How fragrance changes the spaces we live in.

There comes a point in September when home begins to matter differently.

Doors that have stood open through summer are closed against the evening air. Curtains are drawn earlier, fires are lit and the kitchen returns to hearty meals and the occasional cake baking in the oven. Gardening boots and secateurs gather by the back door, evidence of jobs finished outside before we retreat indoors.

We begin to inhabit our rooms again.

And perhaps because of this, we begin to notice how they smell.

Every home has its own fragrance, although we are often the last people to recognise it. Ours carries traces of wood smoke from the log burners, old oak floorboards and an antique table that is periodically polished. On some evenings there will be something cooking in the kitchen; on others, the faint green-earthy scent brought in on gardening clothes and boots.

These individual smells become so familiar that eventually we stop noticing them.

 Home fragrance adds another layer.

How do you want a room to feel?

We tend to think about home fragrance in terms of whether we like a particular scent, but with home fragrance there is another question worth asking:

How do I want this room to feel?

Calm? Welcoming? Fresh? Intimate? Restful?

We instinctively make these decisions in other ways. We lower the lights, light a fire, close the curtains or pull a chair closer to the hearth. Home fragrance can change atmosphere just as subtly.

In our sitting room, with its large fireplace and old beams, I naturally gravitate towards warm, woody fragrances. Blacksmith soy candle works particularly well there. Library is another favourite when we settle down for the evening; quiet and comforting rather than intrusive.

When friends are coming, I often light scented candles in the two window seats overlooking the garden. It has become a small ritual before people arrive. The candles are lit, lamps go on and suddenly the room feels ready to receive people.

Perhaps that is what home fragrance does best. It marks a change in mood.

Candle or diffuser?

The way we introduce fragrance matters too.

A diffuser quietly scents a room throughout the day. Because it is always there, it becomes part of the background and we often notice it most clearly when we first enter the space.

A candle is different.

Lighting one is deliberate. There is the strike of the match, the flame and the changing light as evening draws in. It creates a beginning and an end, which is why candles can become associated with particular moments: arriving home, running a bath, reading, or waiting for friends to arrive.

Neither is better. They simply create fragrance differently.

Not every room needs to smell the same.

Just as we wouldn't decorate every room identically, there is no reason to fragrance an entire house with one scent.

Our downstairs cloakroom has Slate reed diffuser, while the sitting room might have Blacksmith or Library. Other rooms are left alone.

Moving between different spaces allows fragrance to be rediscovered.

Our sense of smell naturally adapts when we are continuously exposed to the same aroma. After a while, the brain decides it is familiar and pays less attention to it. This is why we can sometimes stop smelling our own reed diffuser while a visitor notices it immediately.

Leaving some spaces unscented can therefore be as important as scenting others.

And what about the kitchen?

Food is one of the great home fragrances of home.

Bread baking, a cake coming from the oven, herbs being chopped or something slowly cooking for supper needs little competition.

If we are having friends for dinner, I might use home fragrance earlier while preparing the room, but once we sit down to eat, the food should be allowed to take over.

Fragrance should create atmosphere, not overwhelm it.

The invisible interior.

Perhaps we should think about home fragrance as part of an interior in much the same way as lighting, colour and texture.

You cannot see it, but it changes your perception of a space.

A woody scented candle can make a large room feel warmer. Something green can bring freshness to an entrance or kitchen. A darker fragrance can make a sitting room feel more intimate as evening arrives.

Our own home fragrances were created around this idea of atmosphere and place. Library, Blacksmith, Winter Gardens, Slate, Faith Is and Winter Night each have very different characters, but the name on the reed diffuser bottle should only ever be a starting point.

The more interesting question is how a fragrance makes a room feel to you.

Perhaps the best home fragrance eventually becomes something we barely notice at all.

It settles amongst the floorboards and furniture, the fire, the books, the evening light and the everyday business of living.

Then we go away for a few days.

We open the front door and there it is again.

The smell of home.