'Tis the season! — and I'm trying not to get Grinch-y, as I often do at this time of year, when accumulated stresses and obligations (and NYC crowds) finally get to me. One way to stay calm, I find, is to turn to several scents that I associate specifically with the holiday season. I've worn them before, through holidays merry and not-quite-so-merry, and they remind me to stop and savor small, familiar pleasures at this all-too-often overstuffed time of year.
On one hand, Christmas is a time for tradition, and every year I reach for my treasured bottle of Caron Nuit de Noel Parfum on Christmas Eve. I find this fragrance wonderfully difficult to parse: it certainly includes oakmoss and some very dark rose, but I could also be convinced that it smells a bit like church incense, or roasted chestnuts, or a pine forest at night. In other words, it's just abstract enough to lend itself to various fanciful interpretations!
Then again, the holidays are also a time for simple coziness and guilty pleasures, and I frequently revisit Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Winter White (Holiday no. 4), an old favorite dating back to my MakeupAlley days. Winter White is "a soft white musk gourmand" that makes me feel as though I've been indulging in white chocolate and peppermints while wearing a cashmere sweater and a generous dusting of baby powder. It's a love-or-hate kind of fragrance, and I love it. ($6-$130 at the Dawn Spencer Hurwitz website)
LUSH releases a handful of limited-edition holiday products every winter, and this year I'm particularly smitten with Lord of Misrule Shower Cream. Its scent is a quirky balance of piquant (black pepper), earthy (patchouli) and creamy-sweet (vanilla) notes. If you were a fan of LUSH's Skinny Dip (discontinued long ago!!) you may like Lord of Misrule. (Historical note: according to Wikipedia, "The Lord of Misrule was generally a peasant or sub-deacon appointed to be in charge of Christmas revelries, which often included drunkenness and wild partying, in the pagan tradition of Saturnalia.") ($9.95-$32.95 at LUSH)
A few years ago, I was shopping in one of Manhattan's department stores for a small-yet-fancy hostess gift, and I ended up lingering in the Antica Farmacista section. Not only did I find an appropriate gift, but I ended up trying and loving Antica Farmacista's Prosecco Hand Cream — a luxury, to be sure. Its fragrance notes are reportedly satsuma, muguet, apricot, passionfruit and black currant, but it really does remind me of a glass of bubbly with a few berries tossed in as garnish. ($18 for 2.5 oz.; also available as Bath & Shower Wash, Body Moisturizer, Room Spray, and much more at Antica Farmacista)
Most holiday-themed home fragrance smells too much like cinnamon buns, candy canes, or straight-up pine trees to appeal to me. For a long time I made an annual purchase of a Diptyque holiday candle, but last year I started shopping small and local with The Lucky Honeybee Apothecary's Christmas Hearth candle. Its scent is a subtle blend of citrus and evergreen and wood notes that feels festive without being too obvious, and it burns cleanly and evenly. ($10 for 6 oz., $17 for 8.5 oz. at the Lucky Honeybee Apothecary website)
How are you (and your abode) smelling this holiday season? Feel free to share in the comments!
Note: top image is Christmas baubles [cropped] by Alan Cleaver at flickr; some rights reserved.
I’m wearing Nuit de Noel, too! And my favorite candle is burning: Voluspa Black Figue & Chypre. To all who celebrate, “Merry Christmas!”
Lovely! And I second your wishes to all who are celebrating Christmas tonight and tomorrow.
I am wearing Creed Angelique Encens, this reminds me of Christmas season and my favorite candle is burning, AG Noel.
Two beautiful choices! 🙂
I really don’t have a holiday perfume that I wear, but I started a new tradition this year. Because I live in Houston, Texas and it never truly “feels like Christmas” because of the weather (I’m talking to you 80 degree temperature), I decided it can at least smell like Christmas in my house. I purchased a Roasted Chestnut Deluxe Candle from JM and it is yummy! It is a bit pricey, but well worth it!
Happy Holidays Everyone!
Our current 70-degree weather in the NYC area is confusing enough to me!!
