A single breath can unravel years.
One inhale of orange blossom, worn leather, cigarette smoke, or the sweet trace of vanilla- and suddenly, the moment isn’t gone. It’s here. You’re standing in a hallway you haven’t seen in a decade. You’re wrapped in someone’s arm again, or standing under the rain, heart cracked wide open in some forgotten summer. Scent doesn’t just remind you. It returns you. Not abstractly, not vaguely, but with full force. You are in it again, like time never moved.
Fragrance lives closer to the emotional self than any other sense. It’s invisible, but its effect is immediate, and often deeply emotional. Scientifically, this isn’t just poeticism, it’s biology. The olfactory system has a direct line to the limbic system of the brain, which governs both memory and emotion. Unlike sight or sound, which travel through the thalamus first (a kind of “gatekeeper” of sensory processing), scent bypasses that filter. It goes straight to the emotional core.
This is why the smell of sunscreen might leave you weepy. Why a stranger’s cologne can cause your pulse to race or your stomach to drop. Why you associate cinnamon with your grandmother’s kitchen or wet asphalt with heartbreak. Scent is memory’s secret language. It speaks in full sentences, even when we don’t want to listen.
But the power of scent isn’t just about the past. It’s just as much about presence. About shaping how we feel now. Fragrance sets a tone before a word is spoken. It’s how we prepare ourselves for the world, how we enter a room, how a shift from one version of ourselves to another. A spritz of something soft and powdery might invite gentleness. Something smoky and bold might pull confidence from places you thought were empty. And something sweet, dark, and musky might be the difference between a regular night and one that lingers long after it ends.
Our scent is a signal. Even when no one’s around to smell it, we feel its effect. Just as a cozy room becomes warmer with the smell of amber or oud, the human spirit softens or strengthens depending on the notes it wears. For those who are sensitive, emotionally attuned, or simply imaginative, perfume becomes a daily ritual of conjuring. It’s not vanity- it’s alchemy.
And then, there’s the idea of layering scent over memory. Of reclaiming the past by choosing a new scent for an old place. Or perhaps of honoring it. Choosing to wear that old, familiar fragrance again, just to taste a version of yourself you once were. I’ve done this. I’ve opened drawers I shouldn’t have. Found bottles I thought I’d tossed out. One spray, and my chest tightens. The air thickens. Suddenly, I’m 23 again and naive, or wild, or in love. Or maybe I’m just free. Maybe it’s not about the lover or the place. Maybe it’s the freedom I miss most. The way scent captured it, kept it bottled when I didn’t even know it was precious.
That’s the thing about fragrance- it notices when you don’t. It’s a witness. To moments of beauty, of devastation, of becoming.
I once read that newborns know their mother’s scent before they even open their eyes. That woman are more likely to cry when smelling the shirt of someone they’ve lost than when looking at a photograph. That survivors of trauma often remember what something smelled like before they remember what happened. This isn’t a coincidence. Our brains are built this way. Scent is the oldest sense. Before language. Before fire. Before memory had a name, scent was guiding us through danger and comfort and closeness.
So what does it mean to walk through life aware of this power?
It means scent isn’t just accessory. It’s a form of presence. A way of shaping your world. It means you can choose how a memory is made- not just what you do, but how it smells. The candle you light while writing a letter. The body oil you wear when you’re feeling brave. The perfume you keep for when you feel most like yourself- the real you, the one who doesn’t flinch or apologize. These small rituals become emotional anchors. And years from now, when the scent catches you by surprise, you’ll remember.
You’ll remember who you were becoming.
Even more beautifully, scent can become a shared language. Intimate, even sacred. To love someone deeply is often to know how they smell. Not just their skin, but their choice of fragrance. The way it lingers on a hoodie or in the backseat of a car. The way it clings to you after they’ve left. Some perfumes are heartbreakers that way. You spray them in the air and suddenly you’re not alone. You’re haunted. In the best and worst ways.
I think, too, about how fragrance can be passed down, like stories. A mother’s signature scent. A father’s aftershave. A bottle of something no longer made, but kept, unopened, because it smells like love. We don’t talk about scent the way we talk about music or photographs, but it holds just as much. Maybe more. It holds emotion. Raw and unedited.
This is why I believe in scent journaling- recordings that remind us what moments smell like. What spring felt like when everything was blooming inside you. What grief smelled like, or ecstasy, or the quiet in between. It’s strange, I know, to remember your life in notes of vetiver, blackcurrant, or sea salt. But it makes sense. Because we don’t just live through events. We live through feeling. And scent captures feeling in its most honest form.
So if you’re searching for a way to ground yourself- if you’re trying to feel more, remember more, or even let go- start with scent. Choose a perfume like you’d choose a poem. Light a candle with intention. Walk slowly past jasmine and let it touch something soft inside you. keep a small vial of your favorite oil nearby, not for anyone else, but for the version of you that needs tending.
Fragrance may be invisible, but its effects are not. They linger. They move. They bind.
Every time you wear a scent, you’re writing a story. One the body will remember even when the mind forgets. So choose it carefully. Or recklessly. But always, always with feeling.
Xo, Lana
Lanalefay 