move over santal 33, these niche scents were the top hits at my fragrance swap
+ how to confidently throw your own fragrance swap with my project planning toolkit
Happy Saturday! This week was straight up bad. Seasonal depression has kicked in. Torrential rainstorms so my dog stubbornly refuses to pee or poop outside. Had sharp abdominal pain so I got it checked out and it’s either gastritis or an ulcer but either way I have to take some meds and eat gentle foods for a while (maybe my college hot cheetos finally caught up to me).
If anyone has stomach-lining-friendly recipes, please do share! I typically love acidic flavors like tomato and vinegar, so my noodle soup and bread rotation is getting rather joyless.
Anyways.
I’m just gonna be resting at home with my Pepcid and space heater this weekend, working on some writing assignments and finishing a gift guide of things I actually own and love that’s on sale. And I’m working on a chinese grandma gift guide, because I want to start more conversations about culturally-specific gifting.
In 2023 I wrote about how I tackle holiday seasons as a (mostly) secondhand shopper and all of it still resonates.
Last month I threw a fragrance swap for 40 people.
Sara Radin covered the event for Allure and you can read about it here: “Why Fragrance Swaps are Sweeping the Nation.”
It was my first time organizing a fragrance swap and I didn’t have a clear-cut model for how to do it, so I just sort of improvised and applied skills from my past life as a project manager.
But it was a night to remember: warm beams of California golden hour pouring into the shop, reflecting light off the glass perfume bottles and orange wine.
If I could bottle up the night it would be muffled chatter buttercream fig cake velvet vintage silver melted ice pistachio crumble.
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Below the fold, this newsletter covers:
The niche fragrances that stole the show, which was solid confirmation that we are a now post-santal-33* society. And hey, nothing wrong with wearing santal 33 if you love it, I’m just saying it peaked in cultural relevance in the 2010s! Le Lebo provided samples of their full line for the event, and many are on sale right now on Liberty. My pick is the Hinoki Shampoo* because it smells like a luxurious glamping hotel in Northern California.
My fragrance swap how-to toolkit, a comprehensive guide for those who want to plan their own fragrance swap. When I say comprehensive, I mean I thought of everything you need and lessons learned from my mistakes. It has a full project plan tracker pre-populated with every task, when it needs to get done, email and survey templates I wrote that you can copy + paste because why re-invent the wheel. This toolkit will give you and your bff the confidence to plan one together. And if you need any support, drop a question on this post. I’m here to advise.
When I posted about the event on social media, so many people said they wished they had fragrance swaps in their community.
Similar to the celebrity lookalike contest trend, I think fragrance swaps are another indicator that people yearn for IRL connection. Why should these swaps only happen in New York, LA or the Bay Area??? My hope is that these events can be democratized so anyone living anywhere can plan one for their friends and broader community.
These two niche fragrances were the top hits.
(No one really touched Santal 33, I think because everyone knows what it smells like by now).
The first one is the ultimate *pastry school princess* fragrance, with $5 samples available on Luckyscent: