Scent of a Woman: My Angel Story

Tomorrow is my thirty-first birthday, and to celebrate the occasion I’m promising myself more indulging moments in collaboration with Mugler ANGEL fragrance.

The iconic fragrance is celebrating 25 years, but it almost never came to be. When Thierry Mugler began working on the scent in 1990, his innovative idea of transforming food into fragrance was initially turned down. His dream was to create a fragrance that “struck a chord with everyone, something close to… childhood memories.” Master Perfumer Olivier Cresp took on the challenge to create the first gourmand note, and ANGEL was born.

Gourmand (noun.): a connoisseur of good food.

Today, Parisian chocolatier La Maison du Chocolat has created a limited-edition box of chocolates that are meant to replicate the unique gourmand notes that make up ANGEL, including cotton candy, caramel and chocolate. The luxurious gift box is designed in the same style of the fragrance’s memorable light blue packaging, and naturally includes star-shaped chocolates.

A box of French chocolates inspired by a timeless scent seems like the perfect birthday treat to me. (Just throw in some bubbly to wash it all down.) It’s no surprise that food and fragrance are closely tied, as many of the experiential moments in our lives revolve around both.

This collaboration got me to thinking, “what is it about a scent that can transport you to another place or moment in time?” The delight of a fragrance is not only in its power to envelope your senses, but also to tempt you with ideas; to arouse memories from long ago; to remind you of the woman you are, and help you become the woman you wish to be.

For me, ANGEL has always been a fragrance that exemplifies the woman I hope to be: seductive yet angelic, confident, sweet, powerful, and complex.

This time last year I planned to share an essay on the life lessons I had learned leading up to age thirty, but funny enough, life got in the way and I never finished writing it. Perhaps it was meant to be unwritten, because I feel like I’ve grown far more in the first year of my thirties than in the preceding twenty-nine. Over the past 365-days something in me shifted, and I finally feel like I’m unapologetically a woman.

I’m a woman who knows what she wants and seeks it out without approval. I’m a woman who has learned to unburden herself with the power of “no.” I’m a woman who will speak her mind even when it’s not convenient, and won’t apologize for prioritizing her needs. I’m a woman who knows her worth and won’t allow others to steal her joy. I’m a woman who knows that when we lift each other, we all rise. I’m a woman who will wear a sexy fragrance and lingerie, and own it if she wants to.

I’m a woman, and I’m no angel – but my fragrance is.

Photos by Karla Garcia