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This One Beauty Ritual Can Help You Harness Your New Year's Goals

Author:

Jamie Schneider

January 04, 2022

Senior Beauty & Lifestyle Editor

By Jamie Schneider

Senior Beauty & Lifestyle Editor

Jamie Schneider is the Senior Beauty Editor at mindbodygreen. She has a B.A. in Organizational Studies and English from the University of Michigan, and her work has appeared in Coveteur, The Chill Times, and Wyld Skincare.

Image by Studio Firma / Stocksy

January 04, 2022

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For many, beauty routines can provide valuable time to connect with yourself, to slow down and check in with how your body is feeling on a given day. And in the context of a fresh start, a recharged beauty ritual can assist your New Year's goals, whatever they may be.

Enter, an intention-setting practice you can pair with your favorite fragrance. As someone who has abandoned the daytime perfume over the past several months (a work-from-home setting rarely calls for a signature scent), I've recently kicked off each morning with a spritz to my heart. It's a tip I learned from a conversation with Cat Chen, founder of clean fragrance brand Skylar: When setting intentions for the day, it's helpful to connect the energy to a mist of perfume. A few deep breaths, a moment of stillness, and the veil of fragrance can serve as a helpful reminder of these intentions throughout the day.

Why you should spray your heart with perfume.

Scent is powerful and transformative: A whiff of jasmine, vanilla, sandalwood, what have you, can instantly transport you to a specific memory or mood. So if there's a special fragrance that makes you feel uplifted, calm, bold, etc., why not take advantage of that energy in your morning routine?

"A lot of people set their intentions for the day, and their fragrances are a part of that process," Chen tells mbg. For example, "If you have a big meeting, you can wear a fragrance that makes you feel really powerful and confident," she says. "You can get ready for that day by putting fragrance at your heart, which is linked to how you feel."

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It's a similar reason that people use crystals to help set their intentions: Having something physical can serve as a visual reminder for your purpose. While fragrance, technically, is invisible, the cloud of scent can help you revisit those intentions in a similar way.

There's also a very practical reason for the trick: Spraying your heart helps the perfume last longer. How so? Well, spritzing your pulse points, in general, helps diffuse the fragrance, as the skin is the thinnest at those areas, meaning it's closer to your blood and body heat—and as fragrance is warmed, the aroma process begins.

So if you apply perfume where your pulse is the strongest (i.e., your heart), it will help radiate the scent in a major way. "If you have [fragrance] at your heart, you can smell it a lot," says Chen. "The fragrance will travel up; your heart will act as a diffuser." So you may catch the notes of your signature scent every time you move your body or take a deep breath, each whiff a subtle reminder of those intentions.

The takeaway.

Spraying fragrance at your heart can not only help the potion last longer but also can support your intention-setting practice. For me, the ritual certainly has helped ground my mornings and create a moment of pause before kicking off busy days (not to mention, it has helped me revel in the beauty of fragrance, even when there's no one around me to catch a whiff). See here for how to set authentic intentions, and feel free to use your fragrance as a constant reminder.