Mom's Smelly Stuff

For every birthday, Mother's Day and Christmas my dad would bring my sister and I to pick out "smelly stuff" - soaps and lotions - for my mom. Gifting was not complete if smelly stuff was not in the package. Typically we would get Crabtree & Evelyn products at the old Merchants Row Mall in Hanover. I loved sorting through the different packaging, shapes, sizes and smells of the soaps and toothpaste containers of lotions - rosewater, apricot kernel oil, lavender. My dad also had an affinity for a little brown, curved bar of sandalwood soap. Mom loved receiving her "smelly" treasures.

I still tuck at least one apothecary goody in Mom's gifts and she always has a rotating array of dishes and vessels to artfully display soaps: seashell, bee or other mini shaped soaps in apothecary jars on her bathroom sink. My Gran, too. I come from a long line of soap lovers. I love giving the gift of self-care to the ones who cared for me. Nurture your nurturer. In that vein, I am giving away a curated bundle of fig. a skincare goodies, aka smelly stuff. Give it to someone special in your life who has nurtured you.

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