10 Books, 10 Scents by Anna Dorn

Perfume & Pain novelist Anna Dorn joins Language Arts for a special (and fragrant) edition of Shelf Life.

“Perfume is all about being someone else,” I wrote in my latest novel Perfume & Pain, “and I write fiction for a reason.” That is, both perfume and fiction allow us to try on a different identity, to wear someone else’s skin. My character who articulates this isn’t me, exactly — it’s fiction — but she is me in the sense that she came from my head. (We also share a not insignificant number of biographical details.) Just as perfumes interact with our skin chemistry to create something unique, the characters I write start as abstract concepts and then become me as I write them. This phenomenon isn’t specific to writers but includes readers as well. Brain imaging reveals that when we read, we experience the hero’s story not as an observer but as a participant. Just as scents morph into our skin, fictional characters’ stories become our own. That’s why picking our next read and next scent is so personal, so high stakes. Both are about curating not just a vibe, but also figuring out who we want to temporarily become. Luckily, curation is my number one hobby, and I’ve done the work for you! Here are ten books and ten corresponding scents. Join me, I’ll tell you just who you can be….

Trust & Safety by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman // Macanudo by Maison D’Etto

Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman’s latest heroine is a jaded New Yorker enchanted by Instagram fantasies of a rural life upstate — one filled with peace and authenticity and nature’s divine beauty. Rosie convinces her tech bro husband to make an offer on a historic fixer-upper in the Hudson Valley. There, things aren’t exactly what they expected… but this perfume pairing is about the fantasy! With notes of dirt, grass, and hay, “Macanudo represents the groundedness and exuberance of nature,” i.e. exactly what Rosie is looking for in the Hudson Valley. It’s the scent of her upstate crush Dylan, a modelesque outdoorsy butch who rents their outbuilding and helps with repairs. Dylan also happens to be living the exact life Rosie wants for herself, complete with hand-built furniture, herbal tinctures, and hand-dyed linens. Likewise, this Maison E’Etto scent is green, it’s natural, it’s aspirational — it’s named for the brand owner’s POLO HORSE, famously the most expensive type of horse. This is a pairing for city girls thirsting for trees, for fantasies of renovating a barn into a high-end art studio, for those with dirt on their jeans and money in their secret trust funds. 

The Coin by Yasmin Zaher // Blanche by Byredo

As a Virgo, I adored this novel about a woman who is neurotically obsessed with cleaning. I knew off the bat that The Coin’s fragrance pairing would go in the “clean girl” genre. I fuck with many scents in this category — Glossier You, Nemat Amber, Dedcool Milk — but The Coin is a specific genre of clean. Our heroine is “preoccupied with purity” and “meticulous hygiene,” but she’s also unraveling, crossing boundaries with the middle school boys she teaches and getting caught up in a scheme to resell Birkin bags. This is not an easy cleanliness, but rather a desperate one. According to Fragrantica, Byredo’s Blanche is “more complex” and “luxurious” than most minimalist scents. One reviewer said it’s the scent of a wealthy woman in a loveless marriage who can’t let her hair down and wears a uniform of whites and creams, a woman with heavy “don’t touch me” and “I’ll do it myself” energy. This is a pairing for the demented clean girls, our sophisticated neurotics, for Lady Macbeth furiously cleaning her hands. 

Anyone’s Ghost by August Thompson // Secretions Magnifiques by Etat Libre d’Orange

Secretions Magnifiques is infamous for being, in the brand’s own words, a “disturbing perfume.” With notes of “blood, sweat, sperm, saliva,” it pairs nicely with August Thompson’s debut novel about a romantically-charged friendship between two hyper-masculine men over several years. I’m talking hooking up after getting punched. Bar hopping while still covered in blood. You get the drill. It’s sexy, it’s virile, it’s a little gross, but you can’t look away. This is a pairing for those boys who will be boys. 

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney // Santal 33 by Le Labo

Santal 33 gets a bad rep for its ubiquity — in 2015, The Times famously wrote, “That Perfume You Smell Everywhere is Santal 33” — but it’s everywhere for a reason. The subtle, effortless sandalwood scent crafted by master perfumer Frank Voelkl lowkey revolutionized the perfume industry. It made fragrance hot at a time when no one really wanted to wear perfume, kind of like how Sally Rooney got hordes of aimless 20-somethings hyped about reading. Both are frequently imitated. Every perfume house has a Santal 33 dupe, just like every MFA student is trying to copy Rooney’s cool, detached prose. They’re both skillful, smooth works with mass appeal. They’re ducks — calm on the surface, but furiously paddling underneath the water. This pairing is for your cool-as-a-cucumber strivers, your secret former debate champions, your upwardly mobile, but make it chill.

