We all have a favorite locale (or two) where a combination of climate, landscape, architecture, and aromas makes us happy. I love stormy coastlines, with raging oceans, billowing clouds, screeching gulls, old lighthouses, and the scents of rain, salt, mossy rocks, and seaweed. But I also love the ambiance of the exact opposite of a wet beach — warm, sunny, semi-arid hilltops, covered with flowering broom and poppies, where cypress trees reach up into blue skies and fragrance the air. (Add an abandoned cemetery, the cinder scents of a nearby active volcano, or some crumbling statues and buildings — an ancient temple will do — and I’ll purr with contentment only opiates can deliver.) Two perfumes from Aesop, Marrakech and Mystra, are perfect accompaniments for bright highlands, strewn with ruins and scrub.

Marrakech, which includes notes of cloves, sandalwood and cardamom, was developed with an idea of “a city draped in colours of the desert, where artisans sit on rugs hewn by hand, and lute music mixes with the smell of spices in hot wind.” Marrakech is a resinous fragrance that smells of spicy sandalwood…

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