What has 2 noses & an incredible sense of smell??
no events today but this one's special
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Hi friends, it’s Nadia! 💌 I hope everyone is having a wonderful MDW, despite the lovely gloomy weather we’ve been having.
So… if you haven’t figured out the answer to the question in today’s subject line, I’ll help you. The answer is: a pregnant woman. And that pregnant woman is me. I’m 31 weeks along, due in July, and that’s where I’ve been all year! This is the result of smelling too good ladies — you will get knocked up sooner or later. Haha just kidding…
Many of you have been asking where I've been. Pregnancy is just one piece of the chaotic puzzle that is my life. The fatigue has hit like a truck while I'm still managing multiple businesses in transportation and tourism, gearing up for a wild World Cup and concert season at MetLife, prepping to give birth, and trying to keep this newsletter alive in between it all. Something had to give, and for a stretch, it was this 💔. But she's back now. So let's start at the beginning of how my nose has changed so far. I think you guys will enjoy this one.
The first trimester was ROUGH. But, not in the way you think — I am so very grateful I did not have the extreme physical symptoms most women suffer from; I was eating what I wanted, drinking what I craved, and enjoying the boost of joy in my hormones, which frankly, I was afraid were going to take me down to a new layer of melancholy, an upgraded deep, dark void of prenatal depression.
There was one psychological shift that I was not expecting. I became completely unengaged with perfume. Couldn’t wear it. Couldn’t read about it. Couldn’t talk about it. I was genuinely sad and scared thinking it’s over for me; that my love for scent, after nearly 30 years of my life, had just been a figment of my imagination. The thing that I built my identity, hobby, passion, businesses around the last 4 years was suddenly inaccessible, and maybe it had never really been mine to begin with. But nope. That’s just pregnancy. LOL. If it’s NOT gonna be morning sickness, it’s gonna be something else that’s going to shift your internal compass. Unfortunately, perfume and I had to take a break…it was a confusing time for me. I didn’t know how long this break was going to be but you know what they say:
“if you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours…”
By month five/six, the fog lifted and I felt more settled in my ‘new’ body. My sense of smell returned different. Now I’m hypersensitive to environmental smells in a way I’ve never been. There’s a superpower to it, but also a vulnerability. A weird/unpleasant smell can flip my mood in a second: irritable, disgusted, feral. But something nostalgic, something I love, something new makes me feel ethereal. Beautiful. Gorgeous. It makes me want to rub my belly hoping my baby can smell this exact moment too. I was constantly wondering when the sense of smell gets developed in the womb.
The fetal olfactory system starts developing surprisingly early — major neural structures like the olfactory bulb form by around the 9th week, and olfactory receptors appear between weeks 11 and 13. By around 30 weeks of gestation, fetuses can actually distinguish between different odors in the amniotic fluid, and they respond differently based on what their mother has been eating. They’re already learning. They’re already building preferences.
This animalic instinct doesn’t stop at birth. Newborns can recognize their own mother’s milk by scent within days of being born. When researchers place breast pads from the mother and from a stranger on either side of a newborn’s head, the baby will reliably turn toward their own mother’s pad.
I read recently — and this part really fascinated me — that babies sleep worse when they can smell their mother nearby, because the smell triggers their hunger response and they wake to feed. A recommendation is keeping the bassinet on dad’s side of the bed for this reason. Not sure if it’s accurate, but I guess I’ll find out.
This is what Nosey’s starter library looks like. Do you suppose baby is going to be a snob? Should I start with Santal 33, or go straight to Portrait of a Lady?
A lot of people have asked me about my cravings - am I a pickles & cream cheese girly? Unfortunately, I am weirder than that. There is nothing I am craving more than every form of smoking lol. I am constantly fantasizing about floral cigarettes, flavored vapes, cannabis, anything that gets me a little out of sober. (I’m especially excited about Marissa Zappas’ Marshmallow Muff, releasing June 11 with notes of graham cracker dust, toasted marshmallow, roasted orris, tonka, sandalwood, and musk).
I don’t drink but I walked past the bar at La Esquina and all of the sudden—I could smell the honey, sweet, syrupy notes in the liquor instead of the jarring smell of alcohol. It’s been so dramatic that I almost bought Black Afghano from Nasamotto at Scent Bar BK, which is supposed to evoke the best quality of hashish. Am I well?
