View the full episode transcript.
The Bay Area is home to enchanting ecosystems. For starters, we have sand dunes, golden grassland hills, redwood forests, and the pacific coast. Whenever I get a waft of the marine fog or the cool Bay breeze, I feel cleansed. Now imagine being able to take in that smell whenever or wherever you are. That’s precisely what the fragrance, Memoria, by Mauricio Garcia conjures.
The perfumer’s fascination with fragrance began in his abuelita’s garden. In foggy South San Francisco, her small backyard was an oasis of potted plants and greenery growing off trellises. “I remember crushing the rosemary with my fingers and the pericón, the grandmother mint, and the jasmine,” reflects Mauricio Garcia. “My grandmother really loved flowers, especially fragrant ones. I certainly inherited that love from her.”
With this ancestral inheritance and a deep reverence for plants native to Mexico as well as ecology of the Bay Area, Garcia’s boutique perfume line, Herbcraft Perfumery, honors the sacredness of the natural world. It’s why he refers to his perfumes as eau d’esprit, or spirit waters.
These spirit waters are intended as offerings — to anoint ones wrist or neck as well as for filling the air in ones living space, especially around altars, mirrors and candles. In this way, Garcia believes his fragrances help facilitate connection with the spirit world and ancestors.
On this episode of Rightnowish, Mauricio Garcia poetically breaks down the science of why scent is tied to memory and how the ritual of adorning our bodies with fragrance can empower us.
Episode Transcript
[Music]
Marisol Medina-Cadena, Host : Hey there. It’s Producer Marisol Medina-Cadena and for the next five weeks it’ll actually be Host Marisol as Rightnowish begins a new series of shows dedicated to the art of self-expression. Better yet…the art of adornment.
The ways we show off our personality and values can be expressed in the specific clothing and shoes we choose to wear. Or the stickers we consciously decorate our laptops or water bottles with. The art or candles we adorn our desks or rooms with. These embellishments are acts of affirmation, telling the world, ‘This is who I am!’ But they can also be reminders to ourselves of how we want to feel, what kind of energy do we want to channel.
In my own life, I’ve been searching for ways to love on myself, celebrate myself, remind myself who the heck I am! Goofy, curious, vibrant Marisol. And so this series is also an exploration of tools to help me, and perhaps you as well, think about the pleasures and possibilities of adornment.
[Music]
Marisol Medina-Cadena: We’re gonna do that first through fragrance.
[Music]
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Now, I’m not someone who has a signature scent but I wanted to talk to someone who’s deeply immersed in the world of smell to understand how scents can empower us.
Mauricio Garcia, Guest: “you put on a perfume, you’re not only having this whole internal dialog happen with yourself and with the fragrance where it draws upon memory, you’re also choosing what it is that you would like to project out into the world how it is that you would like to fit yourself within the space of the world”
Marisol Medina-Cadena:That’s Mauricio Garcia. He’s a perfumer and has his own fragrance business called Herbcraft Perfumery.
Having grown up in South San Francisco, Mauricio takes inspiration from the ecology of the Bay. He also draws on his Mexican roots along with his passion for astrology and mysticism to create original perfumes or what he calls ‘fragrant enchantments.’
We sat down to talk about the power of scent and how fragrances can be used not only to manifest intentions but act as spiritual offerings. More on the pleasures of perfumes, right after this.
[Music]
Marisol Medina-Cadena: How do you actually anoint yourself? Like what’s the guidance of like, where to apply fragrance?
Mauricio Garcia: Oh yeah, that’s a great question. So we… when we instruct people for the application of fragrance, we say that arms are great, although you will have people tell you that, not to put on the arms. I think of arms as personal. It’s for you. They’re really accessible, so you can smell the fragrance whenever you like.
They also, you know, when you’re reaching for something, it reminds you that you’re wearing the perfume or reach past someone in a polite manner, obviously. Then also, there’s kind of that like, waft of fragrance. But also, chest is great. There’s a lot of warmth in the chest area, so the fragrance will emanate really well from there. And then if you want to have a little bit of what we call sillage, which is like the trail of fragrance or a little more kind of presence with your fragrance, then spraying it at the nape of your neck, at your hairline is a great way of getting the fragrance to evaporate because there’s warmth there. But also your hair will hold on to the fragrance.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: There’s no, like, wrong way is what you’re telling me?
Mauricio Garcia: Not really. I do notice the habit of people like rubbing fragrances, and when you’re first smelling a fragrance to see if you actually get along with it because you are totally the last ingredient in a fragrance. Your own skin’s chemistry has a… has a lot of influence in the final form or shape, I suppose, of the fragrance – the acidity or alkalinity of the fragrance.
