What does loneliness smell like? Inside the strangely soothing world of fragrance TikTok

2026-03-22 - 14:30

Perfume obsessives are making online fragrance mood boards for everything from ‘having a fight with your parents’ to ‘looking at old photos’. It’s both nostalgic and comforting I was bestowed with a nickname throughout my younger years: Smellanor. When I decided to go by Elle, the nickname evolved with it: Smell. I’m always a sucker for a fun rhyme. But it did make me hypervigilant about maintaining what I actually smelled like, vowing that this moniker would never manifest itself into reality. Thus began my ongoing journey into the wild world of fragrances. Years later, during one of my many late night TikTok binges, I stumbled across my first set of perfume-inspired image carousels that assigned scent profiles to abstract concepts, almost each one accompanied with a slowed-down version of Robert Miles’s Eurodance hit, Children. The age of 18, for example, has a scent profile of sweat, vodka, lip gloss, musk and lace. Looking at old photos too long smells like paper, iris, amber, musk and cedar. The first time passing a joint includes grass, fog, smoke, lip gloss and (obviously) cannabis. Continue reading...