Why do I want my house to smell like a church?

My favorite Trudon scent is Carmélite, a candle inspired by the Carmelites, a hermetic religious order founded on Mount Carmel in Palestine in the 12th century. Carmelites are devoted to contemplation, and Carmelite nuns pray eight hours a day, cloistered in monasteries where they have taken a vow of poverty. So it makes sense that their expensive candle of the same name would be inspired by the cold, mossy stone walls. Carmélite has notes of geranium, orange, cardamom, clove, patchouli, violet, cedar, and sandalwood, and yet somehow it is there: cold stone, earthy moss.

In my quest for the perfect church scent, I’ve come up with the stone scent the most. Maison Oriza L Legrand, a French perfume house founded in 1720 by the court perfumer to Louis XV, has a signature scent: Relique d’Amour, my favorite, which also comes in soap form (the dramatic tins are great for lighter storage). Relique d’Amour is packed with notes of white lily, foliage, frankincense, and myrrh, as well as various wood and resin extracts, and it lives up to its inspiration: “the abandoned chapel of a Cistercian abbey, cold, moss-covered stone walls, the smell of polished wood, tabernacle, and ornate pews.” Oriza L Legrand’s scent pyramid doesn’t include the words “cold,” “stone,” or “moss,” but they’re all there. The stone wall is so real that you feel like you could stick your forehead against it.

The 800-year-old perfumery Santa Maria Novella (or, if you want to be official, the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella) has its origins in a garden tended by the Dominican friars of the Convent of Santa Maria Novella, which is next to the Florence apothecary where you can buy their products today. The house makes one of the best church perfumes that ever cost so much money (and even less than church perfumes). that (for a lot of money) can buy: Carta d’Armenia burning papers, coated with a proprietary blend of resins and spices. The papers come in a small red box printed in Gothic script; one folds one like an accordion, lights it in an ashtray, and lets it burn slowly, filling the room with ecclesiastical vapor.

There are also newer home fragrances that still feel like they belong in a cathedral, or at least in the decor of one. Like a prayerMadonna’s music videos from that era. Just take Female Christ from 19-69 – patchouli, red thyme, wintergreen, benzoin – inspired by a 1969 performance by artists Lene Adler Petersen and Bjørn Nørgaard in which they sent a naked woman carrying a cross through the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, or Rien from the Orange Free State – incense, rose, black pepper, oakmoss, aldehydes – described as “a venial sin about to become mortal.” (Incidentally, that’s how I hope to describe my next weekend.)

Of course, all these scents may seem a little disabled For the dog days of summer—or, more accurately, the early days of fall—when you want to cling to the smell of the beach, or something clean and sunny, or tropical. But in a way, what’s a better form of nostalgia for warmer climates than the smell of a church? If you’re on a summer vacation in Europe (did I mention I was on a summer vacation in Europe?), think of it this way: You’re walking down a narrow street, it’s blazing hot, and you don’t get much respite. The ice is melting on your arm, and you can’t order an iced coffee, because they don’t make them on the continent. But there’s one thing you can do: walk into a cool, dark cathedral, sit down, and breathe.