Fragrance Hub

When people think about making a home feel luxurious, they usually think about furniture, lighting, décor and finishes. But there is another detail that is often overlooked: fragrance. Walk into a beautifully designed hotel, boutique store or luxury spa and there is usually a distinctive scent in the background. It may not be obvious immediately, but it contributes to the overall experience. You can create a similar feeling at home with the right fragrance. A good premium room freshener can do more than simply cover unpleasant smells. When chosen carefully, it can become part of the atmosphere of a room. Why does home fragrance matter? Our sense of smell is closely connected with emotions and memories. A particular fragrance can make a room feel fresh, warm, relaxing or inviting. This is why fragrance has become an important part of modern interior experiences. Think about the difference between entering a room that smells neutral and entering one with a subtle woody or floral fragran...

Nobody warns you about this before your first bakhoor purchase: there's no single "bakhoor smell." Two blends can smell like they came from totally different product categories. One's sweet, floral, almost powdery. Another's dark and smoky, medicinal even, the kind of thing that makes you flinch a little the first time. So if you walked in picturing something candle-like and predictable, that's on whatever page sold it to you, not on you. Bakhoor (also spelled bukhoor or bakhur, from the Arabic بخور) is wood. Usually agarwood. Oud, if that's the term you already know. It gets soaked or blended with fragrant oils, resins, musk, sandalwood, sometimes spices, and then heated until it smoulders. That word "heated" is doing a lot of work. There's no flame running through bakhoor the way there is with an incense stick, nothing self-sustaining about it. You supply the heat. Only then does the smell actually show up. Form and scent get mixed up con...