a perfume for every mood in my notes app

i don’t wear perfume to smell good. i wear perfume to become someone. or sometimes, to remember someone. or to forget. i wear perfume to narrate the version of myself that words can’t hold. because scent, in its best form, is not a beauty product — it’s a mood portal. a shape-shifter. it doesn’t ask to be seen. it lingers. it reveals. it reminds. and for someone who often forgets what she walked into the room for, but can still remember the smell of a mall in 2007, or a boy’s hoodie in high school, or the jasmine oil her grandmother dabbed behind her ears — scent is the only memory i trust.

my notes app is full of moodboard descriptions. i don’t write to-do lists. i write versions of myself i want to become. “soft girl in a white robe with tea in her hand and no emails for a week.” “mid-20s woman who lives alone and smells like clean sheets and wine from a good breakup.” “bored but expensive.” “like you live in a nancy meyers kitchen but you ghost people.” and each one — every mood, every aesthetic microfantasy — has a scent. something to spray before entering a scene, or becoming a softer version of myself. so here it is: a completely unserious, deeply sincere, unscientific scent list for all the moods i’ve written down but never lived long enough to explain.

mood: emotionally intelligent but doesn’t text back

smells like almond milk skin, cotton shirts, and you’ll never know what she’s thinking

Glossier You

this one’s the introvert of the it-girl world. it doesn’t try to impress you. it just sits quietly on your collarbone and gets remembered. it’s soft, warm, a little creamy, and slightly musky — like skin, but better. i wear it when i want to feel like i have my life together but also like i’m kind of mysterious in an “i meditate now” way. if you’re into perfumes that smell more like you’re the story, not the punchline, this one’s a classic.

mood: a love letter you forgot to send

smells like late night journaling, velvet couches, and unresolved crushes

Byredo Mojave Ghost

it’s airy but sad. like a ghost of a memory, but wearing really good shoes. it opens soft and floral (almost like magnolia and sandalwood had a baby that reads philosophy), but then turns slightly salty, warm, and nostalgic. i wear this when i want to romanticize my anxiety, or when i’m taking myself on a solo date to buy books i won’t finish. it’s emotional girl perfume — but subtle.

mood: living alone in an italian villa paid for by a man you left

smells like citrus, leather, olive oil, and generational wealth