Folks, it’s been a bit of a rough start to 2021, hence this lame post. I still can’t smell much and it definitely got worse this summer; COVID antibody tests are negative so who knows. Good news is, as a result food’s so uninteresting I’m losing weight despite being 20 feet from my kitchen all day lol. I expect there’ll be a lot more research into sense of smell thanks (?) to COVID.
In the meantime I’ve started a daily regimen of smell-training, which is super simple (details online everywhere), you pick four essential oils and concentrate on smelling them twice a day. The standard options are floral (rose), citrus (lemon), spice (clove), green/herbal (eucalyptus) although you can choose your own assortment, just make them consistent. And they don’t have to be essential oils, you can use a jar of herbs for example.
Nobody on Earth’s going to make me smell rose every day, so I use my tiny bottle of majmua attar, which is floral and green and magical and makes me happy even if I can barely smell it. And I chose sweet orange oil instead of lemon because it’s supposed to be a mood booster. You know it’s a rough time when you can’t smell eucalyptus, which is sometimes the case. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted.
Weirdly, I seem better able to perceive ambient scent in the background than perfume or body products on myself, so I’ve been using my lovely Trapp wax melts set in dishes on the radiators (thanks, Anita!), plus a few candles. Favorite candles right now are the Thymes Frasier Fir I bought for the holidays – man, those things last forever, who knew? I’m also trying out a few candles from Beauty Pie; they’re nice but not amazing, the surprise hit for me has been the gingerbread almond blossom (a holiday LE I think, it’s still available on their UK site) which seems way sweeter than something I’d usually like, but combined with the Frasier Fir it’s lovely.
What are you smelling these days?
Hey March,
I just had a HUGE Surrender To Chance order arrive so i’ll be snuffling away at them over the next couple of months.
I’m finding DIOR Feve D very nice for this muggy but cool summer we are having in Sydney.
Portia xx
I’ve also got a Thymes Frasier Fir candle going nowadays. Love that scent. Around Thanksgiving I had their Simmered Cider candle lit. It was good, too. March, I hope your sense of smell comes back fully, and soon.
Thanks, hon. Fingers crossed for the new year in so many ways.
We’ve had 5″ of snow and ice over EVERYTHING and no sun – just that weird mid-light that comes up at 8a …. and stays until it suddenly goes dark at 5:40p, as if a scrim was dropped onstage at a grammar school play. I couldn’t tell you what day it is, nor what time. Just day/night (or is it? Is it legit night at 5:40p?)
anyhoo – I have a seasonal sinus jam so can’t smell or taste much. Sticking to hot curry in a thin broth (thick curries nauseate me right now) and Big Gun No 5… which, if you can believe it, is a ….. distant..smell.
sigh.
xoxoxoA
ps. and you’re welcome 😉
Ooooh, a thin hot curry right now… this is the time of year just MADE for pho and a thin green curry. Maybe I’ll make some, in fact…. xo
yep! it’ll get you sorted in no time flat! xoxoxo
ps. THE SUN IS BLAZING! here today! The world feels like a bright, shiny new penny!!!
I know you have been dealing with this for quite a while, March, and I hope the smell training begins to work soon. Smelling new perfumes isn’t on my radar right now, I’d much rather stick to the familiar. Shalimar is getting lots of wear.
Shalimar seems like JUST THE THING for a Blursday in Novembruary, frankly.
I hope you feel better soon and get your smell back into groove.
Thanks, I’m going to keep working on it and hoping!
How profoundly irritating on the loss of smell for an extended period. Perhaps a strange suggestion but what about trying to smell isopropyl rubbing alcohol given it’s very strong?
Candles … I’ve been rotating among Dryad (a new Edinburgh-based company) Leather & Cardamom and Clove & Sandalwood, the candle that came in my Xmas hamper (orange & cinnamon), and now Urban Apothecary Tuberose (which has been throw after it’s been blown out — go figure). Diptyque Feu de Bois and Tauer l’Air were in rotation over Xmas.
We’re back in lockdown as of yesterday at least through mid-February. Doesn’t make much difference to my life (ie, things won’t really change). Really hoping it has an impact and gives the NHS some breathing room.
Tom’s late friend violetnoir averred that throw was greater on a candle (for quite a bit) after it was blown out, that the smell collects in the melted wax. I took her advice and found that on 99% of my candles it worked (there were a couple of outliers because Life).
I miss her – she always had such a positive presence! xoxoxo
I miss that girl. <3
Everything is just …. crazy out there right now. I am trying to be grateful for the fact that I have somewhere warm and safe to be.
So sorry about your broken nose, how awful. I’m of course wearing a couple of different perfumes a day, but ambient scents are some generic fir and burning wood scented candles I got at TJ Maxx. They are pleasant. I burned palo santo wood on New Year’s Eve to clear out the house from 2020 bad juju.
I’ve gotten some GREAT candles from TJ, actually. They have this pipe tobacco one I’m currently out of and want to restock.
I’m sorry to hear about your sense of smell March! I’m pretty sure I got Covid the week before Christmas. I lost my sense of smell for five days, it was very strange and unpleasant. It help me to learn the difference between taste and smell. I could taste sweet, salty, tangy and fatty – these are my descriptions but more or less I think I found validation online about that. But I couldn’t distinguish any individual smells. I would put peppermint essential oil right up to my nose and take a deep breath and I could feel a burning on the back of my nasal passage but that was it. That was probably a bad idea. I really hope you get your smell back soon!
Yeah, that is WILD when it’s something like peppermint when you can tell it’s there but still not really smell it! Fingers crossed it all gets better soon…