Happy 2024 to my readers and friends! I wish you many wonderful experiences, health and success. Above all, I wish that 2024 will be a more peaceful year than the previous one.

What was the first thing you smelled this year? One of the exercises I gave to my ISIPCA students to develop them ability to notice and describe aromas is to track the scents they smell over the course of five consecutive days. It was a training method I learned as a perfumery students and I always found it effective. Even these days when I make a point of keeping a scent diary for several days and noting what odors I observe around me, my perception of aromas becomes heightened.

So with the goal of starting the year well, here is my list:
Jasmine tea–white grape, apricot jam, suede, green buds.
White hyacinths–I made an arrangement with white hyacinths and pine branches and I smelled the vivid wet almond and earthy rose scent as soon as I walked into the living this morning.
Panettone–my homemade panettone was scented with orange and lemon peel, vanilla and rum-raisins.
Kefir–my morning, holiday or not, starts with feeding my army of pets–sourdough starters, nukadon, and kefir. Kefir smells wonderfully of green apple and lemon.
Hermès Cuir d’Ange–my perfume today, soft leather and tender musk, with a whisper of violets and faded roses.

I would love to read your lists.

Scent Diary is a place to write your observations about the scents around you. Whether you write down 1 recollection or 10 matters less than simply reminding yourself to smell. You can add as many comments as you wish. You can comment today or over the course of the week; this thread will always be open. Of course, do share what perfume you’re wearing or what particularly good scented products you’ve discovered.

While looking through my articles, I found this article that I wrote a few years ago but that still remains popular and often-read: A to Z Tips for Enjoyable, Affordable and Rewarding Perfume Hobby. If you have any tips to add, I’d love to hear them.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

I’m always reluctant to sum up the year, especially one as complicated as 2023. We all read the news and we know that the world is in a terrible place right now. For our part, we can only do so much to change the course of events, and as we strive to contribute something positive, we also need to take care of ourselves and our families. My goal this year has been to find ways to cope and to maintain my hope and my faith in humanity. And yet whenever I would become despondent, something wonderful would happen–a warm letter from a reader would arrive, a friend would send a small gift, my cousin from Ukraine would call with some good news (for a change), or family would come for a visit.

As busy as I was with my book presentations and my projects related to Ukraine, I tried to find moments to read, explore new scents and learn something new. Joining the ISIPCA faculty this semester also gave me a chance to smell more perfumes and to update my knowledge of the fragrance market. It’s a pleasure to share these discoveries with you. As always, I look forward to hearing about your 2023 favorites, be they scents, books or other beautiful things.

Scents

Thomas de Monaco Eau Coeur

An exquisite combination of osmanthus and magnolia. Elegant, refined, but not to the extent that it smells too cold and stylized. The floral vignette is underscored by musk and woods, and the finish is just as luminous as the start.

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Merry Christmas! Warm wishes to you this holiday season.

Our “Recommend Me a Perfume” thread is open this week. You can use this space to find perfume recommendations, to share your discoveries and favorite scents, and to ask any questions about scents, aromas and flavors. Or you can just tell us what perfume you are wearing!

As a gesture of gratitude to everyone who helped our community with their quests and wishlists, I would like to offer you a giveaway. Everyone who will participate in this thread will be entered into a draw for one set of vintage and niche samples from my collection. The set includes 20 fragrances from the classical houses like Guerlain, Chanel, Caron as well as niche staples like Serge Lutens and L’Artisan. I made several of these sets for gifts this year, and I decided to offer one to you.

If you don’t wish to be entered into the giveaway, please note so in the comments. The contest is now closed, but please continue to comment and help others with their searches.

The winner is Marianella. Congratulations! I will contact the winner via email shortly.

How does it work: 1. Please post your requests or questions as comments here. You can also use this space to ask any fragrance related questions. To receive recommendations that are better tailored to your tastes, you can include details on what you like and don’t like, your signature perfumes, and your budget. And please let us know what you end up sampling. 2. Then please check the thread to see if there are other requests you can answer. Your responses are really valuable for navigating the big and sometimes confusing world of perfume, so let’s help each other!

