There are few things as mood altering as a good scent. I use good liberally. Really, it can be anything that stirs my senses, is captivating, or conjures up a memory: a fog-mixed-with-sea-breeze Massachusetts morning; furniture polish; heady gardenias on a humid night; Beef Burgundy simmering in a crock pot; even mothballs—which make me think of hours spent in the attic as a child and now, estate sales ripe for  scavenging.

A good smell/taste lingers in the mind. I’ll always remember my first experience with truffle oil when it was suddenly everywhere in the early aughts. Couldn’t get enough. I won’t ever forget the taste of the best latte I ever had or the pungent aroma of Burcak.  I’ve even filed away in my brain an elusive perfume—smelled only once and now untraceable.

So is it any surprise that I wouldn’t balk at paying $75 for the perfect candle? When I first saw the display of Cire Trudon candles at Jayson Home & Garden months ago, I knew they were something special. They were housed in fancy glass domes and paired with elegant cards with the scent names. And the pedigree was nothing to scoff at: Cire Trudon is France’s oldest candle manufacturers. We’re talking candles-made-for-Louis XIV-and-Marie-Antoinette old.

The steep price tag is certainly a reflection of the time-honored craft, not to mention the quality materials and luxurious presentation for essentially 9.5 ounces of vegetal wax. But all that means very little when you actually get a whiff of one of these. Notes like rum, bergamot, clove, leather tobacco and amber are masculine and seductive. These didn’t smell like “candle”; the notes were distinctive and recognizable and yet magically blended to create something new and different from the parts comprising the whole.

My favorite candle perfectly captured the scent of burning wood, a damp campfire in a secluded forest. I truly felt like Veruca Salt in the hall with the lickable wallpaper (Snozzberries. Who’s ever heard of a snozzberry?) In short—an enchanting, transformative and almost virtual experience.

$75 for 80 hours of bliss? Well worth it.

Sometimes I think I like museums’ gift shops as much as (and sometimes more than) the museums themselves. The store at the Cooper-Hewitt in New York, for example, feels like my own personal aesthetic bliss. I get a contact high from its stacks of hip art books and shelves of quirky design objects, all housed in the significant rooms of a historical mansion.

My favorite guilt-free museum shop purchase is the requisite book of postcards. I got a book of Erte ones many, many years ago at The Art Institute. I hadn’t heard of Erte; I just thought the pictures were pretty and might look nifty on my fridge. But over the years, the more I have admired his work–even on flimsy, mass-produced perforated cards–I want to know more. (And yeah, having dinner with him might have been cool, too.)

What a fascinating life. Romain de Tirtoff (his initials, when pronounced in French, sound like Erte, hence the moniker) was Russian-born artist who rose to fame with his elaborate costumes, set designs and fashion illustrations gracing the covers of Harper’s Bazaar. A second wave of appreciation in the 70s and 80s, from Art Deco-style prints of his fantastical designs, allowed him to flourish professionally up to his death at age 97.

His work has a bit of everything I love. There’s geometry and exquisite symmetry, vibrant colors and flamboyant details, from beads to feathers to striking curvatures. The costumes depicted are the love children of Bob Mackie and Marie Antoinette’s dressmaker, born in the 30s and thrown onto the stage. What’s not to love?

Postcards are fine for now, but imagine a real print. Larger than life above my fireplace, it might knock the vintage Lolita movie poster of its throne. Until the next museum shop trip…and the next obsession, perhaps.

Maybe it’s because Rachel Zoe wore the color in a recent photograph (and Tweeted about it when asked what the shade was). Or perhaps the memory was triggered when my mother-in-law recently treated me to a pedicure, and I opted for the darkest shade available. And then there’s the alleged resurgence of 90s fashion — bodysuits and all — just in time for the return of Melrose Place. (Excuse me while I briefly cringe.)  Whatever the case, I’ve got Vamp on the brain.

The shade that launched the dark-polish trend was not yet a phenomenon when I first laid eyes on it. I was 13, awkward and new to tony South Florida when a cosmopolitan (read: wealthy) friend of mine took me under her wing and guided me to the holy grail: The Chanel Counter at Bloomingdale’s.

The buffet of rich cosmetics, the exquisite simple packaging–I hadn’t the faintest clue what it all really meant. But the words on the bottle were in French. And it looked fancy, important. The saleswoman was prim and plastic, dressed in head-to-toe black. She may have been used to our kind. I held the bottle of Vamp. That color! Forbidden, blood-red and so completely adult. My friend casually plunked down the $15–wages from a full night of babysitting, in my world–and walked away with the latest craze.

In all my years of coveting beautiful things, this may have been a defining moment. There was the psychological effect–that powerful branding, weaseling its way into my impressionable mind. Surely there had to be some connection: The girl with the perfect violet bedroom and tanned skin wore Chanel. (And this impression endures when I see someone carrying the house’s iconic quilted bag.) But this was also the first time I recall caring about style. I had an opinion. I was taken with this polish, and, somehow, I was attuned to its significance.

The outfits we wore in the 90s did us few favors. What about long, spaghetti-strap dresses paired with t-shirts looked stylish? Oversize flannels? My 7th grade dance photos make me shudder. This is the case looking back at any decade’s trends; we know how this story goes.

Vamp is the exception. It reached cult status, sold out everywhere and spawned a gazillion similar shades. But even when it faded from fashion, it was never an outcast, a “I-can’t-believe-we-wore-that” scenario. It had its place. And like the perfect ballet-slipper pink or true red, it will always look chic.*

I’m sure I was just a sponge then–for the marketing, the brand’s aura, for whatever my more sophisticated friends were doing at the time. But as I continue to form opinions on style*, I like to think I was onto something bigger that day.

* particularly on very short nails (like mine)

* style, not fashion. They are two different things, and I am not a fashion authority.