That candle sounds great — Jo Malone is certainly worth a splurge now and then! I love roasted chestnuts. My family made some last night. I used to buy them in a little bag on the street in Manhattan every year — I haven’t done that in a while, for some reason.
I used to buy chestnuts each year, and we always enjoyed them. I would try various ways of preparing them. Once I made cream of chestnut soup for our Christmas Eve dinner. I haven’t bought them in a number of years, though, because I don’t see them in the stores anymore. The one local grocery store that I could always count on to have them closed down.
Chestnut soup sounds heavenly. I agree, there’re not as easy to find as they used to be. I think my mother may have gone to an Italian grocery to get them…?
I think I need to visit Lush to try Lord of Misrule. I always like their Cinders bath bombs this time of year, too.
For most of my life, Christmas smelled like the pancakes my grandma makes every Christmas morning. She always added Mickey Mouse ears to them. I maintain that they don’t taste the same without the ears.
Lately it’s been too hard to get the whole family out to California, so now Christmas smells like popcorn (the traditional Jewish practice of movies on Christmas).
Pancakes are a happy smell for any occasion! Mm. I love the association of popcorn, too — it’s always a “fun” smell, and the movies are still a special treat, even more so now that they’re so weirdly expensive!
How much is a movie ticket where you are? What I find here is that it is not the tickets themselves that are outrageous, it is the absurdly high prices at the concession stand. There are no small sizes or prices. I can go to a movie and just buy the ticket, but my husband feels he needs popcorn and a drink, and we end up spending more at the concession stand than we do for the tickets.
That Antica Farmacista hand cream sounds enticing! “Christmas-y” scents I like include Annick Goutal Nuit Etoilee, The Vagabond Prince Enchanted Forest, and a couple that are probably too tree-y for you Jessica: Rouge Bunny Rouge Arcadia and Dasein Winter.
Plus of course there are the gourmands… I’m not much on gourmand scents but I’ll make an exception this time of year. My current favorite is Smell Bent Winter Vixen (hazelnut, cocoa, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla).
Ohhhh! The Smell Bent Winter Vixen sounds swwweeeett! Yummy! I might have to try that one!
I would love to have a Nuit Etoilee candle, if such a thing existed. I do have Nuit Etoilee edt which sadly doesn’t work on my skin, so I do sometimes use it as a room spray this time of year.
Just tried Winter Vixen and I’m loving it!
I turn to my gourmands more in the winter, too. And I’m very behind on my Smell Bent sampling! Their winter scents do sound fun.
I’m also behind on these comments because I seem to have come down with a nasty buy. Sorry! 🙁
Oh, no! Hope you’re feeling a bit better today!
Happy Holidays to all You gorgeous fragos!!!
I am hesitating on my SotE, it shall be either Tea for Two or Bekkali’s Fusion Sacree for him.
Turkey’s done, so after bath I’ll decide. Our home right now smells of roasted figs and red wine, which made the gravy. Will have to burn some candles after dinner????.
Have a wonderful night! Lots of love to you all.
Roasted figs and red wine sounds WONDERFUL!!
I was just thinking that too. Sounds so amazing!
The smell of wine and figs is perfect for the holiday season. Enjoy, Elvanui!!!
Great article, Jessica! I’m definitely going to try that hand cream. Yum.
Fragrance-wise, I’m pulling out the old stand-by scents: we’ll be scent twins later this evening in Nuit de Noel. 🙂 I share your tradition.
Tomorrow, my old MUA days’ fave, Aqaba. (Another tradition.) Today, not sure. Perhaps the same as yesterday, and my forever favorite, Vol de Nuit parfum. So far, it’s working perfectly to help keep me balanced around my MIL.
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Wow, Aqaba. That was a real fave back in those days on MUA. I haven’t smelled it in ages. Henri Bendel in NYC used to carry the whole Aqaba line. What a shame.
