You can experience an entire journey with one deep breath. This week, we’re counting down my top three scents.

I once attended a work event where the ice breaker activity was answering, “If you had to give up one sense, what would you choose?” First, I hate those games. I get that they’re designed to get your critical thinking going, but no. Let’s pick something less dramatic. Second, I said I would pick “smell” because it would be the least disruptive to my life. Well, turns out that is very wrong. Young professional me was foolish. Smell is essential to taste, safety, and life enjoyment.

Scents round out our life experience. They tell us about the environment, they make flavor richer, and they can even bring on bouts of nostalgia. (Shout out to my first grade teacher Ms. Freedman’s perfume.) Scent is a powerful thing.

When it comes to my favorite scents, I want ones that provide me a sense of space while leaving me feel calmer.

Freshly Cleaned Home

Sometime it smells like pine, sometimes lemon, and other times Febreze. Mostly, however, it just smells fresh. It doesn’t matter if you use a green cleaner or not, deep cleaning leaves the space just breathing lighter.

I tend to use cleaners that are fragrance-free, but nothing is truly scent free. It interacts with the space and hints the air. After I’ve given our home a good dust, vacuum, and scrub, I always make sure to take a deep breath. There’s a dewy sense of freshness in the space. It almost feels physically present. I enjoy cleaning alone. That way, when I am done, I can sit on the couch and just breath in without anyone disturbing the space.

This scent doesn’t last long. As life happens, daily aromas of life settle in with the everyday dust. This scent feels like a reward for a job well done. Sometimes, my main motivation to clean comes from wanting to bring this ambient scent back to my home.

Petrichor

Petrichor is defined as “a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.” That’s what I like, but I love a particular kind of petrichor. I want the petrichor that happens in cities and suburbs. The kind where the pavement is still steaming after the rain ends; the kind where the humidity keeps the scent floating in the air.

This petrichor feels like a reset. The weather has changed and the sidewalks have been cleansed. There’s a soft mist of earthy freshness that abounds while the rain still drips off the trees. Petrichor always seems to come with a hint of quiet and calm. The world is emerging again.

I don’t like getting wet, but I do like venturing outside after it rains. I want to inhale the freshness mother nature provides and enjoy that slight warm air as the birds start singing again.

Lavender

In my dresser, you will find at least three sachets of lavender. One of them is ten years old. It still has a hint of scent to it. While I adore the scent of lavender in all forms - oils, candles, sprays, etc. - my favorite is dried lavender. I love crumbling the flowers. They release a burst of scent and leave hints of oil on my hands.

Lavender has known calming properties. If you’re into aromatherapy this is a popular scent. When I was in labor, I brought a sachet of lavender with me. (I forgot to use it - thank you back labor - but even knowing it was nearby as a focus was helpful.) When I know I need to a moment, I like to squeeze one of my sachets and just spend a few seconds inhaling the scent. The aroma, paired with tactile action of scrunching the bag, helps give me a few mindful minutes of focus.

This scent is earthy mixed with floral. While oils and sprays are more one note, dried lavender can be multilayered with both strong floral top notes and subtle herby undertones. I like that some lavenders even have hints of balsamic or rosemary.

Unlike other scents, lavender doesn’t give me a firm sense of place. What it does instead is give me a sense of self. When I inhale lavender I am firmly focused on how I feel in mind and body.

Next week, in honor of our upcoming vacation, I’m counting down my top three miniature golf themes.

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This post is a part of the free preview. My Top 3 will go behind a paywall on September 1, 2022.