Worldly things

This is part of Scent Access Memory, a collaboration between Dirt and Are.na. Get caught up on the series:

• Mall memories

• Metaphorically speaking

• Notes on Notes

• Death’s signature scent

• Cherry chapstick

• Post-Fragrantica Manifesto

Today, Katy Kelleher on the triple helix of religion, science, and magic.

In a cramped gift shop off the Plaza in downtown Santa Fe, I bought myself a vial of anointing oil. Made in a monastery in America (though I don’t know which one), it reeks of rose—not unpleasantly, but it is clearly of another era. It is no modern rose, lightened with grassy green notes or darkened with smoke and booze. It’s a simple, pungent floral assault. 

I’ve only used it once, and it was because I was feeling desperate, in pain and alone. The oil didn’t heal my hurts, nor did my other monastery-made perfume purchase, a vial of Acqua della Regina (the Queen's Water) from Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. This one smells like neroli and leaves. It’s almost too fresh to be worn, and about as old fashioned as perfumes can get. The first iteration of this scent was developed by Dominican friars in the 1530s for Caterina de’ Medici, a gift commissioned by the King of France. Although this is the oldest perfume available for purchase from Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, they do have some waters whose general recipe dates back centuries further, to the time of the Black Death. Back then, it was believed that bad clouds carried the plague, and one way to avoid dying was by smelling like something better than the diseased “miasma”. Rose water wasn’t just a beauty product—it was a preventative medicine. 

I think this is why I’m so fascinated by monastery shops, monk-made perfumes, and objects crafted by Shakers, Quakers, nuns, and acolytes of all stripes. (I’m currently eyeing Monastique Fragrance of Avila, made by carmelite nuns in Australia and I’ve got a shopping cart started at the Saint-Vincent Abbey’s online shop.) These products feel essential in a way that few things do; they exist both within the world of capitalism (they’re for sale, after all) but they have an added urgency to them. They’re steeped in the mysticism of authenticity. They’re god-made, a reminder of what fragrance once was: a form of science, a form of magic, a form of worship.