I took a break. A long break. Readers, forgive me. It has been far too long since my last post.

It took a while to figure out what I wanted to say. In 2017 I bought one perfume: Geurlain’s Derby. The previous year, I bought something close to 20. In 2018, I have purchased none.  I still smell new perfume on the regular. I’d like to know what the new drops from the Christine-Nagel-helmed House of Hermes are like. (I loved her Galop d’Hermes back in 2016.) And I’ll always tune in when Amouage drops something new. But I don’t feel that gut-pull to find the next great thing out there. Clearly, something has changed.

Perhaps my collection is essentially complete. There are only a few holes to plug up, and I’m content to wait until the right bottle comes along. As the collectors among us know, it can take years. Furthermore, I’m not not convinced that there’s anything better out there than what I’ve already got. (I will probably never love another jasmine more than Sarassins.) I’m also not willing to make room in my heart for any new perfumes that aren’t essential. Loving a perfume takes work, as crazy as that sounds. I’ve even started off-loading the non-essentials.

I may end up digging deeper into those fragrances I know and love. (I have no desire to be a compendium on the best of what’s out there.) Or I may push beyond perfume into the wider world of smell pleasures. In any case, I won’t be chasing new releases or parsing online chatter. Posts will be less frequent and more personal. But hopefully, they’ll also be better.