Reminiscents

Hello! If you're looking to investigate your memories, read and tell stories, or figure out why oakmoss reminds you of your dad, you're in the right place. I hope people will find this group interesting, but if it's just me babbling into the void, that's okay too! :) Please feel free to create your own posts, get creative, and have fun! There's no wrong way to participate in this community (as long as you're being respectful)!This post is for introductions, so if you're feeling friendly, say hi, and if you want, tell us about a perfume, scent, or note that triggers a memory for you.

We have a heatwave in my part of town, so I've been enjoying summer scents! And of course, I miss being able to have a free summer (I was often in summer schools, so not the free-est, but free-er regardless)!Is there a scent that reminds you of summer break?Popsicles, lemonade stands, whatever reminds you of summer as a kid!

Is there a scent that takes you back to your first crush? Maybe it's the perfume they wore, the smell of the soap they used, or an environmental smell, like hot peanut oil at the burger joint of your first date.

Does sadness have a smell for you? What perfumes or notes make you feel melancholic?Perhaps they are related to sad memory or remind you of someone you miss.

As much as we can experience olfactory pleasure, we can also experience olfactory distress. The evolutionary trait of developed smell receptors can be linked to its warning capabilities. Detecting a nearby fire or food that’s gone bad can mean the difference between life and death, and smell is important in triggering alarm bells of what’s unsafe.Is there a perfume or note that smells like danger? Maybe it raises your hairs, makes your more alert, or simply inspires fear.

In my 3rd year of university, I decided to spend my spring break in NYC. Some of my friends from high school were studying there, so I had a place to crash while I explored the city. I was just getting into perfume, and was enamored by Yesterday Haze having been a fan of the branding of Imaginary Authors (I was studying design). I had a small sample that was almost depleted, and so I made a stop at scent bar NYC, where at the time, you could pick one free sample when you visited. As I was a bit socially awkward, I didn’t want directly ask for that sample, so I asked the associate for fig perfume recommendations and they placed in front of me Gris Charnel Eau de Parfum. I was a bit disappointed, but smelled it regardless and enjoyed it, but didn't think much of it, as Yesterday Haze was still on my mind. I ended up asking for a sample of Gris Charnel since the associate was busy with other customers, and I was in a rush.After my trip and back at uni, I left the sample on the shelf above my desk in my dorm room. Night after night, the scent would waft down from the shelf in front of me and I would smell the scent as I studied late into the early hours of the morning. At first, I thought it was the remnants of my Yesterday Haze sample, also on the shelf, but over time, I began to realize that the smell was something distinctly spicier and less powdery. Curious, I began wearing Gris charnel, liking it more and more, and eventually ordering a larger decant once I had finished my sample. It became my new fixation. Whereas Yesterday Haze had a warm comfort that felt old and dusty, like your favorite corner of a library, Gris Charnel was bolder, spicier, and yet distinctly calm, unfazed. I felt like an imposter wearing it, like a pre-teen in a leather jacket twice their age, the perfume wearing me instead. It became my go-to for school formals, clubs, professional events, any situation when I needed a confidence boost, to feel bigger and more confident than I was. Consequently, so many memories of dancing with friends, day trips to the city, date nights, and academic milestones became inseparable from this perfume. It was with me at graduation, all of my interviews, and the full bottle was my first purchase after my first paycheck at my job. Over time, my confidence grew and so did my familiarity with the scent. It felt less and less like a costume and more something I could naturally emobody. When I take my friends or my partner to perfume stores, I always spray a test strip with this scent and ask for their opinion, and they furrow their brows and recall some memory we’ve shared.I can’t say that I’ll ever find a perfume that I wore as frequently as Gris Charnel. Partly because my collection at this point beckons for me to reach for neglected scents, and partly because some of those formative experiences will never happen in the same way again. In a way, I grew into the person who I pictured could wear Gris Charnel, maybe from wearing it so frequently, or maybe with the steady maturation of age. Even though I say it’s my signature, I don’t wear it significantly more than any other perfume in my collection; however, it will forever be tied up with all these memories I have, and the memories people have of me. There’s something intimate in that: to be known by a smell. Or maybe it's not intimacy but distance: to be known by a projection of yourself, like an actor known by a character they portrayed. But just as clothes are an extension of your self-concept, so too does fragrance have its own way of affecting how you might see yourself, and how others see you. It's something personal, wrapped up in our emotions of the past and olfactory associations, and yet, there’s also something deeply unspecial about liking a perfume recommended by an associate for its popularity. On this platform alone, I am 1 of 6,400 who own this scent, and 1 of 73 who have decided this is their signature scent. But perhaps what makes perfume so special is not the exclusivity of some new synthetic molecule, or the rarity of a limited release fragrance, or even the high cost. Perhaps its our own experience of it. The same formula that is so rich with memory for me is another's binned test strip that they have no memory of. The only constant in perfume is the variance in reaction, in memory. It is our individual unique experience that takes it from science to art.

I found this to be really interesting and thought I would share. Scent, while classically viewed as less of necessity among the senses, might have an additional health benefit in the way it stimulates our sense of smell. A very brief and not well woreded summary of the video: essentially our loss of sense of smell is correlated with nearly all neurological disorders. In fact, our cognitive (and even general) health outcomes can be predicted by our ability to smell and distinguish between smells. A spot of hope is that research seems to point that stimulating your olfactory senses with a variety of smells can improve your memory and even fight against dementia.

Something I have found interesting when researching niche perfumes has been reading many reviews on how scents have comforted people. Beyond the typical lavenders and chamomile, there's a whole world out there of notes that people have grown to associate with safety, comfort, and contentness. While some have linked certain compounds to chemicals, I'm not entirely sure myself to what extent certain notes are univeral calmers. So thus, I've decided to write this discussion post. Whether it'd be a scent of a loved one's skin, to the candies in a bowl of someone's childhood home, what's a scent that always puts you at ease the moment you put it on? What do you like about it, and does it remind you of something or someone? Feel free to go as abstract as you want with why certain notes or fragrances bring you comfort-- I would love to hear a wide range of answers, and to see if I myself can find that love for a note.

Happiness is often one of the first emotions we can recognize, but it can be deceptively simple. We experience very many forms of it, from bliss, to exhileration, to awe, and so on. In terms of smells, like many other senses, we can quickly determine if scents are 'good' or 'bad'; we add valence to our perceptions based on how pleasing they are to our senses. I'm curious, though, what it would mean to separate 'good' from 'happy,' a generally pleasing emotion.Is there a perfume or note that captures the essence, emotion, or memory of 'happiness'?Maybe your favorite perfume makes you extremely happy and is thus associated with that emotion, but again, I'll push you to look further than 'good' and 'bad': smells can also be good and melancholic, or unpleasant but unmistakably joyful. Maybe we'll find that there is agreement on what notes are happy notes, or, maybe it's all very subjective and personal.