One afternoon last week, I sat in a dentist chair waiting for part two of a root canal. I was nervously flipping through an old People magazine when I found a paragraph about the new Frédéric Malle Editions de Parfums boutique in New York. In the article, Malle recommended a person choosing a perfume look for one that mingles with the person’s skin. He said the fragrance should become a part of him or her.

I know just what Malle means. Sometimes, when a perfume marries well with the person who wears it, the scent becomes part of the person. It isn’t something that stands out on its own. Instead, it’s a few more brushstrokes in the person’s complete portrait. For instance, one of my friends wears Annick Goutal Eau d’Hadrien well. When I’m with her, I don’t notice her fragrance right away, instead, I take in all of her. At some point, it occurs to me she smells good, in a way that seems perfectly natural…

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This time of year, perfume lovers talk a lot about what fragrances they like to wear for the holidays. Other times of the year, people ponder fragrances for weddings, major birthdays, new jobs, or other milestones. This post won’t suggest perfumes for any of these occasions. Instead, it offers a warning. If you wear a beautiful fragrance on a beautiful day, you’ll have beautiful memories. But if you wear a beautiful fragrance and things go sour — well, you may as well pour that bottle of Amouage Lyric that was supposed to brighten your spring down the toilet. It will only bring you heartache.

Scent and memory are tightly entwined. Maybe you wouldn’t otherwise give it a second sniff, but you might own a bottle of Estée Lauder Youth Dew because you associate it with your grandmother, the one who called you “pumpkin” and hugged you with a grip that would earn her favorable odds in big time wrestling. You might have entertained the possibility of wearing Calvin Klein Euphoria if it didn’t remind you so much of the pushy office manager in your last job who made a note of pointing out every time you returned from lunch two minutes late. Maybe you had to give away your bottle of Thierry Mugler Angel because your ex-husband loved it on you — until he left you for some Paris Hilton Siren-wearing homewrecker…

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