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 Garicia 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 Garica. “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 and enchant. 

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