Perfume Nostalgia & Why Some Fragrances Trigger Memories - 121

👋 Hi fragrance friend,

I've been thinking about why certain scents refuse to leave us.

There's a perfume I wore years ago that I can't bring myself to replace. Not only because it's rare and discontinued, but also because wearing it now would flatten something I want to keep alive—a particular autumn, a version of myself related to a sense of place where I no longer live but love, full of mornings that felt suspended in amber light. In case you are wondering what it is: Delectation Splendide by Terry de Gunzburg.

On Memory & Nostalgia

Some fragrances become so entangled with a moment that they stop belonging to the present. They're time capsules. We keep them not to wear, but to sniff from time to time, to remember.

And then there are the opposite kind—the ones we return to precisely because they don't carry history. Clean slates. Scents we choose now, for who we are now, unburdened by what came before.

I'm interested in both. The fragrances we preserve like artifacts, and the ones we just start to explore, building new associations with each spritz. One holds the past. The other makes space for what's still unfolding.

Do you have a scent you can't let go of? Or one you're building a new relationship with?

With kindness, 🕊
Flor at Nectar Atelier

Photo: Misc by Madeline Spanier