The Moodboard No. 01 | Escapism Through Scent

The Emotional Support Tomato Leaf

all image sources at end

Earlier this month, I fell down a tomato leaf-scented rabbit hole.

It started with a candle from HomeGoods—as many good things do. Just a trendy little treat for $15.99. I didn’t buy it because it was the most transformative thing I’d ever smelled, but because it gave me somewhere to go.

A few hours and twenty browser tabs later, by the light (and aroma) of my new candle, I’d surfaced from a deep dive into all things tomato leaf culture. I learned the word trichomes, read articles about former Loewe director Jonathan Anderson’s cultural impact, discovered Erwin Fontin’s dramatic botanical photos, fell into poetic essays on scent memory, and rounded it all out with a surprisingly thorough history of tomato leaf as a fragrance note.

It was the first time in months I’d wanted to learn about something for no reason other than sheer curiosity.

Naturally, it became a moodboard:

sources

The fact that we’re here at all feels... unexpected. I have never experienced a “Tomato Girl Summer” and have a general ambivalence towards tomatoes—let alone smelling like them. But when your interest in anything has been absent for what feels like forever, you take the opportunity and run with it.

Of course I had to legitimize the whole thing with a quote from my current read, The Creative Act: A Way of Being:

“The ability to look deeply is the root of creativity. To see past the ordinary and the mundane and get to what might otherwise be invisible.” - Rick Rubin

Down the Rabbit Hole

So, the "tomato leaf" scent? It comes from the tiny hairs on the plant's stems and leaves—trichomes—which release green leaf volatiles: aldehydes and alcohols that smell vividly alive. Slightly bitter, warm, peppery, green.

What I love about this scent is that it’s not trying too hard. It’s nostalgic without being too sweet, clean without being sterile. It’s the kind of candle that reminds you to, ironically, go outside. Maybe even to keep going.

If you’ve been craving something grounding lately, this might be your scent.

Tomato leaf first appeared in the ‘90s with Demeter’s cult-favorite Tomato, which was more niche than a crowd-pleaser. Through the 2000s, it quietly grounded fragrances from luxury retailers like L’Artisan Parfumeur, Diptyque, and Hermès.

But it wasn’t until 2020 that it really caught on. Suddenly, collectively, we craved everything real in response to our isolated worlds, and Tomato leaf didn’t smell like perfume; it smelled like summer gardens and farmers’ markets.

Loewe understood the assignment. Their 2020 Tomato Leaves launch—was iconic, and nearly edible.

sexy loewe tomatoes (sources at end)

Since then, everyone from Flamingo Estate to your local grocery store has offered their interpretation. It’s everywhere. Quietly supporting the collective nervous system— connecting us to something fresh, stable, and reliable.

We all know scent is powerful. I mean, one whiff of Clinique Happy and I’m back in my childhood bedroom, getting ready to go to the mall with my best friend. A full-body memory of feeling “cool.”

Following the Scent

Maybe your current thread isn’t tomato leaves. Maybe it’s hydrangeas, a specific color palette, or an outfit from White Lotus. Whatever it is—can I suggest following it? It’s quite fun.

Falling down a low-stakes rabbit hole of scent and symbolism simply because I could. Something I could research, collect, and try to understand. A beautiful distraction.

This is why I’ve always loved trends. They offer a constant invitation to explore topics you might never otherwise consider, a sense of direction when you don’t already have one (capitalist hellscape implications acknowledged, of course).

But that’s the point of all this. A trend, a candle, a scent—it doesn’t have to mean everything. But sometimes, it can mean enough. Enough to pull you through the week.

I’d love to know—what’s a recent aesthetic fixation you’ve had?

---

That’s it for this week’s The Moodboard. Back next week with more obsessions, textures, and little lifelines.
See you next week. I’ll keep the light on.

---

📸 Explore the full visual archive for this essay.

---