Make Your House Smell Like a Breath of Fresh, Brisk Air

Welcome to What’s That Smell?, a monthly roundup of the newest and the best in home scent solutions, from a dedicated home scent enthusiast to you.

I’m sorry about this, but I’m going to have to teach you something. Yes, even though it’s July and our brains are on summer vacation until after the winter holidays. It could be that you already know what I’m about to teach you, though, and if so, please feel free to stop me. (Politely.) Are you ready? Okay. What I’m about to teach you is: the fragrance-world meaning of ozonic.

Do you know it? It’s in your best interest to know it, particularly now, as temperatures climb to never-before-seen heights and the air is thick with suffocating humidity that makes you want to stay inside and do nothing, even though these are the best days of our lives and YOLO. An ozonic fragrance could help you out here. These scents are aquatic, marine — the sort of scents that somehow smell brisk; they’re cool and clean, and impart that cool cleanliness onto the wearer and sniffer. Ozonic scents exist because of a synthetic algae-pheromone-like material made by chemists at Pfizer in the ‘50s, but we don’t actually need to do that much learning. All you need to know is these scents take your mind away from your hot, stuffy home; or the hot, stuffy subway; or the hot, stuffy everywhere, and transport you to a cool oasis.

It’s air conditioning, but with scents

I know you already know about diffusers, but if you’ve put yours away since you bought it on a desperation-based whim during the pandemic (just me?), it’s time to break it out again. Diffusers are a really handy way to incorporate cooling scents into your space in the summer, especially if you’d rather not invite the warming image of a candle’s flame. When you’re choosing which essential oils to use, stick to the tried-and-true cooling options: eucalyptus, cucumber, mint, sea breeze, juniper, chamomile, and lavender. 

It’s the powerful and frightening sea—except inside, and nice

"Hav" is Scandinavian for "sea," and this Scandinavian candle brand created their "Hav" candle to reflect the Arctic, North Atlantic, and Baltic seas that surround the Scandinavian region. To quote the brand, they form "some of the longest, wildest coastlines on earth" — spooky! The candle brings that rugged, scary sea wilderness into your home delightfully, with notes of kelp, sea salt, beach rose, and hawthorne.

It’s the coolest perfume you’ll ever wear

Beyond having a bottle that looks cool as hell, this fragrance aims to keep you feeling "cool" as, well, a version of hell that is cold rather than hot. It features "clean accord" as one of its top scent notes, "accord" meaning, basically, "a collection of scents we’ve put together in order to create another scent." In this case, the other scent is a clean sea breeze. That scent — along with the perfume’s notes of violet leaves, juniper, and white tea — lends a cooling, aquatic bouquet to the wearer and those lucky enough to be around them.

It’s cucumber

Well, this room spray is just beautiful. It’s an aquatic take on cucumber, and it will impress everyone who escapes the heat to enter your crisp and refreshingly cucumber-scented home.

It’s a chilly bath time dream

Bath bombs that contain any sort of moisturizing body butter won’t melt unless they’re used in hot water. So what do you do bomb-wise when you’d rather relax in a cool bath, with a chilly glass of wine? Well, use a bath bomb that doesn’t have any body butters in it. Duh. This one from Lush is perfect, featuring a spectacularly chilly mint and notes of grapefruit and cedarwood, plus colors and glitter that will make you feel like you’re floating in space. (Which you are, in fact.)

It’s a downpour

Oh, summer rain. We’ve gotten quite a bit of it where I live this year, in ways that are reliving and necessary ("we needed this rain") and also annoying and stupid ("why does it rain on every single weekend, oh my god, please, when will we get even a single break"). If only we could control the rain, like … well, Zeus, I guess. We can’t, though. We’ll have to settle for controlling our "Summer Rain" candle from Byredo, which offers us notes of mint, basil, green fig, and tonka leaf. Byredo says the candle is like "a fresh breeze cutting through the oppressive humidity," and my god does that sound good.

It’s an oasis in a bottle

Eau Nabati is one of Diptyque’s newest fragrances, its release timed perfectly for the summer heat. The scent takes you from hot desert sand to chilly, fresh water, with cooling notes of bergamot, green notes of petitgrain, and the warmth of immortelle and balsam of Peru. The scent, a bit intense at first, loosens up on the wearer, and gives the feeling of, like … "I’m not on vacation right now, technically, but my everyday summer life is so fabulous I might as well be." It’s not true of my life, obviously, but it’s a nice idea.

It’s eucalyptus, and it’s everywhere

Sometimes you just need your couch, carpet, bed, shower, clothes, car, shoes, and air to smell like eucalyptus and mint. Luckily, achieving that goal is within reach with use of this spray.

It’s a beach day, sort of

We can’t all get to the beach the amount we’d like to, with that amount being every single day until October. Instead, I guess, we’ll make due with our reed diffusers. This one is a beautifully citrusy take on a beach vibe, with notes of mandarin and lemon to complement its sea salt and crisp ocean air. Like you’re peeling an orange on the beach, without a care in the world, rather than sitting at your desk sweating and completing the tasks necessary to receive a paycheck from your WFH job. 

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