After watching some videos of interviews with perfumers at Pitti and Esxence from earlier this year (2019), and hearing them describe their latest launches in great detail and with great pride, I was inspired to revisit all my own creations so far and imagine how I might describe them. Of course, they are far from ready for prime time, but as I sniffed each, I realized that most of them were quite pleasant in their own way.

They might have the smell of favorable bias, because each scent—beyond having macerated over time and thus having improved—reminded me of the time I worked on them, and brought back good feelings. They smelled like essential oils and aromachemicals… dare I say, a bit like perfume? and they smelled like creativity, adventure, and fulfillment.

Taking a new idea, facing the unknown, making something tangible and putting a name to it—brings a sense of freedom and joy that’s too often elusive in our daily routines.

Doing what you love and loving what you do is an art, so much so that books have been written about it and perhaps largely forgotten, now that our culture of overachievement has moved on to acknowledging that we don’t have to love it, we simply have to self-care through it. Perfumery as a hobby happens to be great form of self-care for me, at least so far.

So, I consider myself fortunate to have built up a small repertoire of scent memories tied to something intrinsic, in addition to being able to explore vacation-themed fragrances designed to transport the wearer to a faraway exotic land where the weather is perfect and the company is (ideally romantic, but at the very least) relaxed. Some kinds of escapism are more easily marketed than others!