Until recently, I never understood the GLP-1 / fragrance connection people kept talking about. How some people on Ozempic report feeling satiated just from smelling perfume, like their brain gets the signal without ever needing the bite.
Now I’m on the opposite end of that. I smell a perfume - a refreshing mint, a creamy milk, anything with white chocolate notes - and I immediately get so thirsty and hungry I could cry. Smelling has become indistinguishable from craving. At this point, I wonder if I can find part-time work with the K9 unit at LGA.
The full-size bottles/scent I've been actually reaching for in this trimester: Matcha Potion, Pomelo Oolong, Latte Freddo, Alcohol-Free Tawahuj All Over Spray.
In the shower, I also love Rose Jam, Fable & Mane’s Hair Mask (a fusion of Bianco Latte/Latte Freddo with banana and coconut cream), and of course Madurai Jasmine Body Oil post-shower.
These gourmands are still soft and have skin-like musky notes. As my body temperature goes up, they make me feel cooler, sweeter, and refreshed. They also get me excited because they evoke a beautiful breezy spring day, or a cooling drink on a summer afternoon. It's bright, sunny, it's joyful. It’s delicious and there's a beautiful scent in the air. Life is good. Baby agrees.
Also worth noting — the perfume industry has read the room. Three breast-milk/birth- inspired launches have dropped in the last few months, and I’m dying to smell all of them.
ERIS Parfums’ Mother’s Milk (by Antoine Lie) goes psychological. It’s built around the “Good Mother / Bad Mother” duality. Creamy milk and orris for the comforting fantasy, animalic suede for the darker side. The copy says it holds space “for the woman who happens to be a mother but is her own person, separate from this culturally loaded role.”
Eleasium’s Birth! goes mythological. Hera’s breast milk splashing across the cosmos to create the Milky Way. I love this imagery. Notes of breast milk, forest strawberries, Normandy butter, vanillin. More cosmological.
Fischersund No. 1 goes conceptual. Part of their Faux Flora Collection (premiered at the National Nordic Museum in 2024), mapping a plant’s lifecycle onto a human one. The note list makes me so interested: porcelain, mountain milk, concrete, cotton, dust, saliva.
While I’ve been thinking about how my baby is starting to build her olfactory archive, I’ve been thinking about the other end of this. My dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s late last year. I’ll be moving back into my parents’ house in the next few weeks — partly to help with his care, partly because they’ll be helping me with the baby. The timing wasn’t planned. It just happened the way things happen when life is moving pieces around for you.
But I’ve been exploring an idea: scent is the only sense that goes directly to the memory and emotion centers of the brain. It bypasses the parts that Alzheimer’s takes first. You can say it’s the most resistant pathway we have for someone slipping into a different version of themselves. (The science here is still developing).
So I’ve been thinking about how to use scent with him. To help him remember, and help him stay. I want to explore rose, spices, and other scent profiles to tap his memories of growing up in Mumbai. Driving a beat-up Mini Cooper through London during school. Digging holes in Kuwait. The diesel and the skyscrapers and the smell of Ground Zero when he was a CDL driver building his business in the greatest city in the world. (Can you guess which city?)
One nose is being built; another we’re trying to hold on to. And scent is the thread running through both. And that’s how I know: all roads lead to PerfumeverseNYC. It’s always been you. <3
A smol note: I'm starting to collect mini perfumes for Nosey's first archive. If anyone has some they’d like to declutter, or knows the best places to buy minis, please reply and let me know. xo
📚 SOURCES
Fetal olfactory development:
Sarnat, Flores-Sarnat & Wei, “Olfactory Development, Part 1: Function, From Fetal Perception to Adult Wine-Tasting,” Journal of Child Neurology (2017)
Newborn scent recognition:
“Smell: Recognizes Scent of Mother’s Breastmilk (0-6 Months)” — Parenting Counts (referencing Makin & Porter, Child Development, 1989)
Scent, memory & Alzheimer’s:
“The Connections Between Smell, Memory, and Health” — Harvard Medicine Magazine
El Haj et al., “From Nose to Memory: The Involuntary Nature of Odor-Evoked Autobiographical Memories in Alzheimer’s Disease,” Chemical Senses (2018)
Thank you for reading, sharing, sniffing, and staying nosey. :)<3
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