The scent I’d die in: lilies, incense, and an oddly comforting goodbye

Let’s be brave. If perfume marks our milestones in life, why should it vanish at the threshold of death. On a Friday that also happens to be National Pasta Day, I tested the question over a bowl of cacio e pepe and a quiet sense of perspective. A community idea sparked by Deva nudged me there: what fragrance would you want to be buried or cremated in.

Part of me reaches straight for Diorissimo, vintage if the gods are kind, houndstooth box and all. It smells like clean white light to me, a lily of the valley bell you can hear rather than see, tender but not weak. There’s no gourmand cling, no sticky memory of lovers or work or cities. It’s spring air in a silk dress, and there’s dignity in that. If someone tucked a bottle into my coffin, I wouldn’t protest.

But the perfume I’d actually want on my skin when the room tilts toward silence is Comme des Garçons Ouarzazate. It’s incense without a sermon, resin without gloom. Transparent smoke, desert wind, dry spices that don’t nag for attention. It settles the mind instead of staging a spectacle. When endings feel jagged, Ouarzazate files down the edges. It’s the opposite of nostalgia, which makes it perfect for a final chapter.

I’d layer it lightly over my own lotion mix of ylang ylang and sweet orange. Not a power move, more a quiet nudge toward warmth and breath. Ylang’s creamy floral hum keeps the incense from floating off into abstraction, and orange lays a thin ribbon of sunlight over the whole thing. No baggage, just a gently lifted mood.

Perfume has always had a role in rites of passage, and funerary rites are no exception. We perfume the living to face the day, so why not perfume the moment we release it. If I’m choosing, Diorissimo is the elegant relic that can ride along in the darkness, but Ouarzazate is the one I trust on my skin when the air gets still. That’s not morbidity. That’s good taste meeting clarity at the end of the road.