Isn’t it fascinating how scents and fragrances can take you back in time or become associated with significant life chapters and moments. Certain perfumes and aftershaves literally give me flashbacks of my younger self. Romance by Ralph Lauren for example acts like a time portal, taking me back to my teenage years and my first boyfriend. Similarly, locations and destinations have their own distinct scents, and when smelt out of context, can trigger emotional reactions and memories from when you were there.
The science behind it
Scents are known to trigger memories, especially emotional ones because the brain region that juggles scent, memories and emotion are closely intertwined. Unlike our other senses, our sense of smell and thus scents are the only sensations that travel such a direct path to the emotional and memory centers of the brain. Typically, when a person smells something that’s connected to a meaningful event in their past, they will first have an emotional response to the sensation and then a memory might follow.
My Fragrant Flashback
January 2019: spending three blissful weeks on honeymoon, travelling around the beautiful country of Sri Lanka and living like royalty in the Maldives. Waking up every morning to the sound of gentle waves rippling past the stilts of our sea-villa, sipping on cocktails at the swim-up bar and the tickles of fish swimming around my feet. Two words: pure paradise!
Take me back! Considering the emotional ties to the Maldives, it will come as no surprise that one of my personal favourites from the new FYG Memories range is Paradise Beach. Boasting beautiful notes of amber, bergamot and vanilla, Paradise Beach takes me back to euphoric evenings watching the sun disappear behind the sea and within a few flickers of being lit, instantly moves me into state of pure relaxation.
What’s your fragrant flashback?
Trigger memories and boost your mood with scent
In fact, surrounding yourself with scents that evoke pleasant memories will help boost your mood and certain scents have been proven to boost productivity! The new FYG Memories range is a perfect way to bring a fragrant flashback into your home. Scent is a uniquely powerful tool and so this collection has become something distinctly evocative with the power to stimulate, calm, restore, excite and invigorate our senses, even when we are simply living our everyday, often stressful, lives.
To find your own fragrant flashback and quite literally find your glow, have a browse of the new FYG Memories range here and reflect upon your own memories and experiences: