This fall, I briefly lost my sense of smell. Covid, of course. Over the course of those few days, I slipped into a state of sensory boredom. I looked at the pad thai I had ordered, unable to distinguish the notes of lime or fish sauce, those flavors of my childhood. I buried my nose in a bag of ginger tea that would not, could not, conjure up any aroma. Some smells I was happy to get rid of. Good riddance to the overflowing trash can; no sorrow for the wet dog stench of a towel flapping by the radiator. But above all, this loss awakened in me an unexpected shift in identity. I couldn’t even feel myself.
Who was I without the smell of my lavender deodorant that cut off the sweat of the day? Without the sweetness of a drizzle of jam from my daughter’s lunch, the fetid remains of coffee on my breath? My own scent sterility was disorienting, like Dorothy’s reverse technicolor transition. The simplicity of the world devastated me.
I’ve heard people passionately describe their partners through their scents, that indefinable alchemy of pheromones and scent. In romance novels, women’s smells are compared to flowers; men, at the fir trees at the end of December. When a strong feeling overcomes us, we attach our memories to scent, the most intimate of transactions. You can look at a person from afar, but to truly feel them, you have to close the gap.
My first crush was on CK1, a citrus-heavy fragrance that became popular in the 90s. Middle school, for me. Sometimes he would lend me his sweatshirt and I would bury my nose in the collar, like a dog before a hunt. At the time, we had all recently been introduced to the world of body mists, dousing ourselves with enthusiastic sprays between classes. When I think of middle school, I always expect to encounter that preteen potpourri of Hawaiian ginger mixed with woodsy pencil shavings and the gummy funk of decades-old textbooks.
That is to say, the smells in our lives tell a story. If you walk into a house you’ve never been to before, you’ll discover clues about the residents’ lives: the foods they ate, the candles they lit. This story of perfume leaves an impression as clear as the color of the walls. When it comes to our own perfumes, what stories are we shaping? What do our signature perfumes say about us?
*
There are so many words to describe the smell. Wake. Petrichor. Repugnant. Musk. Miasma. For fun, I sometimes read perfume descriptions. I wonder: do I really know the difference between tuberose and regular rose? What does ambergris smell like? And how, exactly, do I detect a heart note versus a base note?
Lately, I’ve noticed a cultural preoccupation with smell: TikToks devoted to the history of perfume, A-list celebrities for colognes, promises of mood regulation through aromatherapy. If I had to guess, I think this mania for smells has something to do with our desire for individuation in a very fragmented world. We believe that our scents can reveal something unique about us, like an enneagram or a horoscope.
Perhaps for the first time in human history, thanks to the complicated wonders of capitalism, perfume is more accessible. Not just for the rich, almost any personal hygiene item can be scented these days: shaving cream, lip balm, facial wipes, tampons. Is it any wonder that some of us are overwhelmed by the aromas of the world?
*
I have come to a crossroads when it comes to perfume. For the past year, I’ve been using an eye-catching rose scent that I picked up in a fit of indecision at a fancy boutique. I was so annoyed, my nose so numb to nuance, that I grabbed whatever seemed least offensive to me at the time. But when I wear it, I don’t feel like myself. I feel like an elegant retiree stepping into my shadow and leaving her wake behind. After recovering from Covid, I tried using my rose perfume again, but had to put it aside quickly after. The scent would be delicious on another, but now it only made me nauseous.
I dragged my feet on finding a new scent. What I loved in my 20s—flowers, herbs, citrus fruits—is not the same as what I enjoy now. I crave complexity and verve; I want ugliness. It should be sneaky and a little dangerous, the right kind of bitter, a waltz in the dark. In recent months, I have tested dozens of perfumes, to no avail.
But one morning I drove through the Midwest farm country at an ungodly hour, when the roads were empty and the air still held the humidity of the night. As the sun shrugged toward the horizon, I felt it – a combination that made my eyes widen and my senses tingle. I almost stopped the car. How to describe it? The damp earth, the just-split wood, the caramel burn of the bonfire, the musk of vintage clothing.
I have been looking for this perfume ever since. Is it possible to distill so many things at once? Or is it like capturing magic in a bell? In a way, this smell was the product of a very specific set of circumstances, of an olfactory connection as inimitable and ephemeral as a perfect memory.
*
Perhaps the idea of a signature scent is less about the mists we put on our bodies, and more about what our bodies themselves are giving off on any given day.
When my daughter hugs me before going to school, I bury my nose in her scalp. Is it his shampoo that I find so irresistible? Her lotion? Laundry of his clothes? What gives it a unique smell hers? With my mother, through every perfume she uses, I can sniff its underlying essence: the heat, the sweat, that bouquet of cinnamon and thyme that seems as elemental to me as home. You can’t bottle these flavors.
Perhaps some smells are revealed only to a privileged few through the tedious work of the days, through careful observance, through love. It takes at least two bodies to produce an odor: the one that produces it and the one that consumes it. The word “perfume” comes from a set of Latin words meaning “by smoke.” So, perhaps this is how we find ourselves and ourselves; through the smoke and confusion of everyday life.
Although smell can be nestled within the self, it seems to function most strongly when it emanates from community rituals. I think of the swinging of incense sticks in a temple; chlorine wrung out of sagging swimsuits in a locker room; boiling sauce on the stove during the holidays. A summer road trip crushed in a minivan filled with aunts, grandmothers, cousins, each emitting their distinctive smells. A fragrant bridesmaids embrace before a wedding. Ultimately, the power of perfume emerges not from its singularity, but from the way it mingles with the other beloved scents in our lives, creating an endless chord in which we are all minor but necessary notes .
Thao Thai is a writer and editor in Ohio, where she lives with her husband and daughter. His wonderful first novel, Banyan Moon was released this year. Thao also wrote for Cup of Jo about absent fathers, mother stylesAnd Physical condition. You can subscribe to their newsletter here.
P.S. A perfume smell testAnd the one thing Joanna gets the most compliments for.
(Photo by MaaHoo/Stocksy.)
