Lake & Skye's 11 11 Perfume Makes Me a Calmer Person (Really)

Perfume is personal. What smells good to me may not smell good to you—and vice versa. This is partly due to personal preference and partly due to personal pH, as perfume reacts differently depending on the wearer.  

I learned this tidbit firsthand, when I was a budding beauty editor at a magazine. My former boss, who was (and still is) an extremely stylish woman always floated into the office in a cloud of patchouli, which smelled incredible on her. Warm, mysterious and altogether inviting. To this day, whenever I catch a whiff of patchouli, I think of her. Anyway, I tried the exact same perfume on myself and it smelled vaguely of cat pee. Ok, it smelled strongly of cat pee.

Since then, I have learned that patchouli and ouds don’t do it for me. I’m more of white floral or musky amber gal myself, which is why Lake & Skye’s 11 11 fragrance has been my signature scent since for years now. 

Created by Courtney Somer, a long-time lover of fragrance and aromatherapy, each of the scents in the lineup are meant to be used as “gifts to give yourself throughout the day, whether you need an extra boost of confidence, a moment of gratitude or to balance mind and body.”

Suffice it to say that after a year like 2020, I have needed a lot of balancing of mind and body.

Since working from home, I have surprisingly found myself wearing perfume more often than before. Sure, I’m in the same shirt from yesterday, and sure, I may not have washed my hair since...the weekend, but damn if I don’t smell good.

I dab a little on my wrists and behind my ears before meetings and take a moment to breathe in the calming scent in those micro moments before the meeting actually starts. (Depending on how things went, I take a longer inhale after it ends, too.) 

According to Lake & Skye, the scent is “inspired by the teachings of Kundalini yoga and the color white” and “it captures the feel of skin after emerging from the ocean, mixed with a crisp texture and transparency.”

Agree on all fronts and you’ve got to love the imagery they evoke here, but if I were describing it to my best friend, I’d say that it reminds me of rolling around on freshly laundered sheets that are still slightly warm from the dryer. You feel cleaner, cleansed somehow when you smell it.

Whereas 11 11 used to only come in pocket-sized rollerballs, they’re also available in larger sized bottles, candles and body oil now. So yeah, my wish came true.