A lot of different factors, including your immune system, all have to do with the way that a fragrance wears. And actually there’s research that suggests that a good fragrance that you’re like, ‘Oh, I love this and it smells good on you’ complements your immune system.
The rubbing, though, is good because it will help you kind of warm up the molecules and experience some of the notes that would come up later in the dry down but when you’re applying it regularly, you might be shortening the life of your fragrance, but it’s not a huge deal.
[Music]
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Mauricio tells me that fragrances are made up of 3 scent layers. You got the top notes, which we can smell immediately…then the heart notes, which come out after about 3 to 6 hours…and then the base notes, which we might not even notice until 12 hours later. When these layers combine, that’s what forms the perfume. Cool, right?
So your fascination with scents and botanicals really started with your abuelita’s garden in South San Francisco. Can you tell us what you saw and experienced?
Mauricio Garcia: Those are, you know, not only some of my first scent memories, but also some of my fondest certainly.
[Music]
Mauricio Garcia: Growing up with her, she had a small garden, but it was filled with plants. Every space that she could, she had a pot. She had planted plants. She had, like, little trellises. And I distinctly remember being a small child and just being surrounded by green. And it was so different than the rest of South City or the rest of the Bay Area in the sense of, you know, you walk streets and there’s buildings and cars. And so just having this… this little oasis and growing up in this… this place where it was small, but I could play and it was very private and everything had such distinct smells. And I remember crushing the rosemary with my fingers and the pericón, the grandmother mint, and the jasmine flowers. And my grandmother really loved flowers and especially fragrant ones. And I certainly inherited that love from her.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: What is it about smells that are so strongly tied to memory?
Mauricio Garcia: Actually, the sense of smell is our oldest sense. Before we could see, before we could hear, before we could even feel vibrations, we smelled. When we were our ancient ancestors, our microbial ancestors…
[Music]
Mauricio Garcia:…they used the sense of smell to navigate this, you know, gigantic world that they were coming into being and involving. And so that remained a really, really integral part of the makeup of our brain, as well as our biology. When we smell those aromatic molecules, the receptors in our nose send signals to the parts of our brain that not only control emotion and memory, but also construct space.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: I’m thinking of, like, a library in our brain.
Mauricio Garcia: Yes, exactly.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: And as we’re smelling it, it’s like quickly going through the catalog.
Mauricio Garcia: Yeah, that’s more or less what’s going on at a chemical level, at a molecular level. It’s really, really amazing.
[Music]
Mauricio Garcia: And when you think about how scent is really, really individualistic, perfumers are very aware that everyone will respond differently to different scents because they have different memories. At the same time, we also respond really similarly. So how many of these, you know, encoded responses or ancestral memories do we share with other people? And is that why we’re able to communicate with each other without words or even without sounds or visuals with scent by applying scent to ourselves or interpreting the way that someone else smells.
[Music]
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Can you share a little bit how specifically you’re channeling the Bay Area, South San Francisco and even your Mexican heritage into your fragrance line?
Mauricio Garcia: My inspiration is largely from the ecology of the Bay Area, the plant species that grow here and the weather we have, you know, I feel like we have very special weather, um it’s you know, it’s very foggy and very gray.
But I’ve noticed that a lot of people who are from the Bay Area, when they smell fragrances that are themed after the Bay, they do respond to them, which I would love actually to have you smell Memoria in this case. Memoria was named after Memorial Park, which is a state park here just near Pescadero, a little bit south of Half Moon Bay. And my abuelito used to call it La Memoria, and so I named it Memoria, and it’s an evergreen redwood themed fragrance with a marine fog accord.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Redwoods are my favorite tree.
Mauricio Garcia: Okay, then. This is perfect, okay. I’m very excited for you to meet Memoria then. I hope, I hope you like them.
[Spritzing sounds]
Marisol Medina-Cadena: I definitely smell the redwood bark like that red redwood. And how fuzzy, how fuzzy it is. Like the texture of fuzziness is what I’m smelling.
Mauricio Garcia: Yeah. Oh, I love that.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: [inhales]
[Music]
Mauricio Garcia: So it opens up with… with the fog, but also a little bergamot and citrus to kind of bring in the, you know, the way that the light tends to break up the fog and come through the redwood trees. Definitely redwood in their bark. I use a lot of warm wood materials and also evergreen materials. One is also pretty special. It’s cypress by-absolute. And so there’s a lot of cypress, which, you know, as you know, there, they love growing around here as well.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Okay. Yeah. Because I was like, why is this bringing me back to these cypress groves over by Half Moon Bay?
