I’m going to start by calling out the elephant in the room: our sense of smell has taken on new meaning in these COVID times. I was grateful every day I could smell something, for the last 2 years or so. Overall, our sense of scent has some very special inputs into our memories and our sense of wellbeing. The smells you love are a unique combination of your own memories, experiences, skin chemistry, and more.
Why am I bringing this up here on Growing Real Art? Because learning what your sense of scent is equals a very easy and fun way to explore your authentic (aka real) sensibilities. And perfume samples are a surprisingly cheap way to open yourself up to a dizzying array of scents from all price points and aesthetics. If you prefer to follow your sense of taste through flavor, check out my post on “Hot Sauce – Punishing your taste buds, spicing up your life.” For now, let’s dive into scents!
Where Will You Start?
Once upon a time, you could only find perfume samples in magazines and at cosmetics counters. Anybody else remember the sensation of trying to scratch a powdery, papery perfume sample across your wrist, trying to discern if it smelled like anything at all? These days, though, you can buy perfume samples online, and I’m going to talk about my favorite site for perfume samples: Luckyscent. I am in NO WAY sponsored by or affiliated with Luckyscent. Gosh, I wish. Their site sells full-size bottles of insanely expensive perfumes, but they also offer samples that range from around $4-7 USD. Still, the sheer variety is overwhelming at first.
One place I’d recommend starting is with their “Fragrance Fitting” sample pack. You tell them what sorts of scents you like–as general as “desserts” or as specific as another perfume or combination of perfume notes. Their experts put together a set of samples they think you might like, and you get to explore away! Note that it is more expensive than individual samples, but as a jumping off point it’s awesome.
Mindfulness Through Your Sense of Scent
Are you thinking this all seems sort of superficial, going perfume-shopping? It’s a fair point. From my experience, focusing on scents is a powerful mindfulness practice for me. I struggle to remember to meditate–or to find time for it–but I do have time to dab on a perfume sample, and randomly catch wafts of it throughout the day. You too might find it enjoyable to ask yourself how you feel about the scent as you smell it:
- Do you like it better at first, or after it dries down later in the day?
- Do you like *some* of the scent, or all of it?
- Does the scent make you feel more calm, romantic, cozy, or perhaps MYSTERIOUS!?
- If you hate a particular scent, what about it is so awful?
A Sneaky Way to Convince Your Brain that Your Opinions Matter
I honestly couldn’t come up with a smoother header for this, but I wanted to get this point across: Corporations spend millions of dollars trying to convince you of what you need. Your brain is flooded with messages about what it should want. To me, making time to explore my own “scents and sensibilities” is a tiny rebellion. And I’m convinced my brain notices when I take the time to listen to its desires, and in turn over time it is much clearer about what feels true and wonderful. This world isn’t built to listen to your authentic self, but you can be.
What Scents are Special to You?
Shout out your Sense of Scent!
Drop me a comment to let me know what scents are meaningful to you. We’re going BEYOND perfume samples here, folks! Right now I’m relishing the smell of “wet dirt” that always returns in the Spring–tip o’ the hat to the soil microbes that produce geosmin, the compound that makes that smell (sometimes known as ‘petrichor’). Once we roll into summer, I’ll be digging the notes of cut grass and gasoline. What scents do you love!?
