I put on Plein Soleil this morning, the one I bought in Paris last summer, tucked into my bag like a pressed flower, a souvenir I promised myself I’d save for the right moment.
The thing is: this doesn’t feel like the right season for it at all.
It’s the end of January, and Los Angeles is warm in that quietly wrong way. The light is bright but thin. The air feels like it’s skipping ahead of itself. I haven’t slept properly in days, and the warmth isn’t comforting, it’s irritating, like being woken up too early by sunlight that doesn’t care how tired you are.
Plein Soleil opens all radiance and ease. Bright citrus, soft florals, a gentle solar warmth that smells like bare skin and linen dresses and afternoons that stretch without asking anything of you. It smells uncomplicated. Happy, even.
And today, that happiness feels… out of sync.
There’s something strange about wearing a sunny fragrance when you’re not sunny at all. It doesn’t lift my mood so much as highlight the contrast, how tired I feel, how sharp everything seems around the edges. The perfume keeps insisting it’s summer. My body knows it’s not.
What I didn’t expect is how much it would pull me backward.
Back to Paris, yes, but not the postcard version. The quiet mornings. The exhaustion that came from walking too far, in gross hot and muggy weather with little to no relief in sight, not seeing enough, wanting to hold onto everything because you knew it wouldn’t last. The way even beautiful days can carry a kind of ache if you’re already running on empty.
On my skin, the brightness of Plein Soleil softens as the hours pass. The drydown is warmer, calmer, less “sun at noon,” more “late afternoon when you finally sit down.” That part, I like. That part feels honest. Less performative happiness, more warmth that exists without asking you to match it.
Maybe that’s why I reached for it without realizing. Not because I wanted to feel joyful, but because I wanted to remember that warmth doesn’t have to be earned. Sometimes it just exists. Sometimes it stays even when you’re tired and irritable and not your best self.
Still, there’s a dissonance I can’t ignore.
A summer fragrance worn in winter. Paris memories in Los Angeles light. Brightness on skin that wants rest more than joy. It smells beautiful, but beauty, right now, feels almost beside the point.
I don’t need to be uplifted today. I just need something steady. Something familiar. Something that reminds me I’ve felt rested before, and I will again.
Maybe that’s what the drydown is for.
Plein Soleil – Fragonard
Tuberose, ylang flowers, sandalwood, cardamom
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