Mauricio Garcia: Mhmmm
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Also sleepy.
Mauricio Garcia: Yeah. Oh, I totally imagine, like, the early morning or in the evening when it’s kind of like the shadows are long. Either they’re kind of unraveling or they’re starting to be cast out.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Yeah.
Mauricio Garcia: And there’s that saltiness you’re getting is from a seashell tincture.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Mm. It definitely reminds me of Half Moon Bay Area.
Mauricio Garcia: Cool. Yeah. Mission accomplished.
[Music]
Marisol Medina-Cadena: The next fragrance Mauricio has me smell is one called Bramble. Its name refers to the prickly shrubs that grow raspberries and roses. He says the perfume is a tribute to the sisterhood between the two plants.
[Spritzing sounds]
God…that smells. Ugh, I feel very enveloped by rose petals.
Mauricio Garcia: Cool.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: And I am seeing a lot of, like, light purple.
Mauricio Garcia: Cool. Yeah.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: And it feels very soothing.
Mauricio Garcia : Cool. I Love it.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: It’s very calming.
Mauricio Garcia : Yeah, it’s I think that my like, you know, when you, like walk into, like a natural space and you just kind of like, you don’t even realize that you have this sigh that you’re holding.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Oh, yeah.
Mauricio Garcia: That’s like release. I can totally see how that made it into Bramble.
And in terms of the purple, they’re ionone molecules, which are big, huge parts of the smell of violets and the taste of violets. So we also use the same chemicals to flavor candies or liqueurs or Creme de Violette, you know, stuff for cocktails or foods. They are a big part of the flavor and the smell of berries as well. But they’re very purple kind of purply, energy smells. And so I love that you caught that that you like caught the violet molecules because they’re totally purple.
[Music]
Mauricio Garcia : So this is my perfume Ofrenda.
[Spritzing sounds]
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Okay. And ofrenda is to mean an altar.
Mauricio Garcia: Yes!
Marisol Medina-Cadena: And so, do you put this on your altar?
Mauricio Garcia: I do. I kind of… well, I do consider these fragrances too, along with personal enjoyment and anointment, I also consider them to be offerings.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: I smell like. Is there any cinnamon in it?
Mauricio Garcia : Yes, definitely there is, for sure, cinnamon.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Yeah. I smell also like wood-sy.
Mauricio Garcia : Warmth. Yeah.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: I also the color yellow is, like, coming to mind.
Mauricio Garcia: Cool, Awesome. I love that.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: I’m also imagining, like a white candle too.
Mauricio Garcia : I love that. My gosh. Okay, so I’ll tell you the notes. You’ve pretty much got them. Pretty, pretty spot on. So it opens up with cinnamon and cardamom and pimento allspice, which is… which is another plant from Mexico and bergamot, which is a citrus, it’s a really bright fresh citrus, some lime There’s for sure, chocolate and actually also some real mezcal. And it’s just…
Marisol Medina-Cadena: The smokiness! That’s making sense
Mauricio Garcia: Mescal in there for sure. And it’s got some smokiness to it. And then the heart is cempasúchil, the Mexican Marigold. That’s the yellow that you’re getting.
Also, jasmine and a fourth flower, called cacaloxóchitl, which means crow flower. But is the red plumeria or red frangipani that is also native to Mexico. And so in ancient Mesoamerica, it was believed that gods were born from those flowers. And so I really wanted to integrate these… these sacred spirits into… into this preparation.
[Music]
Marisol Medina-Cadena: You describe your line Herbcraft Perfumery as this crossroads between alchemy and spirit work. So can you talk about what you mean by that?
Mauricio Garcia : Yeah. So I do, you know, depend on science to understand my materials. But I do, I am a spiritual person. And I do believe, as most ancient people did, that the world is animate, it’s alive. You know, we’re humans aren’t just these, like, you know, meat cyborgs that happen to pop out of the nothing. You know, we evolved as part of this planet. And so plants also respond to their environment. They also communicate with each other, and they also communicate with other species. And so that’s where the spirit, where it comes in, where there are, you know, a lot of different spiritual systems that are not necessarily religious, that help and guide people with interacting with these these, you know, non-human beings, non-human spirits, whether they’re, you know, local animals or local plants or whatever.
And I try to really bring these elements into my work in a way that tells that story through smell and through scent and the way that people respond to the fragrances.
