🌾 The Scentsual Home

When I read the title of the article published by Freshome (I am happily following them on Twitter...) about how to create a sensual home, I clicked on the link instantly and I have to say, first of all because I would not have thought about combining the adjective "sensual" with the noun "home". Call me silly, but I would have picked a more practical, as it were, adjective: relaxing, soothing and so on... 

The article was an eye-opener since I realized that some of the choices I have made so far in our apartment were an attempt at making our home...sensual. Fabrics and colors are largely explored in the article as well as a very interesting point about...kids and related mess! On several occasions, the author points out the necessity of keeping kids' clutter away, storing it where it becomes invisible... I totally understand the need to keep stress levels down by making the surrounding space as smooth and free of obstacles as possible, BUT (yes, it is a big "but"), if you live with kids, this point just makes you smile. At least, it made me smile.

My two cents about this is indeed to try and tidy everything up once everyone is asleep in order to enjoy a few soothing hours in the evening whenever possible. However, this is NOT always achievable and part of the survival kit is just to go with the flow and not make any strict rules about the perfect space if you want to avoid parental insanity.

I remember one of hubby's sentences when we were interviewing nannies: he said he wanted the kids to just play in the bedroom and nowhere else in the apartment. Honestly, I thought he was joking and was über grateful that the nanny utterly ignored what he said and now lets the young ones play and run free wherever they want.

Instead of trying to fight the inevitable, I found another way of infusing sensuality into our rooms thanks to flower and herbal notes released by scented stick diffusers and candles. If I do not really change the home decoration based on seasons (aside probably from the type of fresh flowers I place in our vases from time to time - they are obviously seasonal), I do choose new fragrant notes every now and then, and right now all I need is something fresh and light such as moss, mimosa and grass:

-Dyptique candles: Mousse, Mimosa

-Baobab stick diffusers: Wild Grass (Fragrance note: Tarragon Herb)

Even though I could not lay my hands on jasmine, this is the subtle scent that takes me to my favorite and beloved summer retreat in the south of Italy, where in the evening the white jasmine flowers open up and release their powerful smell in the narrow streets of our village. 

The quintessential summer night's scentsual dream.