Tag Archives: candles

My Fragrance Gathering Era

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Last year, I officially entered my fragrance era. I decided to start paying closer attention to fragrance in my life and now I’m pretty much preoccupied. I went to my local Sephora to sample some scents, found one that I loved and from there I have amassed a small collection which has, among many other things, taught me something about the notes I’m generally drawn to, the ones I’ve begun to love that I never thought I would and what role they play in my every day life outside of smelling nice and or getting compliments which is obviously a huge draw in the fragrance community.

  • Collecting fragrance makes me feel very feminine in a late blooming way. I look at my collection which I recently purchased a tray for (now I know what those are for! LOL!!) and they just look so pretty and elegant and tell the story of my personal journey with fragrance so far.
  • I like the fragrances I like because of the way they make me feel. When I smell fragrance notes I like, I can feel parts of my body light up in ways that sometimes feels peaceful, soothed, transcendent, stimulated and or narcotic. Fragrance, I’ve read, cuts through the consciousness and goes straight to our most primal senses below. My favorite feelings that fragrances I love evoke are feelings of coziness, centering, grounding, nostalgia, warmth, sensuality, mystery, femininity, intimacy and dreaminess, not all in that order or at the same time. I’m a big fan of vanilla but have discovered unexpectedly that I also really like muskiness and woodiness in scents which I would had previously scoffed at and attributed strictly to what I believed to be unimaginative formulations of masculine scents.
  • My process for scent discovery has developed intuitively but I have also begun to create a discipline around this process to make it more intentional.
  • 1. I make a list of fragrances I want to sample.
  • 2. As I smell each sample, I observe my feelings and how my body reacts. I know when something repulses me. I know when there are notes I love so much that I want to explore them further. I now write the name of the scent on the test strip while I’m in the field, ie Ulta, Sephora etc., so that I can remember what it is hours later.
  • 3. I smell the fragrances I’ve selected at random intervals throughout the day to see how and if they change or evolve, how long the projection strength lasts and how my own feelings and reactions to them are sustained, heightened, diminished or transformed. I do this over a matter of hours, days, weeks to see what changes and or evolves in my relationship to the scents. My breathing them in is akin to a deep silent listening and the exchange is intimate, curious and exploratory.
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My Gyn Has Candles in the Examination Room

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Well not real candles. I’m guessing that would be a fire hazard. They’re those fake candles that are actually like flickering electric lights in candle holders. My gynecologist has those going on the table across from the examination table and no overhead light ever.

Whenever I’m there on the table with the sheet wrapped around me, waiting for Dr. Simmons to come in, I’m usually pretty relaxed and at ease, the light from the faux candles have a very calming effect on me. Naturally, I’ve had several gyns before and it occurred to me while I was there last, that this is not the usual examination room experience. Simmons tells me that this was the intention of her and her partners when she opened the spa, and that this room and the candlelight effect was intended to decrease anxiety and lower the heart rate. I love it when women put thought into creating spaces that evoke warmth, relaxation, calm and insulation, particularly in any medical capacity. This is not a room that you want to hurry away from but one that allows you to really settle and be present. In situations where you need to be vulnerable and be examined in intimate ways, this is very important. Plus my gyn has a great bedside manner. The candlelight room is like an extension of her attitude so I never feel like I’m being handled, treated roughly, being rushed in and out like cattle or being neglected or forgotten. I’ve also never witnessed crowding or even remotely heavy traffic at the practice. When I arrive there are never more than three or four women in the waiting room which is also softly lit with low music playing always.

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