How are your New Year, New You #goals going? Yeah, me too. Have you found yourself planning healthy meals on one device while picking out pizza toppings with another? How about congratulating yourself on “portion control” with ice cream, then deciding that that last little bit will just needlessly take up freezer space? Is this the year you promised to take better care of yourself, to really explore rest and wellness . . . but you just dream of being able to afford a get-away spa for a month?
Your olfactory senses can help you achieve your best self. This is the time of year when we get away from rich, exotically spiced baked goods and start shifting into fresher things. After all, even if it’s still icy and cold where you are, this is the time of year for pineapple harvest in the Caribbean and citrus harvest in Florida. Fresh, clean scents will help keep you on track . . . and make taking care of #1 more fun!
Demeter Fragrance Library has a wide selection of unusual — but completely on point — scents that come in formats to incorporate into every aspect of your life. I was happy to be hosted to experience them!
Pineapple – they say it’s meant to evoke the heart of a juicy pineapple. I experienced very sweet, very ripe pineapple from the main “meat” of the pineapple, not the drier core. It evolves into more tangy, fresh pineapple juice notes. This is appealing for all genders. If you layer it with their scented body products, you’ll want to keep things fresh and juicy — it’s a good deterrent from reaching for ooey, gooey snacks, at least right then!
Steam Room – they describe it as an ozone fragrance that’s warm, with a touch of eucalyptus. I didn’t know what to expect! I mean, unless you have your own private sauna, most of us associate that steam room scent with other peoples’ sweaty bodies, dank towels and a room that needs cleaning.
Fortunately, I have experienced a steam room unadulterated by other people. A couple of years ago, I severely sprained and lacerated my foot while in Vegas. While other spa people were busy sunning themselves in the sky-high infinity pool, I dragged my tree log of an ankle into the steam room that was just cleaned and nobody else was using. That was an experience like Demeter’s Steam Room! That hotel piped in a little eucalyptus, too. With Demeter, I experienced ozone plus that “spa scent”. There are notes of marine plants, too.
How to use this scent in your life? Well, it’s delightful on your person, but a game changer as an atmospheric scent. How to make your pad more like a spa? Well, Steam Room isn’t going to scrub down your bathroom — you still gotta do that yourself — but put a little bandana kerchief on your head and get down to business quickly. With the clean but relaxing fragrance in the air, it’ll be easier to make things nice for yourself . . . and isn’t it time for that?
Pure Soap – was formulated to smell like skin that was just washed with Ivory Soap, that memory. I have a distinct memory of Ivory Soap. When I was little, my grandmother still had a lakefront cottage in western Michigan, purchased in the days when people had to get out of the city to avoid polio. After a day at the beach, you hoped that you weren’t too sandy and filthy to use the “upstairs” bathroom with the white porcelain bathtub and the lovely, clean Ivory soap. The alternative was the “downstairs” open shower in the laundry room, complete with a vintage washboard in the stationary tub, a concrete floor and “Daddy’s yucky orange soap”. Sometimes, he even made our Basset hound, Zoltan, shower with us there! Here is an actual picture of Zoltan, trying to sneak upstairs at “the cottage,” circa 1972. Yes, this really happened:
Cedar – is said to be one of the oldest ingredients used in fragrance. You can find mention extolling it as a pure luxury in the Old Testament. Freemasons frequently refer to cedar trees in their iconography. Demeter uses cedar from Virginia — I’ve gone camping in Virginia! The fragrance is lightly woody, with the tiniest stone fruit note and a faint touch of smoke notes. It’s not musty like an old box; rather, it’s more like a live cedar forest.
The Scandinavians speak of the concept of “hygge”. It’s the philosophy of coziness! Hygge promotes making your home a comforting place to be, fixing a hot beverage and smelling good scents. I’m sure they’d love Cedar as an atmospheric or personal fragrance!
Fruit Salad – they describe it as, “The heart is fresh peach and tangerine, supported by juicy, ripe pear and raspberries.” This is the fresh stuff that you hope will be at the potluck picnic, not the canned stuff. So, I got completely different fruit notes. I experienced a lot of honeydew and cantaloupe, with light notes of pineapple core and fresh red grape. Wear this on your wrists, take a deep breath whenever you’re tempted to fall off the healthy wagon!
Luxe & Down-Home Cuisine/Culture/Travel/Style 