The Hidden Garden | How Scent Connects Us to Nature
The Memory of a Hidden Garden
I didn't grow up surrounded by wilderness. I was, however, blessed with a partial view of the Pacific Ocean from the living room of our apartment. The ocean was close, yet unreachable by foot, as the city rested on a cliffside. Nature around me was present, but tucked away, almost hidden.
In the building where I grew up, there was a garden most people ignored. There were no swings or benches designed for play. But it was accessible and full of life: shaded corners, damp soil, a lush fig tree, fragrant flowers, leaves that held the day's warmth, plants full of aliveness.
That garden became my refuge.
Scent Before Language
I spent time there alone and with friends, touching leaves, crushing herbs between my fingers, playing with insects, noticing how the air changed depending on the hour. I didn't think of it as nature then. It was simply a place where things grew with a rhythm of their own, where scents existed before language.
I believe that's where my relationship with fragrance began.
Perfume, for me, has always been a return to nature, to that hidden, half-forgotten garden of childhood. Certain notes — resins, fruits, florals, earth — bring me back to that safe garden space drenched in wonder and presence. Some compositions bring back intricate feelings of play, aliveness, lightness that I first felt in that space. It's a memory steeped in nostalgia, rooted in the fertile ground of earth and imagination.
A Deep Connection to Nature
Naturally, I'm drawn to fragrances inspired by nature. These creations remind me I'm not trying to escape where I am, but to reconnect more deeply with it—with stillness, with texture, with the wonders of creation, this physical world we inhabit.
This is why the fragrances I'm drawn to feel alive on my skin, integrated into my experience of life.
The Power of Perfume
Perfume can do many things. It can beckon, transform, and elevate. But its power is this: it can bring us back to what we once knew instinctively: how to notice, how to connect, how to play, how to be in the world without rushing past it.
For me, that return always looks like the garden of my childhood. Hidden. Green. Alive.
Safe. A little piece of heaven.
With kindness,
🕊 Flor at Nectar Atelier