My Husband by Maud Ventura // Seduction Theory by Universal Flowering

French author Maud Ventura’s debut novel is a stunner. In it, a sophisticated woman spends her days obsessing over her perfect husband, playing twisted mind games, doing everything in her power to keep him in her grips. Her meticulous preparations and complex seductions are very Seduction Theory, the Universal Flowering perfume named for Freud’s abandoned hypothesis of the same name. The hip Canadian brand says the perfume draws from “psychoanalytic observation, eroticism, and individuation” and speaks to the “drive of fantasy and projection.” This pairing is for your master manipulators, your forever infatuated, your queens of seduction. 

a women by Vanessa Roveto // CK One by Calvin Klei

Launched in 1994, CK One is the first unisex fragrance to gain widespread popularity in the US. Beyond that, it symbolizes an era where grunge, Kate Moss, and counter-culture reigned supreme. Simona Cattaneo, CEO of the company behind Calvin Klein fragrances, said that CK One “offered a freedom from convention and the status quo” and represented “a breaking of rules.” Similarly, Gen X author Vanessa Roveto’s book-length poem a women bucks tradition (and the rules of grammar), blurring gender boundaries as well as those between bodies. It’s been called an “avant-garde performance piece” containing “several contradictory states bound together in a single invented language.” This is a pairing for your edgelords, your Aquarians, your I’m not like other girls because I reject the gender binary…

Paradise Logic by Sophie Kemp // Lolita Lempicka by Lolita Lempicka 

Sophie Kemp’s forthcoming debut novel Paradise Logic (out March 2025) stars an aspiring notary and waterslide commercial actress on a feverish quest to be the greatest girlfriend of all time. Reality Kahn is peculiar, she’s charming, a lot of people ask her if she’s special needs. Enter Lolita Lempicka, which not only matches the book’s cover but also described by many on Fragrantica as “zany,” “whimsical,” and “romantic.” It also has notes of licorice, making it just the right amount of alienating. One user described the perfume as “a pixie dressed in violet petals and ivy vines”— “flirtatious, youthful and a bit synister[sic].” Most crucially for Reality Kahn, a lot of users said their boyfriends loved it. This is a pairing for your quirky sexpots — you’re feeling a little off, but also everyone wants to fuck you, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Life of the Party by Tea Hacic-Vlahovic // Lightsource by Andrea Maack 

Tea Hacic-Vlahovic’s Life of the Party follows a young woman’s debaucherous romp through Milan, a city that “shouldn’t be seen during the day.” Accordingly, Mia spends the book partying through the night and sleeping with a coterie of men. As one reviewer put it: “The drugs, nightclubs, and men blur together in a seemingly nonstop, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-style fever dream as intense as it is dripping with style.” Likewise, cult Icelandic perfumer Andrea Maack’s Lightsource is, in the brand’s own words, “an ode to ‘90s rave culture, an energy boost where the laws of time no longer apply.” This is a pairing for your grunge party girls, your dissociated night owls, for those itching to disappear into the void. 

Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis // Narcotic V. by Nasomatto

Jenny Fran Davis’s debut adult novel stars a lesbian narrator studying “the feminine miniature” like dollhouses and “petty ephemera.” When I interviewed Davis, she defined dykette as “a dyke with frills, bows, ruffles” — “maximalist,” “super-accessorized,” and “exponentially femme.” Essentially femininity on steroids, which brings us to Narcotic V.! Described by the perfumer as “a complete dedication to femininity,” this animalic floral perfume is “the result of a quest for an overwhelming addictive intensity of a female.” It’s also an ode to Venus, the goddess of love, femininity, and sensuality. This is a pairing for your feminine supremacists, your breast-worshippers, your dykettes who realize there is no better narcotic than a woman. 

Let Me Try Again by Matthew Davis // Functional Fragrance by The Nue Co

The star of Matthew Davis’s Let Me Try Again is a neurotic male nurse on a fanatical quest to win back his ex-girlfriend…who has fully moved on. He’s also obsessed with nutrition in a lowkey psycho way. Ross would love Functional Fragrance because they sell it at Erewhon, his favorite place due to its abundance of health foods, and is likewise made using organic and non-GMO ingredients free from artificial additives. Also created by master perfumer Frank Voelkl, but in conjunction with University of Geneva research on the connection between cognitive function and the olfactory system, Functional Fragrance was specifically designed to create a neurological calming response. Ross, who doesn’t seem to have chilled… ever, needs this. This is a pairing for your esoteric nutrition bros, your high-strung biohackers, your OCD freaks who just need to calm the fuck down.