Miranda Priestly, originally uploaded by bsouza001.

The quote above (- Miranda Priestly, “The Devil Wears Prada”) is perhaps the only way to explain why the number of Spring lists on SmellyBlog is embarrassingly low. Spring has always been my favourite season and I’ve been very careful here not to be overcome by my naïve passion for flowers and get carried away.

For this list, I’ve decided to give you the option of floral or not, depending on where you live and what you are doing this season.

Spring in Vancouver
Cherry blossoms galore, washed by rain and tortured by snow.
My favourites are: Liz Zorn’s Waterflower for brighter days, and KenzoAmour Le Parfum for the cooler snowy ones. And of course my new Hanami perfume, which to me represents botanical beauty in my city and the first spring I was able to appreciate and enjoy here (it was last year and it took me ten years to get there!).

Spring in Israel
Bees are buzzing in the air, orange blossoms everywhere. To blend with this environment I enjoy wearing Zohar, my rather realistic orchard in full bloom soliflore; or for a more abstract and urbane take - Narcisso Rodriguez for Her.

April in Paris
I’m very excited to be visiting Paris this spring, but that won’t be until May. Rather than the obvious Champs-Elysées or romantic Paris, I am thinking of something sophisticated but light hearted like the bubbly Champagne (Yvresse) or more sophisticated and dark, namely Sous le Vent. Which is, by the way, the one and only item on my shopping list to Paris (besides pastries, of course).

Spring Cleaning
Pure Turquoise - nothing gets cleaner than that. You might just be able to skip the cleaning altogether if you wear this!

Easter Celebrations
Vanille Galante - in this Last Feast, heady Madonna Lilies are served with the sweet and salty touch of caramel & fleur de sel.

Passover Celebrations
Hiris by Hermes - starchy but without wheat, to satisfy the Jewish pastry craving during Passover.

The Spring that Never Comes
You know the feeling – spring is just not coming. It’s snowing, or raining, or perhaps the ground is still covered with ice and frozen rain and really dirty compact snow that hides who-knows-how-much dirt. For that I’d recommend a dabbing of Neil Morris Dark Earth – a cold, moist and very earthy perfume that matches its name perfectly. I also heard wonders about Black March, but never quite tried it, so perhaps you could tell me more about it?

Hay Fever
Spring also means green. Green shoots of bulbs and new green grass. And of course tree pollen that makes for runny noses and red teary eyes. To accentuate the sensation of sneezing, why not add to your breath a little bit of Yerbamate, or that fresh cut grass from Demeter’s library, or better yet – the iconic cheerful green of them all: Vent Vert.

Photo: Miranda Priestly, originally uploaded by bsouza001.

Although spring has started, I have no illusions - we're going to have many gray days in Vancouver, with pouring rain and cold temperatures; and it's probably going to snow sometime in April, as it usually does (yet somehow everybody is shocked time and time again when that happens).

So the time is still perfect to summarize the scents that made my winter and make a little list of winter favourites for this year:

1) Sycomore
One of the first times I’ve worn this was when visiting Harrison Hot Springs this winter. In a way it reminds me of the scent of hot wood in a dry saune.

2) Hinoki Bath Salts
These are pretty close to the real thing and dye the bath in a bright green colour, alluding to fresh branches of these Japanese cypress. And – they can be had for a townie at Daiso.

3) Bois d’Hiver Candle
Even though I have a part in this product, I feel as though it’s a complete surprise every time I burn it. It feels very different from the perfume. And I just am so grateful to have had the privilege to work with Nikki on such a beautiful candle.

4) Roses et Chocolat Tea
Another fortunate experience of something that started with a perfume concept but ended up in another talented person’s hands (Dawna of Inner Alchemy Tea Co.). This tea is perhaps my first time falling in love with a black tea.

Interestingly, I feel like I’ve re-discovered the perfume when the tea was launched. It’s funny how when you revisit something you’ve done a long time after the fact you see it in a different light. Just a little more objectively I suppose? It smelled so much more perfumey and less obviously gourmand. I liked that. And the tea is a real treat (I ran out of over 2oz this winter just on my own).

5) Burning Sandalwood Incense
To clear my mind and make my home feel a little more tranquil, sometimes all I need is plain sandalwood incense that I got from Science World eons ago when they had an exhibit about China. That package seem to never run out…

6) Tea Rose perfume
Another rose and tea theme for me this winter. Rose seems to come back into my life. I created this one relatively recently. I have to admit I’m partial to tea roses. I think they are so much prettier and refreshing than the Damascena or Centirolia roses (this is due to the presence of the violety ionone in this Asian variety of rose0.

7) L de Lolita Lempicka
This is a winner yet another winter – a comforting vanilla and cinnamon scent that never feels overly done. It’s simple and easy to enjoy, but not as simplistic as, say, wearing plain vanilla from The Body Shop. It’s luxurious, comforting and sexy at the same time.

8) Immortelle l’Amour
My winter comfort scent, sometimes make me feel sticky like after eating pancakes with too much maple syrup…

9) Oeillet
Reminds me of washing my hair with dark sage tea in the winter time. A wonderful all-natural perfume!

10) Velvet Gardenia
The floral discovery for me this year. This is a truly haunting scent and is both pretty and mysterious, floral and sensual thanks to the labdanum base.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, originally uploaded by jciv.

I’m in the ferry boat to Victoria, British Columbia’s capital whose downtown is dotted with Irish pubs. I’m on a strange spring break-meets-spring-cleaning tour. In other words, my space is being redecorated and I’m trying to avoid the chaos of living and working among scattered furniture and splashes of paint (the walls will be green, of course, when I return home in two days).

The sea route goes through the lusciously green Gulf Islands, where Celtic hippies reside; and today I’m told they will summon the devil with their squeaky violins as they drink alfalfa juice specked with spirulina powder. Therefore it is only appropriate to talk about green scents.

And although I’m away from my explosive library of samples and my head is dizzying as the ferry spiraling in-between the fjord-like moss covered rocky islands in an attempt to enter Salt Spring Island’s dock - I will make an attempt all the same to list all those green scents that make life worth living and hay worth harvesting.

There are all kinds of green. This has become even clearer to me as I had to go through swatches of paints to choose from - dill pickle green, or avocado mayonnaise? We went with the timothy hay after all. But I digress, as my intention was to talk about green scents and not so much the colour. Yet, there is some kind of equivalence - green being a mixture of blue and yellow can lead to difference direction - dark and cool with more blue; or bright, lively and vibrant with more yellow. There are the olives, which are more dirty; and than there are greens that are bordering with grey.

Similarly with scent, there is the green the evokes crushed living leaf and than there are the greens that reminds us more of dry stacks of hay. Green goes both ways - sharp and fresh or warm and sweet-herbaceous. There is coniferous green and than there is also floral green. And I haven’t even mentioned green tea yet!

Photo: Happy St. Patrick's Day, originally uploaded by jciv.