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A love letter to citrus, memory, and my newest fragrance obsession: Lavanila. Grapefruit season is upon us. When we think of citrus fruits, most of us picture warm breezes, summer sun, maybe even the Southern orchards where citrus thrives. But the truth? Grapefruit is a winter fruit — arriving quietly just as the temperatures drop, the snow settles, and the days turn inward. And Lavanila’s Vanilla Grapefruit feels like the perfect olfactory companion for this season — crisp,

inspired by @coffee.and.concealers 🤍 November 2025 was… brutal. I buried another parent. The weather turned colder. The days got noticeably shorter. And the dark — both inside and outside — felt heavier than it has in a long time. And yet, even in a month that heavy, tiny joys still found me. A comforting shower. A scent that softened the edges. A moment in the mirror where I caught my own reflection and thought, okay… my lips look fire today. So here they are: Nine product

This morning, while doing something as ordinary as switching my purse from fall to winter mode, I found myself holding a memory I hadn’t touched in years. A black Jimmy Choo bag — sleek, structured, quietly glamorous — gifted to me by my mom sometime in  2007. The kind of gift that, yes, absolutely came with a comma in the price tag. My colleagues at the time used to joke that it was my “ comma bag ,” and honestly? They weren’t wrong. It was  extravagant. Bougie, even. And my

Some perfumes introduce themselves politely. Others not so much. Cuir Tassili walks in with a presence — half leather jacket, half lace slip — and somehow both feel right. I’ve been completely obsessed with this fragrance lately. It’s marketed as unisex. But it’s also deeply contradictory. Some days it leans into its structured, leathery edges. Other days it opens into sweetness and softness. It shape-shifts as my body moves throughout the day. Every time I wear it, I hear S

A creamy iris chai for the season—and for the soul. Sometimes fragrance pairings feel accidental. Others feel intuitive. And then there are the rare combinations that feel…  meant to be . I don’t know why I reached for these two particular fragrances, but I’m glad it did.  That’s what happened when I started layering  Jovoy Remember Me  with  Houbigant Iris des Champs . On their own, they’re beautiful. Together, they’re something deeper—almost like the name and the note found

There are some objects that stop being objects. They become something else entirely —a feeling, a memory, a tether. This vase is that for me. A row of delicate glass tubes held in a simple gold frame — elegant, understated, timeless. Quintessentially my mom. It lived at the center of her dining table for years, catching light, catching petals, catching moments. Now it lives in my home. On my sideboard. In the shifting light of east- and south-facing windows. And every time I

Seven Iris Scents, One Grief Journey, and the Quiet Ways Scent Keeps Us Connected I’ve been spending time with iris again—the flower, the note, and the man who unexpectedly led me to it.

These days I am feeling rather vanilla, in fragrance and in mood. There’s a quietness to me lately — a soft, muted version of myself. I’ve been calling it feeling very vanilla.  Not boring, not bland… just simple. Quiet and subdued. The fragrance equivalent of sitting in your own silence. It’s that feeling when your routines become pared down to the essentials, when “good enough” becomes the goal, when your mind doesn’t want fireworks, it wants familiarity. I guess I have van

The scent that met me where memory and modernity collide. It’s everything I needed it to be. My Karkey, The Duchess A few weeks ago I walked into the department store the other day fully prepared to buy Guerlain’s iconic Shalimar . My grandmother’s signature scent. A fragrance woven into some of my earliest sensory memories. I could practically see her vanity — her powders, her cold creams, the soft clatter of her gold charm bracelet — and that emblematic bottle of Shalimar t

Grief has a funny way of showing up in unexpected places. For me, lately, it’s been showing up in scent. I can’t take credit for the title — Mon Thoughts on Mon Guerlain  — I read it somewhere, but I loved the scent-iment 😉. And honestly, it fits this story perfectly. I was in a department store the other day, planning to buy Guerlain’s Shalimar.  Not because I adore the scent, but because it’s iconic — and because it reminds me of my Karkey. Yes, you read that correctly. K

The last few weeks have been a blur and I am just now coming up for air. In my fog of returning home I was opening packages and this gorgeous Deluxe Box Set from DS & DURGA had arrived as a gift. 🙏 What a beautiful surprise to unbox at a time where I was feeling so low. Exploring these miniature perfumes was just the distraction my grief needed in that moment. A standout for me was Radio Bombay - the way it burst into my senses with its woodsy, iris and creamy coconut textu

11/03/2012 I remember this moment like it was yesterday. Right before the doors opened and you began walking me down the aisle- it was just you and me inside the church vestibule. We were giggling with nervous energy and you were saying “this really should be your father”, literally right up until the moment you handed me off to Pops, you questioned if you belonged there. GeeGee, you were my father too. That’s why you did stand in that tiny church vestibule with me. For nearl

The darkest part of grief isn’t always the moment someone dies…it’s what happens after. Since my stepdad took his final breath on October 22nd, I haven’t felt anything. I haven’t wanted to feel. I still don’t. But that silence inside me isn’t sustainable. I have children. A spouse. A business. Commitments that don’t wait for grief.

I did not  want to like this serum and supplement combo. I mean, I was excited to try it — I’m a Martha Stewart fan (obviously) — but I was perfectly happy with my current skincare routine. And now, Elm Biosciences has gone and messed me up… in the best possible way. If you know anything about me, you know skincare is my love language (the other being perfume). I consider myself a skincare enthusiast — not one to chase hype or fill my cart at Sephora. So when I heard Martha h

Perfumehead: LA LA LOVE Scent Profile:  Gourmand / Ambery Key Notes:  Vanilla Absolute · Smoked Amber · Cognac · Saffron Randy Newman nailed it back in 1983 — “I love L.A.” Even though it would be another 15 years before I lived there, I can still say it now: I love L.A. — always have, always will. When I first learned about Perfumehead , a luxury fragrance house born in Los Angeles and dedicated to exploring what founder Daniel Patrick Giles calls “The Osmocosm”  (osmo: smel

One Umbrella for Two bursts to life with the nutty aroma of Puffed Rice Accord and Genmaicha. I wasn’t familiar at first with this Japanese brown rice tea, but the popping, roasted warmth hit my senses immediately — almost too much at first — and then softened as the sweet, tart blackcurrant stepped forward.

Scent, like us, changes with mood, time, temperature, and tenderness. And if there’s one fragrance note that feels like home  to me, it’s...

A story about timing, memory, and the ways love shows up when we least expect it. Sometimes the universe leads you into exactly the right place, at exactly the right time — even if you think you’re just killing time before an event.

Between flights, family, and fibro flare ups — I’ve learned to lower the commitment bar and raise the self-care. Wellness doesn’t have to look pretty and include pampering; sometimes it’s a neck pillow and a refillable water bottle at gate B6.

What if we welcomed grief like a soft, oversized sweatshirt instead of pushing it away? What if we wore it openly — in words, in tears over coffee, in laughter while telling old stories — instead of tucking it into the shadows?