About Luminis
aphantasia: the inability to voluntarily create images in one's mind.
olfactory memory: relating to the recollection of scents.
Luminis was born gradually. I've always had a very strong scent memory, experiencing "deja vu" and being strongly reminded of places, people, and experiences just from whiffs of certain scents. More recently, I learned that this might be connected to my inability to visualize internally-- I happened across a Twitter thread written by a user with aphantasia, which I had never heard of, but suddenly everyone was discovering whether or not they could imagine a photo-realistic apple in their heads, as depicted by the following suspiciously low-resolution image:
And I discovered that "mental image" was not a figure of speech, and that I actually lacked the ability to think in pictures.
I've also always enjoyed participating in fandom for video games, anime, and so on. Fairly early in my fandom "career," so to speak, I began producing fan merch, but struggled to conceptualize designs and illustrations, leading to work I was never happy with. Late last year, tangential knowledge of things like fandom teas and fancy official perfumes from game companies coalesced into the initial thought of "what if it was themed candles?"
My partner got me a cheap little DIY candle kit for Christmas so I could get my bearings with a new medium, and the rest is history. I've been exercising a part of my brain I didn't know was special, and harnessing my penchant for associating scents with things to create blends of fragrances themed on characters and locations from games, eventually branching out into standalone scents that aren't themed on anything and are just a result of me playing with fragrance.
I set out with the mission to communicate the "essence" of these characters, places, feelings, and other themes, without using visual aids-- but if you're a person who does visualize things mentally, perhaps you'll be able to close your eyes, inhale, and experience what I experience.
olfactory memory: relating to the recollection of scents.
Luminis was born gradually. I've always had a very strong scent memory, experiencing "deja vu" and being strongly reminded of places, people, and experiences just from whiffs of certain scents. More recently, I learned that this might be connected to my inability to visualize internally-- I happened across a Twitter thread written by a user with aphantasia, which I had never heard of, but suddenly everyone was discovering whether or not they could imagine a photo-realistic apple in their heads, as depicted by the following suspiciously low-resolution image:
And I discovered that "mental image" was not a figure of speech, and that I actually lacked the ability to think in pictures.
I've also always enjoyed participating in fandom for video games, anime, and so on. Fairly early in my fandom "career," so to speak, I began producing fan merch, but struggled to conceptualize designs and illustrations, leading to work I was never happy with. Late last year, tangential knowledge of things like fandom teas and fancy official perfumes from game companies coalesced into the initial thought of "what if it was themed candles?"
My partner got me a cheap little DIY candle kit for Christmas so I could get my bearings with a new medium, and the rest is history. I've been exercising a part of my brain I didn't know was special, and harnessing my penchant for associating scents with things to create blends of fragrances themed on characters and locations from games, eventually branching out into standalone scents that aren't themed on anything and are just a result of me playing with fragrance.
I set out with the mission to communicate the "essence" of these characters, places, feelings, and other themes, without using visual aids-- but if you're a person who does visualize things mentally, perhaps you'll be able to close your eyes, inhale, and experience what I experience.