The Spell of Smell

A tribute to the evocative and ephemeral beauty of scent

by

Every other Sunday from around ages eight to eighteen my sisters and I would awake at our dad’s house to breakfast of a dozen glazed donuts, usually polishing off the box in its entirety before the battle over who’d get the hot shower water even began. The three of us would try our best to tame our tangly heads of hair and dress in our respective church outfits, packed specifically for the occasion, in order to get out the door before noon. Our church of choice alternated depending on which side of the Causeway he called home at the time, but during the years on the Northshore, occasionally we’d make the trip out to Saint Joseph Abbey in Covington. Of all the churches we attended, the Abbey was the oldest, the biggest, and the most beautiful. Once we made it inside, dad would usher us all the way to the front of the rows of pews, right next to the altar. Younger me didn’t pay much attention during Mass, squirming to find a comfortable seat on the hard wooden bench, and more interested in observing the murals within the dome ceiling. Although I haven’t been back in years, I can still recall the pungent, musky aroma of incense as it permeated the air, tracing the smoke’s path from the altar server’s swinging thurible upward, all the way up to the group of meticulously-rendered winged angels above. 

[Read this: Holistic Approach—Two New Orleans Women Practice Alternative Pathways to Healing]

Historically, incense has been used in houses of worship as a symbol of prayer ascending to heaven. These days, I burn incense just about every morning. Since our Country Roads editorial team is working from our respective home screens, it helps my brain shift into writing mode, my own small offering to the legends of the literary past. There’s an aspect of ritual to it that I like as I sit down and attempt to put words to paper (or Google Doc, if we’re being literal), creating something from nothing--a divine process in its own right. 

Scents are powerful, visceral forces; they can conjure long-forgotten memories in the brain. This sort of time travel is what makes the ensuing nostalgia so immediate, intimate, and intense. The olfactory bulb—the structure that sends information from the nose to the brain—is directly connected to the limbic system, where the brain processes memory and emotion. It’s why specific smells can trigger a detailed memory or feeling without warning. It’s why my mom can vividly recall the smell of her Nanny B’s homemade angel biscuits even though she died thirty-six years ago, or how my younger sister remembers the stale, soapy smell of the bathrooms at our elementary school even though a decade has passed since the youngest of us walked those halls. It’s why long ago, lovers often sent letters spritzed with fragrance to their beaus; so their beloved could smell their essence lingering on the page, as if the scent alone would be enough to close the gap between them, or at least make it seem less cavernous. The same allure also drew me to my grandmother’s vanity as a little girl, where a fancy mirrored tray displayed her perfume collection of elegant, easily breakable glass bottles in an array of shapes and sizes and colors. To this day, I feel like a child again in her bathroom, eyeing my Nana’s signature Chanel No. 5 and wondering if wearing it would transform me into a more mature and sophisticated version of myself. 

"Scents are powerful, visceral forces; they can conjure long-forgotten memories in the brain. This sort of time travel is what makes the ensuing nostalgia so immediate, intimate, and intense."

In college, I spent a semester studying abroad in Italy. I arrived in the dead of winter clad in my favorite denim jacket, wildly and hilariously unprepared for the icy sleet and biting cold of Milan in early February, and drank enough two euro boxed wine to forget the cold entirely. When the warmth of spring finally came, it covered the concrete city in a blanket of bright green, seemingly in bloom for the first time (to my eyes, at least). I still remember how a fence draped in honeysuckle stopped me in my tracks along the sidewalk, instantly transported back to childhood summers spent below sea level. I thought I could taste the nectar of the flower that appeared every year in Louisiana, sweet on the tongue. It made me ache for home. 

Thanks to this olfactory shortcut in the brain, the same oils and herbs that supply certain scents can also contain healing properties, calming one both mentally and physically. The simple act of lighting scented candles or using bath salts and soaps can yield drastic results, and no one understands the healing power of scents better than the following three local South Louisiana business owners, featured in our accompanying visual photo story. When Kelsey Conner, owner of Cake Face Soaping in Mandeville, started her business ten years ago, it was out of necessity; a chronic illness diagnosis forced her to search for alternative natural soap and skincare products that would soothe her sensitive skin, and when she couldn’t find any, she decided to make them herself. For Conner, the scent itself isn’t as important as what it does for the wearer, from improving your sleep to producing hormones like dopamine and serotonin. Other scent-purveyors, like Jane Bleecker with Hazeltine Scent Co., utilize smells to “enhance and enrich moments of mindful nostalgia.” For Wicks NOLA Candle Company owner and resident candle maker Tiffany Brown, scented candles and room and linen sprays provide mental health benefits like aiding anxiety, reducing stress levels, and boosting one’s mood.  

[Read this: Uncommon Scents—Four generations of women have run Hové Parfmeur in New Orleans]

The power of scent can also be harnessed to better connect to the past. Historians and olfactory researchers (yep, the field of smell research is a thing) are even finding ways to preserve scents that are disappearing from modern memory, as well as recreating lost scents from historic happenings, such as what Napoleon’s retreat from the Battle of Waterloo would have smelled like in 1815 (apparently, sweat, wet grass, and cologne). This massive archival effort also recognizes that these reconstructions are merely interpretations; scent is perhaps our most subjective sense, and there’s no way to really know what Napoleon would have smelled on the fateful day of his defeat by British forces. Because the beauty of scent lies in its evanescence; it’s always fleeting, ensuring we notice when it’s gone. 

Local scent brands you should try: 

Candles: Wicks NOLA Candle Co. and Hazeltine Scent Co. 

Soaps: Cake Face Soaping

Room Spray: Wicks NOLA Candle Co. 

Aroma Roller: Cake Face Soaping