When I finally got on antidepressants and stopped self-medicating my depression with an life-consuming addiction to amphetamines, I bought, like, 200 bottles of perfume. It wasn’t that before I got on proper medication, I couldn’t smell. It was just that when I was in the thick my depression, smelling something lovely just didn’t bring me any joy. It was too slight a pleasure—like listening to rain or baking cakes—to affect me. The only way I was able to afford 200 bottles of perfume was Dossier. They make dupes of iconic scents at price points of $29, $39 and $49. Their candles are great, too! My favorites are the Diptyque Do Son dupe, the Baccarat Rouge 540 dupe, the Love, Don’t Be Shy dupe (it’s Rihanna’s signature scent!) and, since I live in Florida now, I also love the Le Labo Santal 33 dupe because people chase me down the street to ask me what it is. It’s so sweet and heartwarming watching Floridians smell Santal 33 for the first time. But obviously I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that perfume back in New York. Being seen as an offbeat and eccentric weird is too essential my fragile sense of self.
