Scented Emblems: Reading Mandy Aftel’s Symbolorum Through Perfume

Perfume is a code, not a cloud. Few people write that code with more nerve and tenderness than Mandy Aftel, so when her new book Symbolorum The Secret Wisdom of Emblems landed on my desk, I reached for a blotter before I turned a page. Symbols want to be smelled, not just decoded.

Aftel has always treated natural materials like glyphs that speak in hush tones. Remember how Cépes and Tuberose turned a white flower into a chiaroscuro portrait. That damp forest breath under a satin petal was never just pretty, it was a message about rot feeding bloom. The emblem writes itself. Or take Memento Mori, a narcotic beauty that flirts with the skull on the table. It smells like pleasure refusing to apologize, a reminder that life is urgent and ripe.

In that light, Symbolorum feels like a companion to her earlier books Essence and Alchemy and Fragrant, but cheekier, more wand than textbook. The emblems pull you into the Renaissance habit of hiding truths in plain sight. Perfume is perfect for this. You can read a symbol, but you can also wear it, let it stain your pulse.

If you know Vanilla Smoke, you already understand the book’s thesis. Vanilla as comfort, smoke as rite. Together, a small ritual of sweetness passing through fire. Cuir de Gardenia reads like a love note sealed with lacquer, a soft petal pressed against a hard idea. Oud Luban is caravan logic, resin and leather and light bouncing off brass. And Palimpsest, well, there is your metaphor made literal, layers of writing scraped and rewritten until the old text ghosts through the new.

I spent an afternoon pairing pages with materials. Orris as mirror. Labdanum as honeyed shadow. Oakmoss as the mossy border of the map. In Aftel’s world, even an emblem of a bee hums with tincture and wax, and I swear I could smell the vellum.

Yes, there’s even a mystical giveaway swirling around this launch, which feels on brand for someone who also built the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents. But the real gift is permission. Wear your symbols. Let your perfume say the quiet part out loud. And if a stranger leans in on the street and asks what you’re wearing, smile. You’ve been read.