Grieving Through Scent: How My Father's Signature Cologne Keeps His Memory Alive

Margaux Anbouba

10h ago· 5 min readenOpinion

Summary

A personal essay about grief and the sense of smell. The author describes how her late father's signature cologne, Christian Dior's Sauvage, triggers powerful memories and grief after his death from ALS. She reflects on how scent uniquely connects to memory and loss, and how encountering his fragrance everywhere—on strangers, in stores—keeps him present but also prolongs her pain.

Source

Twitter / XGrieving Through Scent: How My Father's Signature Cologne Keeps His Memory Alivevogue.com

Key quotes

· 3 pulled

Not me—I smell my father wherever I go.

He was loyal to Christian Dior's Sauvage. It was always the finishing touch of getting dressed, whether he was putting it on himself or my mother was spraying it on him as his disease progressed.

The rare motoneuron disease took away his ability to dress himself in the suits he carefully curated over the years, dance on Saturday nights to Hunter Sullivan at the Mansion Bar, and always—always—spritz himself with his signature scent before walking out the door.

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My father wore the most popular fragrance in the world. Now, I can’t seem to escape him—and the grief of losing him.