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Although I have a pretty extensive perfume collection — around 200 bottles, plus hundreds of samples and decants — for the last several years I've only worn a handful of them on a regular basis. Lately I've found myself gravitating to older and vintage scents, particularly classic Guerlains (Jicky, Mitsouko, Shalimar) and Caron (Yatagan, Caron pour Homme). Often dismissed as "old lady perfumes" (which is both ageist and misogynist!) they're the best examples of perfumery as high art I know. There are decades-old vintage samples out there if you know where to look or get lucky at an estate sale, but even the contemporary reformulated versions are more interesting and intricate than 99% of what you'll find at Sephora or even a niche shop like Luckyscent. I'd much rather smell of something that would have been familiar to Proust (that would be Jicky, a spiced lavender-vanilla considered to be the first "modern" perfume and one that has been in continuous production since it was released in 1889) than Santal 33 or whatever Maison Francis Kurkdjian everyone else is wearing.
Apr 6, 2024
Related Recs
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As you get older, nothing makes you feel more confident than dousing yourself in perfume to mask the stench of mortality. Granted I’m new to this and not an expert on fragrances, let alone “notes” and whatnot. But since newsletters are all about advising you on how to creatively spend your money, I’ll do my part and point you in the right direction. My go-to rotation at the moment is Serge Lutens Fille de Berlin, Olympic Orchids Ballets Rouges, and TRNP Bulgakov (Limited Edition *not* OG), which the manufacturer describes as smelling like “faded opulence.” Sometimes I like to wild out and layer them all on at once. Not everyone is blessed with healthy levels of narcissism. Perfume is a good way to stack the cards in your favor.
Aug 23, 2022
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Obsessed with perfume. For a while I was searching for a signature scent, but then the hunt just became too much fun, and now I’ve ended up with a full on vanity tray in my bathroom piled with a different smell for every mood. I used to wear only China Rain, a rollerball scent my mom got me in high school from a perfumery in LA called Spiritbody. I still have a bottle of that, but when I wear it I’m transported to a more insecure time lol. Right now I love Shadow in the Water from Diptyque for when I want to smell clean and romantic. I wear Smudge by Heretic almost every day because it’s colder out and it makes me feel so warm and cozy, like i’ve been sitting by a fire all day, and like I give good advice and paint landscapes. Perfume is definitely a splurge, but it lasts for so long, and I think it’s really special to have a beautiful scent that people can recognize you by. I am going to gatekeep my secret combination of Byredo perfumes that I wear constantly, and I’m sorry about that. It’s just too good and too me.
Dec 20, 2022
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I used to exclusively wear only one perfume at a time until the bottle ran out. This era I wore:
Misia - Chanel
Smells like a 1920s dressing room with powder and violets and roses everywhere
Red Roses - Jo Malone
Just the most beautiful rose smell. I would always get asked by taxi drivers what I was wearing when I had this on.
Now I've gotten into nicher perfumes that are more unisex and a bit weirder so I rotate them depending on season/occasion/time of day.
Current Spring rotation
For the office: Morning Chess - Vilhelm Parfumerie
It's woody and leathery but also very fresh and green. The creator says it was inspired by mornings in a cottage on the swedish coast. Smelling this at my desk makes me remember the world is a bigger place than emails.
For the evening: Mississippi Medicine - DS and Durga
Smells like old churches. Based on the rituals of a death cult from the 1200s. Heavy on incense, cedar and frankincense.
For walks outside: Sakura - Lush
Super clean and refreshing. Feel awake when I smell this. Smells like jasmine and orange blossom and salt. Like being near the sea but also delicate flowers.
I used to really love having one singular signature scent (whenever anybody would tell me I always smelled like roses I would reply "yes, so when I'm dead and you smell roses you'll think of me") but the older I get the more I feel like I have more facets of myself to perfume. I like that I can change my mood with fragrance or have some kind of escapism from reality with it.
Apr 6, 2024
Top Recs from @jonnodotcom
Along with keeping a water carafe next to your bed and linen spray, making your bed every morning is one of the most effective and underestimated things for maintaining good sleep hygiene, which is so important! I will never understand people who don't make their bed because it's just going to become unmade again (it took years of patient positive reinforcement training to get my boyfriend to stop being like this.) Making your bed as soon as you get up is not only empowering and gets your day off to a productive start— look, you've only been awake for five minutes and you've already accomplished something! — but evening you will be grateful to morning you for allowing you the luxurious experience of slipping into a properly made bed every night.
Apr 6, 2024
Even though Peep Show always winds up on lists of the best TV comedies of all time it's still strangely underappreciated and not nearly as well known on this side of the Atlantic as it should be. David Mitchell and Robert Webb are comedic geniuses and raise cringe to a legitimate art form. Plus it's created and co-written by Jesse Armstrong, who later went on to make Succession, so it's better than anything else for filling any Succession-shaped holes in your life even though it's a completely different kind of show.
Apr 5, 2024
Rich people’s bedrooms always smell really nice (ask me how I know this) as do expensive hotels - and your bedroom can smell great too! Find a small empty spray bottle and fill it up with half witch hazel (everyone should have witch hazel in their bathroom cabinet; stay tuned for another rec on this) and half filtered or bottled water (Evian or Fuji if you’re really feeling it.) Add your choice of essential oil(s) – start with about 20 drops per every cup of liquid and increase from there if needed. I like a blend of mostly lavender oil with a couple of drops of peppermint oil to open nasal passages and vetiver oil for grounding. Shake well and keep the bottle on your nightstand. Make a ritual of spraying it a few times over your pillow and sheets right before you climb in bed every night and I guarantee you will fall asleep faster, sleep more deeply, and have dreams in which you live in a gorgeous apartment in Paris.
Apr 6, 2024