Do You Smell That?

Smell is a pretty underrated sense, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, it's directly connected to both taste and memory! That's pretty damn cool. Smell is also, unfortunately, the source of a lot of unavoidable unhappiness, as anyone who has ever lived in an apartment building with weird air circulation, visited New York City in the summertime, or stood near a 12-year-old boy knows all too well. But that's not why we're here today! We're here to discuss using scent to make the world a better place, albeit in sort of a microcosmic fashion. 

First off, if you wear perfume or cologne go easy on it for the love of little green apples. Perfume is an up-close thing, it should not make you easily recognizable from twenty feet away. Really think about it for a second - the idea is that someone who's been very close to you will be reminded of you when they catch a whiff of the same thing elsewhere, right? So you want people who are special to you to think of you in relation to certain scents. So you see how it sort of loses its punch when every single person you've interacted with on a given day knows what you smell like without even having to get within handshake distance?

Anyway, that's quite enough preachiness from me. That's your scent profile - for lack of a better term - as it relates to other people, let's move on to how it relates to you.

And once again we're back on the "how do you feel when you walk into your house" tip, only this time, obviously, it's scent-related. I can't be the only person who is pretty strongly affected by what my place smells like when I walk in the front door, can I? Because those days when the cat is having digestive issues or the neighbors are preparing one of their wall-to-wall garlic and onion smorgasbords (seriously, what are they cooking in there?!) ... well, those days seem to take a little extra work just to keep them on an even keel. On the other hand, the days when I walk in the door and smell fresh flowers or whatever's in the crock-pot or the essential oil diffuser I forgot to turn off before I left don't always turn out to be the best days ever but they are certainly helped along by that little olfactory gesture.

So, there's your assignment for today - make your place smell nice, if it doesn't already! Go to Target, be the weirdo smelling everything in the candle aisle (don't worry, there are at least three weirdos of the same stripe who are already there). Or go to the hardware store and track down a good air neutralizer if you'd prefer your place smell like nothing at all, there's nothing wrong with that.

A word, though - I highly recommend naturally-based scents. Read the label, look for the words "essential oils" or "all-natural," you know, hippie stuff like that. First of all, it's so much better for you and whatever creatures you voluntarily share your home with. Secondly, visitors who are sensitive to chemical scents (and many, many people fall into that category these days) will not enjoy spending time in your home in the slightest, and I'm guessing that's the opposite of how you'd like them to feel, yes? So yeah, natural candles, or heck, get an essential oil diffuser and oils to go with it (count on an essential oils post sometime in the near future, by the way - I just realized I have WAY more to say about that topic). And have fun with it! Change it up according to the weather or the time of day or whatever you happen to be listening to on the stereo. Make the scent/mood connection work for you and as with everything else, enjoy it as thoroughly as possible.

Feel-Good Friday tomorrow! See you then.

- Sarah