When I Lost Myself to ME, Fragrance Helped Me Find My Way Back

In 2020, my health collapsed.

Something hadn't been right for a while, but one evening, I went to bed and didn't leave it. My brain was issuing instructions, but my body simply refused to obey. Months passed in a strange, suspended blur before I was eventually diagnosed with ME, or myalgic encephalomyelitis—a chronic neurological condition that causes debilitating fatigue alongside a constellation of symptoms, including profound fatigue, neurological symptoms and cognitive disruption. My body slowed to a near standstill, but oddly, my sense of smell sharpened emotionally.

According to The ME Association, sensory hypersensitivity is common as the illness becomes chronic and/or severe. "One possible explanation is that a viral infection, or the resulting immune system response, resets those control centres and chemical transmitter systems in the brain that are responsible for how we recognise and then react to things," explains Dr Charles Shepherd, Medical Adviser to the ME Association.

For years prior, I underestimated perfume. I appreciated it aesthetically—the beautiful bottles, the ritual of choosing something to wear—but I saw it largely as a finishing touch. Something pleasing, decorative, non-essential. But I began to realise that smell has a way of reaching parts of us that language cannot. Before logic has caught up, before we’ve consciously placed a feeling, a scent can pull us somewhere else entirely—back into a person, a room, a version of ourselves we thought had slipped out of reach.

Scents that healed

I remember my mum arriving to look after me, carrying the soft floral warmth of Dior's J’adore Eau de Parfum. Even now, I associate it with safety. The fragrance wrapped itself around me like emotional scaffolding: comforting, maternal, grounding. There was something about its velvety florals and skin-like scent that felt impossibly reassuring against the fear I was carrying. My son was only three at the time, and when he climbed into bed beside me, I clung to the sensory details that belonged only to him: warm cinnamon on his breath, Johnson's baby shampoo lingering in his hair. The tenderness of it broke me.

Scents stopped functioning as accessories and became something closer to emotional touchpoints—small but potent cues that tethered me to people, memories and moods when everything else felt unstable. “Perfume is more than what’s in the bottle; it’s about the story it tells and the memories it creates," Jonny Webber, fragrance expert at Perfume Direct, tells me. “Fragrance has a strong psychological effect because the brain stores scent memories alongside emotions, which is why fragrance can trigger such an immediate and emotional reaction."

Coffee being brewed downstairs became less a drink and more a physical signal to my brain that I was alive. Friends arrived wearing sparkling, joyous perfumes like Chloé Eau de Parfum and Gucci Flora Gorgeous Gardenia Eau de Parfum, and suddenly the room felt lighter, more alive. My husband’s Chanel BLEU DE CHANEL Eau de Parfum—aromatic, woody and familiar—reminded me of intimacy, ordinary life and the version of myself I worried had been swallowed by illness.

Even now, although I am managing my illness more successfully, my confidence and cognition can still fluctuate. The perfume I wear each morning has become less about image and more about internal calibration—a way of nudging myself toward the state of mind I need. Some days call for momentum. On those mornings, I reach for Yves Saint Laurent Black Opium, its dark sweetness and coffee accord delivering the olfactory equivalent of a pep talk. On gentler days, AERIN Amber Musk Eau de Parfum offers something quieter: a feminine, powdery warmth that feels comforting rather than performative. Victoria Beckham Beauty Eau de Parfum Portofino '97 does something else entirely—crisp notes of citrus, bergamot and pepper give an almost kinetic energy that makes me feel more awake.

Scents to remember

What fascinates me now is how invisibly perfume embeds itself into our lives. We rarely notice it happening, but scent quietly attaches itself to relationships, milestones, grief, desire, ordinary afternoons. Then years later, a single inhale can reopen the entire archive.

Growing up in the nineties, fragrance culture felt considerably less introspective. We had Impulse body sprays rolling around school bags and the occasional coveted perfume gift at Christmas. While friends wore Mugler Angel with all its unapologetic sweetness, I was devoted to CK One—mostly because Kate Moss made it look impossibly cool. We used to joke that it smelled like Topshop changing rooms: citrus, musk and teenage aspiration hanging permanently in the air. Smelling it now instantly transports me back to adolescence, which, according to Webber, is because the scent signals travel directly to the brain’s limbic system, particularly the amygdala and hippocampus, which are linked to emotion, memory and behaviour.

That is the curious power of scent—not simply that it helps us remember, but that it resurrects feeling with unnerving accuracy. After my dad died, I kept one of his cashmere jumpers folded in a drawer. Every now and then, I still take it out. His scent has softened with time; what remains is faint, difficult to define—traces of aftershave mingled with something unmistakably, irreducibly him. Yet the emotional force of it hasn’t disappeared. For a fleeting moment, loss and closeness coexist. Perhaps that is why fragrance feels so intimately personal. No perfume exists in isolation once it meets skin. Chemistry reshapes it. Body lotion alters it. Laundry detergent, shampoo, the scent of someone’s home—everything interacts until the fragrance becomes inseparable from the individual wearing it.

I used to think perfume’s purpose was transformation: to make us feel polished, alluring, put together. Now, I think it is equally about continuity. About safeguarding memories. About carrying comfort. About staying connected to the people we love and to versions of ourselves we are still trying to return to. I no longer spray fragrance on autopilot before leaving the house. I choose it with intention, aware that what I am putting on is not just a scent, but a feeling, a memory, a small form of self-preservation.