Friday scent of the day 5/15 :: Now Smell This

It’s Friday and National Chocolate Chip Day, plus the International Day of Families and Peace Officers Memorial Day. Birthdays: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, L. Frank Baum, Katherine Anne Porter, Richard Avedon, Jasper Johns. Our community project for today is the Picture Challenge, edition 11: choose a fragrance based on the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck.* As usual, you are free to be as farfetched as you like in your fragrance choice…or go literal: her dress is green, they are both wearing animal fur, there are oranges on the chest and windowsill, and cherries on the tree outside the window, etc etc. Thank you to Calypso for the suggestion! 

What fragrance did you pick? As always, do chime in with your scent of the day even if you’re not participating in the community project.

For Ms. Arnolfini’s green wool dress, I’m in Hermès Vetiver Tonka. The vetiver is a decent enough match with the color, and some of you may remember that when the first four Hermessences launched, each was matched with a fabric, and Vetiver Tonka was meant to suggest wool.

Reminder: 5/23 will be Recommendation Friday…recommend a favorite song, show, movie or book (or any form of entertainment, really) and match a scent to your pick, or to one of the characters, or whatever. Adapted from a recommendation by therabbitsflower. 

And for those of you who like to plan ahead, see Scent of the day ~ Friday community projects 2026, where I’ll try (but usually fail) to have the next five or six weeks mapped out in advance.

*Extra reading: The many questions surrounding Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait at JSTOR (this article has many useful close ups of the painting); The Arnolfini Portrait: Theories, Interpretations, and Analysis at The Collector; Hannah Gadsby: why I love the Arnolfini Portrait, one of art history’s greatest riddles at The Guardian.