A World of Scented Things
I’ve recently discovered that my kitten Calamity really likes eating the wooden wicks of my wood-wick candles. Why? I don’t know, but she seems to enjoy chewing on them and breaking off little charred bits to munch and then let drop on my end table. I wonder if she has a deficiency of some kind. Anyway, I wonder sometimes if I should do away with candles now that I have two curious cats who will want to play with any flickering thing they see, including fire. I have yet to act on this wondering, though, because I’m rather fond of candles.
I’m nowhere near my sister’s level of candle use. I don’t burn mine all the time or anything, but I do have several that I enjoy lighting now and then. My favorite is the wood-wick my mom got me for Christmas last year. It crackles as it burns and has a lovely smokey lavender scent. I enjoyed it a lot this winter while at the old house and a little before the kittens got here, but it’s hard to enjoy your candle when you have to constantly keep an eye on certain small cats who might play in it. Especially Calamity. My sister, on the other hand, has lots of candles that she burns quite often. My mom is also into candles, though I think she’s mostly trying to empty the jars they come in so she can use them for other things.
We also own two candle warmers, which are a bit safer for my curious kitties. My mom got me one for Christmas when I went to college since we weren’t allowed to have open flames on campus. The other one was a shower gift from a family friend. They are both shaped like owls. The thing about candle warmers, though, is switching scents is hard. You put one of the little wax cubes in and melt it down and it lasts forever. I suppose candles are the same way, but at least you can collect lots of different candles to light when you’re in the mood for something different. Candle warmers are stuck with that one scent for as long as it lasts before you can pick a new one. I may have dumped the wax out of one so I could try a new scent recently. To be fair, it had been in there for about a year or so. Still, I like the candle warmers because I don’t have to worry about my cats getting into them too much and they’re fun shapes.
While I enjoy candles and their variety of scented goodness, somethings I can’t handle being scented. Hand lotion, for instance, is a thing that I prefer not to have a scent for me to smell every time my hand comes near my face. It can be super distracting depending on the scent. Hand soap is likewise hit or miss, though I find I don’t have as much issue with the soap that gets washed off and leaves a little bit of a smell, as the lotion which kind of lingers. As long as it’s not a super strong smell it’s usually fine. I do have a very nice lotion for my legs, that I rather enjoy the smell of. And my body wash is always Japanese Cherry Blossom, because that’s my favorite.
It’s kind of funny the way we associate certain smells with certain people. My husband and I had a conversation about this while looking for candles for our bedroom. Vanilla reminds him of his dad, wood and musk smells remind me of mine. Lavender is a smell that he associates with his mom because that’s one of her favorites. Sweet pea reminds me of my adolescence and my best friend, oddly enough. It was my first scent growing up and my Twirly also wore it occasionally because I think her fiance liked it. Her now husband has a very specific cologne that he wears which is the Ryan smell. Twirls had a can of it in college so she could spray his sweatshirt with it. We used my shampoo to wash our cat once and my husband commented on how weird it was that she smelled like Calamity, but also kind of like me at the same time.
Smells are funny like that. They say you remember smells more than anything else, that they’re the best at triggering memories. The problem is, half the time when I smell something familiar I can’t place what it is. I know I know the smell, but what it belongs to eludes me completely. Now that I’m thinking about it, I think I should get a candle that reminds me of each of the important people in my life, so when they’re not around and I’m thinking of them I can burn it and pretend that they’re here. I hope you have a lovely, scent-filled day, my friends.
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