Go ahead – wear your summer scent this winter.

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By contributor Ama Kwarteng.

Scent has the ability to collapse time and space, transporting you to a moment or place.

It’s an intuition; breathe and you’ll know that it’s going to rain soon, that a candle has just been blown out, that this jacket has been worn but the other one hasn’t.

Scientists believe that the brain’s limbic system, home to the olfactory bulb, is linked to our memories, shapes our perceptions, and influences our moods. The nose has about 350 different types of odor receptors to identify around 10,000 scents. Our olfactory system is a compass, directing us toward emotions, people, and places.

The smells of summer are wide-reaching and specific. The woody breeze that drifts away from your neighbor’s barbeque, the crisp, salty scent of ocean air, the fruity aroma that hits your nose as you sip on a tropical cocktail. While some may believe that summer scents and fragrances are meant to only be worn from Memorial Day to Labor Day, I beg to differ. There’s something satisfying about swapping a heavy fragrance for a lighter scent during the winter months. Unlike scent, as someone who was born in August, in Ghana, a country that sits near the equator, dealing with shorter days and cooler temperatures has never been intuit for me. My mood plummets and a lethargic sensation seeps in, draining me of the energy to do the activities that once brought me joy.

Scent isn’t the cure for seasonal blues, but it does help. Recollections of happier moments are jarred by fragrances. Notes like sea salt take me to East Hampton in July 2021, celebrating my friend Olivia’s birthday with a soundtrack of waves crashing into the shore playing in the background. Coconut notes remind me of the summer of 2005, the summer I spent in Ghana meeting family I had heard of but had never met, drinking coconut water as I sat at a table of adults basking in the glow of nostalgia. A whiff of lemon transports me to this past summer when I spent five days in Bordighera, a small Italian town nestled near the Italian-French Riviera and within sight of Monaco. I spent those days reading Elena Ferrante on a rocky beach as heat baked the pages of the book while they wafted in the wind.

As the summer season begins to wind down, scent’s transportive properties can provide an unexpected escape. For those of us looking for a mental pick-me-up during cooler months, the three fragrances below can take us on a journey and unearth memories. It’s as if an olfactory weight has been added to your senses triggering a weight to lift off your shoulders, providing a sense of much-loved comfort.