and the cologne mist to be unnecessary. They didn’t really add anything to one another, so unless I needed a refresh midday, they were better in combination with other things.

Lattafa Ameer Al Oudh Intense Oud is similarly woodsy, but warmer with its vanilla base. I reached for it more than anything else during the week because I really enjoy the balance it has. I enjoy a traditionally “masculine” fragrance, but I find it limiting to only wear things marketing as such. Intense Oud lands in a very unisex place and for that reason is perfect for layering to pull out the desired effect.

Bath & Body Works Viva Vanilla was a let down. I hadn’t used it before, but had purchased the eau de parfum after trying the fine fragrance mist. It was pleasant enough, but not strong at all and after a short time, non existent. The mist works at that strength, but I expect more from an EDP. Again, it was fine, but that’s about it.

This week I used Lattafa Asad deodorant spray. I have in the past paired that with Lattafa Ameer Al Oudh Intense Oud and got a strong ashtray scent that was very off-putting, so knowing that might happen I waited for the Asad to dry down a bit before applying the fragrance and that solved the problem. That’s good to know; I was worried about bringing the foul odor back, but apparently it is avoidable. This week the two worked well together, giving fallen leaves in a damp forest.

To get the “Autumn Woods” result I wanted, I relied on three fragrance mists to be layered on top of everything. Bath & Body Works Mahogany Teakwood leaned into the masculine woods, Bath & Body Works Floral Fantasy leaned into the floral & feminine, while Bath & Body Works Wild Vanilla sweetened things up if needed. Wild Vanilla is made for layering, and I think it added just enough sweet tropical notes to take the vibe from temperate forest to tropical jungle, but without overpowering anything. Floral Fantasy kept us temperate, and I wore it a few times during the week on its own. It’s not my absolute favorite of the Everyday Luxuries line, but it is very pleasant. Floral without being too floral, and it stayed present for a long time.

For Justin this week, I was going for spicy dessert. While his body mists worked well for that, my insistence on always giving him masculine scents meant that it was hard to lean into gourmand. When I didn’t realize what he was wearing on one day, I thought he had achieved something that smelled like sunscreen. In the summer, I like that accord, but I was confused by it. That was the Old Spice. My brain sorted it back into the bin it belongs in once I knew, but that was a strange thing. Old Spice is nice though, as was Modern Gentleman. I do think I need to lean more into fun stuff for Justin. He actually likes a lot more, especially gourmand stuff. He also really likes masculine scents, but refers to them as “grandpa colognes,” so I’m not sure he loves them entirely. He might just be responding to the nostalgia, which I understand. I have a visceral reaction to Coty’s Aspen, but only because Dad used it when I was a kid. In slightly different combinations, those notes do nothing for me. I’ll try amping up the fun for Justin and we’ll see how that goes!

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In Defense of Fragrance

I recently read an article about the recent boom in the fragrance market.  In the article, the author posited that this rise was at least partially due to Covid-19 and how people in isolation had forgotten the natural smell of other people, so a market rose up to meet the demand of people not wanting to contribute to those odors.  She also touched on the classist and potentially racist associations with scent.  While it was all very interesting, I think I have a different take on it.  

Granted, my own family has a long association with pleasant fragrances.  My great grandparents’ homes were the last I can remember that smelled neutral, except for the bottles of perfume in the bathrooms.  By my grandparents’ generation, potpourri and air fresheners had taken over their homes.  But that is not because some of those things didn’t exist before.  Potpourri & incense have been used since antiquity to scent homes.  But my great grandparents were all farmers, practical and poor people for whom these things would have been a luxury.  When I recently inherited a few of my great grandma Daugherty’s things, I was even surprised to find that she had a few Alfred Hitchcock novels and an apricot scented candle in an apricot shaped pot.  This kind of frivolity goes against my perceptions.  The candle had never been burned, and I can imagine my grandma just lifting the lid and getting a little treat of apricot fragrance to lift her spirits.  And although she was poor, she wore perfume.

In my grandparents’ homes, everything smelled “nice.”  There was lemon scented all-purpose cleaner, pine scented floor cleaner, scented fabric softener, and even sometimes a pot of spices on the stove, the scent wafting out into the house.  Neither home had scented candles regularly, but there was scent.  My grandpa’s bathroom smelled strongly of Old Spice and Irish Spring, my grandma’s of Tabu and lotion and the gentle scent of soap from the bowl of rose shaped pieces arranged in a bowl on the counter.

The home I grew up in had its own strong scents.  My mom loved scented candles, and she’d light them when she came home from work, so when we arrived from school there would be one in the main bathroom, one in the kitchen, and one in her bedroom.  There were different scents in the rooms, all seasonally appropriate, and as you walked from room to room, the gradients changed and it would all make the house feel all the more cozy.  She too would sometimes have spices going instead of a kitchen candle, and while she had potpourri throughout the house, it was rarely strong enough to contribute.  We did not have laundry scents; my dad’s sensitive skin required unscented products.  But my parents both wore perfumes: my mom had a selection of various options and my dad primarily wore Brüt, then Aspen, the Le Mâle.  Our shoes weren’t allowed in the house, and my mom would spray them with Brüt on the porch.

In the 1990s, Bath & Body Works opened and my mom’s fragrances became those offered in their lotions and body sprays, which largely replaced the need for as much perfume.  She would smell like Pearberry, Coconut Lime Verbena, or “Gingham.”  I have two brothers, and as each of us started puberty, the Brüt we shared was replaced with scents that were more individualized.  My grandma chose mine, giving me a bottle of Tommy by Tommy Hilfiger, which is how I smelled though high school and college.  My older brother received Abercrombie & Fitch’s Woods, but I don’t remember what he used before that.  I also don’t remember my younger brother’s fragrance preference, but knowing him he likely used what my dad and my grandpa used.Continue Reading