It’s the most wonderful time of the year for HGTV stars Ben and Erin Napier, who are celebrating the 20th anniversary of “Love Week,” the title they’ve affectionately given to the span of days from December 8-15 when they met at college, fell in love and decided they were meant to be together forever.
The “Home Town” stars have shared many stories of their college meet-cute and the days that followed in social media posts and their book, “Make Something Good Today.” But on December 8, 2024, Erin revealed a new tidbit: how she preserved the perfume she was wearing when she fell for her future husband.
In her Instagram Stories, the mom of two shared that she managed to use remnants of the discontinued scent and her keen sense of smell to create a fragrant candle that she, Ben and their daughters — Helen, 6, and Mae, 3 — can enjoy for years to come.
Erin Napier Stocked Up on Perfume for Years Until She Nearly Ran Out
In 2022, Erin opened The Scent Library, a brick-and-mortar store in her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi, that sells her carefully curated candle collection and other scented accessories, all based on the designer’s favorite scents.
“This is a strange skill I’ve had since childhood, the ability for photographic recall of events and people and things in my life from a scent,” she wrote on social media at the time. “But I reverse engineer it too: the day I smell something new and wonderful I remember everything about that fragrance, internalize it, and make a way to go back to that time with the sniff of a candle.”
In a series of Instagram Stories, Erin explained how she managed to save the unnamed scent she was wearing when she first met Ben and turn it, too, into a candle appropriately called “Young Love.”
“The week we met I wore a perfume,” she began her story, adding, “it was new and it became completely tied up in my memory of that week.”
Erin continued, “I wore it every year only during december for many years after that. even though it had been discontinued in 2004.”
In a second Story, she wrote, “But then it became harder to find. until i couldn’t find it anywhere anymore. i had one half of a bottle left from all those years ago. but i knew i was on borrowed time, a few more years would turn it into expensive rubbing alcohol.”
“And then the memory of that perfect week that changed my life would fade a little bit more too,” Erin worried. “i could never go back once it’s lost.”
Posting a photo of the half-used spray bottle of perfume, Erin wrote, “that’s all that was left.”
Erin Napier Says She’s ‘Obsessed With Saving My Memories’
Discovery+/HGTVErin continued by sharing in another Instagram Story, “it’s not an exaggeration to say that the @scentlibrary.lmco exists because i became obsessed with saving my memories. this one, specifically. so i sent what little bit i had left to our fragrance house and crossed my fingers.”
Over a video of a “Young Love” candle burning, Erin wrote, “and now that scent memory still exists and our daughters will know it, too.”
The Laurel Mercantile website, where the candle is available for $27.99, says the candle’s “scent notes” are Sundust Orchid & Myrrh, making it “spicy and floral and utterly magical.”
For the product description, Erin wrote, “In the fall of my sophomore year of college, I bought a tiny bottle of perfume that became my signature fragrance. I was wearing it the week Ben and I met in December 2004 and it became so much a part of that experience that when I smell the rich, spicy and floral scent of it I am 19 years old again.”
“Christmas is coming and I’ve met my husband, my future home,” she continued. “We took the tiny remnant of that fragrance that no longer exists and saved it forever as Young Love. I can light this candle and always remember: this is what falling in love feels like.”
Erin has captured the scents of many other precious memories for candles available in her shop, including Pancake Day in Laurel, Summer ’99, and Saturday Morning in the Grove. Meanwhile, the scent she created to benefit the Salvation Army in 2023 was so popular that it’s been restocked for the 2024 holiday season.
Comments
How Erin Napier Preserved a Discontinued Perfume for Her Daughters: ‘I Became Obsessed’