Tag Page Fragrance

#Fragrance
Rachel Martin

Spring Smelled Like Grass and Ghosts

Spring always makes me restless. Like I’m supposed to begin again, but I don’t know where to start. So I reach for scents that smell like fresh starts: grass crushed underfoot, mist on leaves, steam off a teacup. My go-tos? Buly 1803 smells like moss clinging to stone in the Highlands. Chanel No.19—cool, distant, like green silk you can’t touch. Diptyque Ilio is all sun-drenched air and fruit skin. Penhaligon’s Steam Bath and SMN Potpourri bring plants indoors: wild, structured, strange. Akro Haze? Like someone smoked in the garden and left the windows open. Memo Inlé and Bvlgari White Tea are calmer—like floating. And Chanel Édimbourg, again, always, like wind in wet pine. Some days, I wear them just to feel like I’m somewhere else. Somewhere softer. Somewhere green. #beauty #fragrance #PerfumeJournal

Spring Smelled Like Grass and Ghosts
Rachel Martin

A Deep Breath, Bottled in Juniper

Summer in Chongqing feels like being trapped in a steam room that forgot to end. The rain never stops, and the heat presses in like wet fabric. I used to hold my breath through it—until I found juniper. The first time I sprayed that gin-inspired cologne, it was like drinking a cold G&T with my skin. Sharp citrus, bitter clarity, and that breath of juniper—cool, dry, herbal. I didn’t expect a scent to feel like a window opening. Even if the scent fades fast, I don’t mind. I don’t wear it to be noticed. I wear it because it makes the air feel mine again. Next up: Bon Parfumeur 004, and a rose-meets-ice one my best friend loves. Maybe I’m just chasing a feeling—but some feelings are worth bottling. #beauty #fragrance #ScentConfession

A Deep Breath, Bottled in Juniper
martinezjessica

My Workday Scents: No Loud Notes, Just Presence

These are the perfumes I reach for when I want to be remembered softly—at the office, in a meeting, or on the train home. Scents that stay close, never too loud, but always there. 1. Chanel No. 5 (Eau de Toilette) She’s not “trendy,” but she’s timeless. A clean, powdered elegance—more like the memory of soap than a floral bomb. People say it smells like grandma’s cologne or floral water, but worn close to skin, it becomes quiet confidence. Short sillage, but haunting. 2. Le Labo – Another 13 Like a freshly washed T-shirt worn just out of the sun. Warm, clean, synthetic in a good way. People don’t smell “perfume” on you—they just ask, “What is that?” Great for structured blazers and coffee in glass offices. I even bought the matching lotion. Lifelong repurchase. 3. Chanel – Paris–Venise The underdog of the Chanel Les Eaux line—and my favorite. I stumbled across it in Hong Kong, and it stuck. A floral scent I actually love: iris, pink pepper, musk. Sweet, but with a backbone. I often layer it with No. 5 in summer. Feels crisp, clean, and composed. 4. Aesop – Karst Summer on a Wednesday. Not your typical “serious” office scent, but it lifts the weight of the week. Mossy, green, a little like sun-dried leaves. Perfect with a white T-shirt and a to-do list. 5. Jo Malone – Silver Birch & Lavender A quiet storm. Smoky, herbal, oddly intimate. Smells like burying your nose in a wool scarf in the dead of winter. Heavy enough for overcoats, soft enough for a long commute. Masculine-leaning, but tender. Underrated and grounding. #beauty #fragrance #OfficeApprovedScents

My Workday Scents: No Loud Notes, Just Presence
martinezjessica

She, Scent, and the Animal Within

She stops mid-walk to smell a flower. She imagines the scent of tomorrow’s air on the last night of spring. She meets people through scent first—primitive, instinctual. In her world, scent is a symbol, a shortcut, a way to touch life directly. There’s one still, sacred place in her room: her fragrance shelf. That little space anchors her. When she opened the new “Wo (我)” by To Summer, it wasn’t just a scent—it was a memory portal. She breathed in and saw herself again: standing in a courtyard planting pine trees at midnight, moon hanging above; walking through rain she had once faced; falling in love with constellations that didn’t exist. And in that moment, she remembered: there is no “other,” no perfect life to follow. What matters, maybe, is simply playing each day like a secret the universe whispered just to you. “Wo” isn’t a fleeting free-spirited scent. It’s not abstract soul-talk either. It’s textured and real: Buddha’s hand, narcissus, white musk, balsam fir. Together, they form what I can only call “animalic.” A scent that’s wild but not wilding. Soft and feral. Feminine without being tame. To live by scent is to live close to truth. Not just with your eyes or brain, but with every part of you that still remembers. If the world fell apart tomorrow—if all memory vanished— I think scent would still find a way to bring me back. To remind me: this is your game. This is your life. Return to play. #beauty #fragrance #AnimalicFemininity

She, Scent, and the Animal Within
martinezjessica

I Stopped Matching Scents to Seasons

At some point, I stopped assigning fragrances to weather. What once felt “too heavy” for summer became comforting. What felt “too fresh” for winter suddenly made perfect sense in a grey room. Like these four by Jorum Studio—I couldn’t tell you which season they belong to anymore. I just wear them when the moment asks. 🪨 Monolith: Bought midwinter, loved in July. Peaty whisky, black coffee, and smoked wood—like bumping into a cigar-smoking Victorian gentleman in a mill, who somehow smells kind. Despite its dense base, it’s never cloying. In an AC-cooled car, it’s a gentle intoxication. 🌿 Paradisi: My go-to for being unknowingly captivating. A friend hugged me in Paris and wouldn’t stop asking what I was wearing. Rooty green, a little damp, a little flirty. Like Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass, if the girl in the painting smiled back. 🍊 Pony Boy: Opened like a grapefruit explosion, but dried down to something like citrusy hay. Sweet without being syrupy. A cologne that feels like youth on horseback—sticky fruit juice and sunlight. 🧊 Spirit Cask: Took me six months to find. Boozy, minty, tobacco-warm. My work scent of choice—fresh enough to sharpen my brain, soft enough to slow my pace. Who says summer can’t smell like whisky, or winter like cut grass? #beauty #fragrance #ScentWithoutSeasons

I Stopped Matching Scents to Seasons
martinezjessica

Scents I Reach For When I Want to Disappear

Some fragrances don’t announce you—they soften your edges. These are the ones I wear when I want to feel like mist, like a memory someone almost caught. 1. MAD et LEN – Vetyver Bucolique Smells like standing barefoot in wet soil at dusk. Raw, unsweetened vetiver. Patchouli’s cool bitterness winds around thick black honey—it’s nature untouched, not romanticized. 2. Neandertal – Light A sharp inhale of cypress smoke and crushed pine needles. Green, biting, metallic. The leather and ambergris come later, like dusk after a storm. It’s a forest with teeth. 3. Meo Fusciuni – L’Oblio It tells a story of forgetting. River incense, yellow immortelle, and sun-warmed citrus. The iris here is paper-thin and mournful, wrapped in oak and sandalwood. It smells like something you once loved deeply. 4. Orto Parisi – Stercus It opens with rot—yes, really. Animalic, smoky, primal. But then something strange happens: the dirt turns warm. The musk softens. It’s like hugging the earth, sweat and soil and all. #beauty #fragrance #PerfumeForIntroverts

Scents I Reach For When I Want to Disappear