Speaking of Ofrenda, people have told me, like they’ve sprayed it and it feels like they’re at an altar and it maybe not even necessarily be a Mexican one. That might not be their experience. But getting the positive feedback that my work does, in a way, helps people connect with themselves and their spirits, whether they’re they’re, you know, we want to consider them your guardian angels or your ancestral spirits. However you move through the world. It’s pretty cool. It’s fun.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: So in a way, perfume making, fragrance making is… is a spiritual process?
Mauricio Garcia: I believe so. I think so. We’re playing with these, like really mysterious things. We know how our sense of smell works. We know how to… to create these compounds. We know how to extract them or grow the plants and why the flowers produce the smells they do. But like again, what scent ultimately draws on is this entirely imaginary, you know, landscape or well within us.
My fragrances are, I consider them to be kind of more like tributes, and thanks, gratitude. Everything I do is is small batch. And I don’t make thousands of bottles. I don’t have endless shelves that my stuff is retailed on. It’s pretty small. And honestly, I really like it.
I am Mexican-American and I, like, remember all of the, like, perfumes and the smells of, like flowers when we had these gigantic rosaries for people in my… my great tia’s garage and the perfumes they all wore. And then later as an older, like teenager going to, like Mexico…
[Music]
Mauricio Garcia:…in the mercados and finding all of their like perfumes that they use for like they have magical perfumes there. It’s a thing and it’s like a thing that a lot of Mexican people utilize for like, you know, love or protection or cleansing. And I was like, I want to learn how to do that. Like, wow, that’s really cool.
For me, the magic is what keeps me going not the like exotification or this, you know, being the sexy commercial brand.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: It’s a lot more personal and like honoring this homeland…
Mauricio Garcia: Yeah
Marisol Medina-Cadena: where our ancestors came from. I say “ours: cause I’m also Mexican-American.
Mauricio Garcia: Well, it’s so. It’s so special and, you know, and also complicated the relationship that we’ve inherited. But it’s also like, you know, if we can tell stories, why not?
Marisol Medina-Cadena: A lot of reasoning why I want to do this series about adornment is because I think in my own life I’m searching for tools or methods about how to like, affirm myself or just connect to myself more.
Mauricio Garcia: Beautiful.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: And so what is the guidance you have about how I can think about applying perfume as a part of like a daily ritual of adornment?
Mauricio Garcia: Yeah, I love that question, and I really love that you’re exploring this very important topic and that you’re sharing your journey with people because it’s something that we focus a lot on but also don’t take into consideration as our daily process or daily ritual.
[Music]
Mauricio Garcia: You put on a perfume, you’re not only having this whole internal dialogue happen with yourself and with the fragrance where it draws upon memory, you’re also choosing what it is that you would like to project out into the world; how it is that you would like to fit yourself within the space of the world. So, there’s really complicated alchemy going on inside of us. And with perfume, we get to share that and like bring that into the physical space around us.
Marisol Medina-Cadena: Big, big thank you to Mauricio for sharing your profound wisdom of scents with me. Since our conversation, I’ve been doing reflecting on what aromas and scents conjure peace and comfort, as that’s what I’m striving to feel again in my body.
I think jasmine is that scent for me. It reminds me of summer evenings taking naps on the bench swing at my childhood home. Or the jasmine bush I used to pass leaving from my best friend’s house on 26th and Guerrero. Thanks Mauricio for helping me to see how scents can be portals of memory and offerings for intentions we want to manifest.
If you’re interested in smelling Mauricio’s perfumes for yourself you can find his “fragrant enchantments” at the shop, Ministry of Scent on Valencia street in the Mission. or order directly from his website at herbcraftperfumery.com
Maurcio also teaches workshops and has some exciting ones coming up in the fall. To stay up to date follow his Instagram page at herbcraft.perfumery
[Music]
Now time to give thanks to the whole squad that makes this show possible.
The Rightnowish team includes Pendarvis Harshaw, Sheree Bishop, and Ryce Stoughtenborough. Xorje Olivares and Chris Egusa produced this episode. Chris Hambrick is our editor. Our engineer is Christopher Beale. Jen Chien is the director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is Podcast Operations Manager. Audience Engagement Support comes from Cesar Saldaña. Holly Kernan is KQED’s Chief Content Officer.
I’m your host Marisol Medina-Cadena, thanks for listening!
Rightnowish is a KQED production.
Rightnowish is an arts and culture podcast produced at KQED. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on NPR One, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
