Comfort Scents for Uncomfortable Times

It is the vernal equinox, and I have had a habit of writing about “balance” when the equipoise of day and night arrive.  However, I was invited to join some wonderful bloggers in thinking about “Comforting Scents for Uncomfortable Times”...and given the range of perspectives and styles of voice among this fun group, I’m gonna call this balance.  Rather, a post.  About balance.  In the form of comfort.  When not comfortable.

Okay.  Think it through.  In order to say what is comforting, I need to be particular about what kind of comfort we’re talking about.  

For example, am I seeking/enjoying comfort in the company of another?  In the arms of another?

Am I looking to lose myself?  Be blissful, without worrying out how anyone else is doing?

Am I seeking the comfort of protection?  When I need this protection to feel safe--comforted--do I need it to be low key?  Loud?  Something that will keep people at a distance, or something that will only seem like armor if you keep your distance?

I thought.  And came up with some scents...and a couple of surprises.  But I get ahead of myself.  First...

Comfort.  For the Vernal Equinox 2010.  

Comfort, as I am thinking of it today, is something sought.  It’s not centering which brings peace.  It’s not “happy.”  It is a place...some perfumes can take you there.

But there is variety in the where that is “there.”

SNUGGLY:

✒Just me?  Doesn’t matter who might smell me?  But I want to feel...

     Sensuous ~ Feminite du Bois

     Wrapped in warmth with a hint of elation ~ Attrape Couer

     In touch with my inner bitch ~ Bandit

     In touch with my inner naif ~ Acqua Allegoria Aqua Fresca

     Gently reminded of beauty, on and off but throughout the day ~ En Passant

     Is there anyone else in the world? ~ once upon a time, this was L’Ombre Fauve.  Liz Zorn’s Journeyman was there for a while, but it is discontinued.  Position is open.  Please apply. 

✒Me and someone else?  And I’d like them to enjoy, too?

     Sensuous ~ Magie Noire

     Cozy in cashmere ~ Chergui

     Mmmmmm ~ Ava Luxe Vamp wafting up from my top drawer.  

     

PROTECTED:

✒Makes you think I’m a cool customer...until you get to know me ~ Chanel No. 19

✒Cozy, warm, but strangely unavailable ~ Bois Blond 

✒Hey, you smell good...what’s this force field? ~ Pick a cool iris.  Like Hiris.

The surprises?  Two of them.  One, a realization that something that something I like, that as a note is generally guaranteed to get me to say “ahhhh, nice,” actually serves as a kind of chain mail.  No, silly, not chain mail that is super annoying and against postal law anyway.  The woven metal kind.  The lighter than full-out armor but still provides protection stuff.  The kind butchers and fishmongers wear as gloves to this day as protection from sharp blades.  The kind that is apparently beneath the note than can be warm orris root, but when chilled and earthed out a bit, still says “beautiful”...but Not Vulnerable.  Iris.  Cool iris.

The other surprise hit me after I drafted my list.  Bois Blond?  But that’s my happy sunshine scent!  Of course, there’s comfort in laying in the sun on a spring day when you can smell the grass and the ground and know everything is warming up, right down to the bones...yours...the earth’s....how in the world did that end up in the “protected” category?  And it struck me.  It’s the opposite of the chilly reception followed by the reveal of a warm heart that is a scent like Chanel No. 19.  Bois Blond is...warm heart, on your sleeve, everything in motion toward joy...with a hint of resolve.  Not steely resolve, like, say, a cool iris.  Not Imma Gonna SmackYa resolve of leather.  No, it’s strong, tenacious, stubborn resolve.  The note that I think does that is tobacco.  The effect, whatever the note, is very appropriate. The effect tells you the wearer has a back which is flexible but is not going to be easily broken.    

No wonder it came to me for both protection and the equinox.  As you lay on the earth on a warm mid-spring day, and can smell both dried plant material and growing greens, all being coaxed out by the heat of the sun on the dirt which is coming up to temperature but not quite ready for planting, you rest.  Assured that whatever the challenges, the earth will keep turning.  

With a smile on its face.  Resolve doesn’t always have to be grim.

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Here are the other bloggers participating in today’s project.  I always enjoy reading their various perspectives; hope you do, too.

Roxana's Illuminated Journal ** BitterGrace Notes ** Perfume Shrine ** Scent Hive ** The Non Blonde ** Perfume in Progress ** Katie Puckrik Smells ** A Rose Beyond the Thames ** I Smell Therefore I Am ** Olfactarama ** All I Am A Redhead  ** Savvy Thinker ** SmellyBlog


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This group blog was coordinated by Ayala Sender.  I thank her for the invite.  Ayala informs me the title of the post is an homage to Michelyn Camen's original article of this same name on Sniffapalooza Magazine in 2008, in which she interviewed several perfumers to comment on what botanical elements make their perfumes comforting.