When I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband and I attended prenatal classes. Discussing strategies for birthing pains, the instructor asked us to practice visualizing our so-called “happy place”, the location in each of our lives that felt the most comforting, peaceful and self-affirming. She suggested mentally escaping the delivery to a favorite beach, a summer cottage or a honeymoon hotel in Europe. My husband frowned at me sternly. “Are you visualizing being in bed?” My guilty look confirmed this. “Not helpful. You’re going to be in a bed,” he said, shaking his head, “and it won’t be restful.” I try to make a point of acknowledging the occasions when he is right, and boy, he was spot-on that time.

Luckily, no labor, viral illness or bout of the vivid nightmares to which I am prone has ever lastingly tainted the experience of my bed for me. It seems only natural to perfume that place of refuge, my land of dreams. Sometimes, close friends or relatives ask why I bother spritzing or dabbing scent on at night, just before I fall as insensible as a stone. It is hard to describe to someone who is not a fragrance fanatic the secret joy of waking in the wee hours, when the world is black and hushed, to snuffle at your wrist. Or the feeling of well-being that comes over you on a sun-washed weekend morning when you wake up under a gently-scented duvet…

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