Someone needs to write a post about scents for maintaining mental/emotional equilibrium around MILs. 😉
Christmas comes mid-summer here so we are surrounded by honeysuckle and lime ( linden) in nature rather than chestnuts , holly etc. Christmas Day is spent outdoors, in the garden or at the beach so perfume wise it’s more green and floral than warm and woods. Always a scent problem as the reality of the day ( sunny and hot) never matches the image.
The smell of real honeysuckle on the bush is one of my favorites! Of course, we get it mid-year here, not during the Christmas season. So funny. I never thought about the way that all the songs and greeting cards and so on exclude anything *but* the evergreen-and-snow setting. Maybe I need to travel one year to get a different experience!!
Kanuka, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to grow up in the Southern Hemisphere and associate Christmas with summer! When lived in the tropics of the Northern Hemisphere or close to the Equator, I adapted to Christmas with palm trees. However, when I later lived in the southern Africa for a few years, I was always confounded by trying to celebrate Christmas during the hottest and brightest time of the year. I realized then how firmly for me it is a winter solstice holiday. I love the meditative, turning inward quality of the longer nights and darker days, punctuated by Christmas lights and candles.
And of course all the standard, heavy Christmas fare of roasts and pies doesn’t work very well when one feels more like eating salad. 😉
Honeysuckle and linden sound beautiful, though!
Great article with some lovely picks. Thanks Jessica.
I’ve been wearing Comme des Garçons Avignon quite a bit lately. I usually spray some on my neck before going for a run through the woods. Somehow it just works for the purpose. I fly over icy trails through forests of snowy birch and pine while smelling like midnight mass. What could be more Christmassy than that?
I love Lord of Misrule too which, by the way, layers beautifully with Avignon.
CdG Avignon is a “new classic,” right? I love that idea of wearing outdoors in the natural “cathedrals” of evergreen forests. Merry Christmas, Jonas!
Our home smells of baking pumpkin pie at the moment. I love it.
Thank you for the scented-holiday inspiration. Happy Nuit de Noel! 😉
Delicious! I guess Etat Libre d’Oranges pumpkin-and-spice Like This is a good pick, too, for those of us who aren’t actually baking! 😉
Happy (Nuit de) Noel!
Jessica, I’ve been really impressed with Antica Farmacista’s products and customer service. They threw in a bunch of extras with my first order and have such a wonderful selection of products and scents. They and Voluspa are some of my favorite go-to home fragrance lines.
The kids are at their dad’s today so I’ve been finishing up some last minute wrapping and baking. A few years back, Voluspa had some lovely holiday candles including a Winter Cherry, Frosted Pinecone and Cocoa White Truffle. I stocked up on the latter and have it burning downstairs, while I have an almond candle burning in my bedroom to try and make the whole house feel festive. The kids and I will make gingerbread when they get home, and that will also scent the house for hours, which I really love, too.
Botrytis sounded like the perfect holiday fragrance today. It didn’t compete with the baking, smelled really lovely mixed with the perfume of the real pine in my living room and is just one of those any time comfort scents I love. There’s going to be a bottle of ELdO Noel au Balcon under my tree for me this year as well. I wanted something fun, cheerful and happy, and it fits the bill and time of year nicely.
AS, yes — even amidst the sensory assault of the Bergdorf beauty floor, that Antica Farmacista sales associate was able to inform and delight me with her line! She was really helpful and gracious. She even gave me a sample of their holiday room spray (this was last year), and it was beautiful. I have to remember to shop with them more often. I also love their Santorini line.
Botrytis is another old-school MakeupAlley favorite of mine! So rich yet cozy. Enjoy your Noel au Balcon!
We are having two Christmas Eve church services today, for which I am wearing Avignon. After the second service we will have our Christmas Eve dinner, just the two of us, with the fragrance of Annick Goutal’s Noel candle. I don’t care so much for straight-up pine scents myself, but I love this one as it has enough other notes to give it some complexity.
The AG Noel candle is perfect!
Yes — it’s one of the best holiday candles, festive yet elegant! Merry Christmas, 50_Roses!
