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February 15, 2025 – Published in Design & Decor Autumn-Winter 2024 issue

Choose the most desirable interior scent for the autumn and winter seasons

The cooler months are creeping up on us, and your thoughts are probably turning towards ways of making your home or establishment more inviting 

as the days grow colder and shorter.

 

You might want to ensure that guests will remember their visit for the right reason, and one unequivocal way of doing this is by choosing the correct interior scent to complement the autumn and winter seasons.

There are various methods of dispersing scents within an indoor space, the most widely recognised being candles. Always go for soya wax, beeswax, or any other natural wax candles, and make sure to avoid dangerous GMO products, since people do not just inhale the fragrance from candles but also particles in the air.

Refill reed diffusers have also gained popularity over the last few years, but unfortunately, some brands are using plastic containers to cut corners, decreasing the strength of the scent by 30%. So, make sure you opt for the appropriate packaging for the diffuser oil, such as an aluminium or amber glass bottle, both of which preserve the scent more effectively. Furthermore, don’t forget to be sustainable, and use the same bottle for refills. Even if you wish to switch the brand, you can still reuse the bottle, but be respectful to perfumers and remove the label of the previous brand first.

You may place candles and reed diffusers in the same room if they share the same scent.

Use contrasting scents in separate rooms or on different floors within your home or department store. This creates an interesting effect for visitors as they move through the building. Two important aspects to remember involve choosing the scents for a bedroom and for a dining area. Some oils can interfere with sleeping patterns, and you also need to ensure the scents you disperse close to where you eat will complement the aromas of your food.

One innovative and highly effective option for interior scents are electronic scents machines—or nebulisers. These are not to be confused with steamers, which use a different process to release scents through oils added to steaming water. Nebulisers break down the scent molecules and make them finer and stronger, so they travel more, making the scent more noticeable even with a small amount of oil. These are widely used by chain hotels and corporate establishments.

A perfumer can help recommend a signature scent from their library or create a bespoke scent to reflect the brand’s identity.

The designing of a bespoke scent involves a challenging process that can take many months, depending on the complexity of the target scent. A professional perfumer will spend long periods within the premises, studying the elements, the draughts, the amount of humidity, how much fresh air is entering, and whether it is constantly being heated. The surroundings of the building must also be considered—whether it is by the sea or in a large city—along with the types of fabric used for the interiors and whether flowers are regularly on display inside. All this ensures that the scent is tailor-made to match the premises and will not turn people off as soon as they walk in through its doors.

If you are not aware of this lengthy process for creating a professionally customised interior scent, a good salesman can pass off a scent from their library as a bespoke scent, which could be found in hundreds of other locations. Just like an interior designer is the name behind the property they embellished, a bespoke scent will always have the name of the scent creator as its approved signature.

What are the best scents for the colder seasons?

Two popular fragrances are sweet amber and dark amber. Sweet amber contains fruity and citrus ingredients more ideal for the summer. Dark amber is heavier and more leathery with a smoked wood character, and it is used more during the winter. 

Never buy a dark amber candle or diffuser larger than 500ml; otherwise, you are stuck with the heavier smell for the rest of the year.

The scent of fir needles is fresh and crisp, with accents of citruses and spices. Although it is more specific to Christmas, it also represents the character of the forest, the cold from the snow, that crispy feeling of fresh breath, and the touch of spices.

At Christmas time, make sure to avoid scented products involving accents of mince pies, ginger bread, or mulled wine. These usually target the cheap candle market—which, unfortunately, is still unregulated when it comes to allergens in cheaper ingredients, leading to problems such as headaches and asthma attacks.

Incense and balsams are also ideal for the cooler months, as a small amount lingers for quite some time. Incense is the purest form of natural scent that is released, and its smell comes from the resinoids that are extracted from the sap or grated bark of the tree or plant, with the more common forms being bakhoor in the Arab world—or kyphi in Egyptian. The grains are placed directly on the incense burner charcoal, sometimes mixed with a little rose, grated citrus peel, cloves, or even raisins for a nice scent. And this is what perfume means: perfumum in Latin, or ‘through smoke’.

Stephen Cordina studied plant medicine extensively on his journey to becoming 

a perfumer, while also working in manufacturing chemical-free products abroad. Today, he is a professional perfumer and aromatherapist, combining his vast knowledge and expertise to reconstruct lost scents and recreate natural smells. 

This is our second Fragrance Snippet with Stephen, who will help you discover more about perfumes, interior scents, aromatherapy—and more! 

Have you got a Scent Emergency?

Use Stephen’s recipe for an instant scent for your home when guests drop by unexpectedly, and your stock of interior scents is low.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon

• 1 tablespoon nutmeg

• 1 tablespoon anise seed

• 1 teaspoon ginger

• 1 teaspoon ground cloves

• Peel of 1 large orange

Preparation and instructions

1. Place all the ingredients in a medium saucepan. Add water, and bring the 

mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally. 

Important: Do not cover as evaporation is needed.

2. Reduce the heat to low, and keep this simmering on your stove.

NOTE: The mixture can be stored in the refrigerator to use again and again until 

the scent has diminished.

Method Two

You can heat all the ingredients in a pan with some olive oil for 3-5 minutes on low heat for an instant effect. But the effect will not be as long-lasting as the first method, and the mixture cannot be stored for reuse. 

Stephen Cordina 

CEO / Creative Director

Perfumer member at Société Française 

des Parfumeurs

https://stephencordina.com