To make this thread easier to read, when you reply to someone, please click on the blue “reply” link under their comment.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

I’m immensely grateful to all of you for your support and kind words about my book The Rooster House. I’ve received many warm letters and emails from my readers around the world. As the book appeared in different languages (17 so far), I traveled and met many of you in person. This year has been heartbreaking in so many respects and there are many days when my faith in humanity falters, but whenever I read your comments and notes, I feel an instant boost. The sense of community that I feel with my readers is a precious gift.

Another wonderful honor is that The Rooster House was selected among Best Books of 2023 by Kirkus Reviews, Express, Waterstones. This recognition is important to me personally and a Ukrainian-American author. Ukraine is the place where I was born. It shaped me as an individual and it continues to inspire me. While its situation remains tragic, I will continue to live with pain and anxiety, but I also know from the experience I recount in my book that we must look for sources of resilience within us.

My 2024 projects continue to revolve around Ukraine, participating in various fundraising and community projects, but I’m also devoting more time to scents and olfaction. Since fall 2023, I have been teaching at ISIPCA. I have also resumed my online perfume classes and seminars. It feels wonderful to immerse myself into the world of aromas, the universe that I still find as captivating as I did almost two decades ago when I first started Bois de Jasmin.

Finally, I’m grateful to the reviewers and literary critics for their praise for The Rooster House. Some of their words are below.

• Charlie Connelly, The New European For my non-fiction pick of 2023, however, I’m plumping for The Rooster House by Victoria Belim (Virago, £20). “Mourning a place is even more difficult than mourning a person,” Belim writes in a deeply affecting memoir of her Ukrainian family that absolutely knocked me head over heels with both its narrative, and luminous prose.
• Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk The Rooster House is so many things at once, and all of them pull at my heart. The book is a seriously beautiful evocation of an imperilled nation and an account of a personal quest to retrieve the memories and secrets that families and states maintain. It’s a careful meditation on exile, on return and belonging, and what it means to be. And most of all it’s a paean to hope and home, written with such gentleness and deep adherence to emotional truth that to me its words become a fierceness to cast against harm, hardship and hurt. I loved it and it will haunt me for a long time.
• Bookseller, Caroline Sanderson A Wild Swans for Ukraine … an enthralling, multilayered family story, told across four generations. Rich and magnificent. A marvel
• Times Literary Supplement Ethereal and transporting … Ukraine comes alive through a tapestry of multisensory descriptions. Barbed by pain, this is a book as poignant as it is timely … it reflects the indestructible strength of the Ukrainian people, who so fiercely hold on to hope
• New European A beautifully written evocation of the Ukrainian people through the prism of four generations of one family, but it is also a celebration of Ukrainian women… evokes a Ukraine beyond the rubble-strewn images we see on the television news… a truly redemptive book, strangely joyful even, one that makes the tragedy of the Russian invasion personal

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Update: I have a last-minute opening in the Citrus workshop on Wednesday. You don’t need any essential oils for that class, just citrus fruit and easy-to-find spices. The seat has been taken. Thank you for your interest! If you’ve missed this round of registration, please subscribe to receive updates about new workshops.

When I first started planning my perfume classes, I decided that for the fundamental series, I will offer the option of using common spices and fruits as study aids. My belief is that anything can be useful to training our sense of smell, as long as we follow the proper technique, smell consciously and practice regularly. You can create a box of spices and study them, noting their different nuances. Even after a week of diligently smelling your spices, you will find your sense of smell much sharper.

Once you learn the basics, you can consider investing into a smelling kit. I researched a few reputable options, compare them and made the guide below. Some of the products I mention are available in the US, others in the EU. Either way, I hope to give you a few choices. And to repeat, these kits are not necessary when you first start out with your perfume explorations, but they become useful if you devote more time to unraveling notes and accords.

Tasterplace Aroma Set

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