I went with Saffron Troublant for Christmas Eve, which went beautifully with Christmas cookies! Not sure what I’ll wear today. But I have all morning to think about it????
Ahhh, ST is perfect! — or really, anything from that Spices trio. Merry Christmas!
Hi Jessica & happy holidays! I’m very interested in Lush products since buying their lip scrub & lip balm recently . They worked wonders for my very chapped , dry lips . Do you have any recommendations for scents/products to try? I’m hoping Lush has an after Christmas sale .
I’m leaping in uninvited to recommend Rose Jam, which is a limited release shower gel Lush does each Xmas. If you are lucky your local Lush might be selling its last stocks cheap after Xmas. (Mine is sold out 🙁 )
Rose, lemon, something sweet (the ‘jam’) and something that reminds me of geranium although geranium is not listed. It’s truly wonderful stuff, and my dry-ish skin loves it. I’m not much of a rose lover but this is the only really rosy product I use.
I am not a rose lover either, but after reading so much about Rose Jam, I went and got a sample. It really is nice. As of yesterday the Lush here still had some, I plan on checking tomorrow for any sales.
Oh boy, where to begin? It’s sort of embarrassing, how long and involved my relationship with LUSH has been! 😉
I definitely agree with Annemarie on Rose Jam, if you can find a leftover bottle from the holiday release. It’s gotten very popular! I actually like most of their shower gels — right now, Don’t Rain on My Parade (violet leaf) and Olive Leaf (citrus) are some of the best.
A few classic favorites of mine are: Dream Cream body lotion (gentle lavender/chamomile), Sea Vegetable soap (lime/lavender/sea salt), Karma soap (patchouli/citrus), Helping Hands hand cream (esp for bedtime), Honey Trap lip balm…the fresh face masks that you can only buy in-store are excellent, and the facial moisturizers are under-rated (you can ask for samples in-store to find the right one for you).
As for the actual perfumes, Imogen Rose is my personal favorite (powdery rose-iris), but I know someone who wears Breath of God (sandalwood) and it smells great on her!
You just reminded me that Skinny Dip no longer exists, and I’m shedding a tear. (But I’m a fellow fan of Lord of Misrule, though it’s not a replacement.)
I wore DSH 12th Night last night and will wear DSH Pomander or Guerlain Winter Delice today (though Tea for Two or Ambre Narguile are also possibilities). I’ve become a big fan of Gilles Dewavrin candles, and my favorites are the two that are probably the most holilday-ish: the Pain d’Epices (orange, clove, cinnamon) and Pignon de Pin (a gourmand-y pine, which is much better than it sounds).
Merry Christmas, Jessica!
DSH has a knack for holiday scents, right? I have fond memories of Winter Delice, and I’m glad that Tea for Two seems to back in distribution. I’ll have to check out those GD candles!
Merry Christmas to you and yours, K! xo
Guilty pleasure–Glade pine candle. But I also got DH the Diptyque candle trio this year.
Hey, I’m all about the high/low combination! 🙂
My favorite from the Diptyque holiday collections is usually the incense-y one — I think this year it’s Olibanum? Once they did a roasted-chestnut scent, which was also amazing.
Thanks for these ideas, Jessica! I’m firmly in the Nuit de Noel camp, but it was too warm for it this year. I’ve decided that I’ll wear it on the next really cold day and maybe even put up my little Christmas tree then, as long as this occurs before January 6 (Orthodox/Coptic Christmas).
I did sniff this year’s Diptyque holiday candles at Blue Mercury. I really liked one of them but forget which it was.
I know, what is going on with this weather? Last night we slept with the window open and all night I was awakened by people socializing out in the street. So peculiar.
My favorite Diptyque candle this year was the Olibanum, and I keep wishing they’d bring back the one that smelled like roasted chestnuts, but that was probably not a best-seller!
Merry Christmas, Jessica! I have the Roja Dove Christmas Candle, unlit, subtly fragrancing my room. It has pine, balsam fir, gingerbread, cinnamon, leather and vetiver. I would LOVE to have a perfume with these notes!