SCENTS OF WELL-BEING

There’s no turning back from certain sensual landmarks: sleeping on linen sheets, tasting the Russian Tea Room’s blini with red caviar and sour cream, getting a back rub from someone who knows his business, and living with pot-pourri-the good stuff, that is. Potpourri-a mixture of dried flowers, leaves, and other scented ingredients-has been around for centuries, but it never struck me as a necessity of civilized life until a few months back, when I got some as a present.

In fact, before making the acquaintance of the potpourri in question, my emotions concerning potpourri were negative in the extreme. My memories of potpourris in the past involved adjectives such as soapy, sickly sweet, and overbearing. When, for this story, 1 test-sniffed Claire Burke and Scarborough potpourri, available in a number of local stores, those adjectives came back to mind.

My gift potpourri was Agra-ria, a mysterious but uplifting New Wave potpourri (it’s been around since 1973, although it’s made from an old English recipe) produced in San Francisco, and available in Dallas at Arresta and the Polo Shop. Agraria co-owner Maurice Gibson agrees that no other pot-pourri on the market smells like Agraria. “We use a lot of Spanish orange peel to balance the rose petals and lavender, and also cut the sweetness with spices-cassia, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, mace, nutmeg, and rosemary. A lot of men like to use Agraria in their offices because it’s not a strictly feminine scent, like so many potpourris.”

Agraria doesn’t come cheap, with prices ranging from $10 for a small sachet to $45 for a twelve-ounce bag. Still, it does last-for a good six months, according to Gibson, at least if it’s kept in a covered wooden or ceramic container. And from my six-ounce box, I distributed it throughout my apartment and office and still had enough left over for a sachet for the car. (Agraria enthusiasts know that Agraria candles, while delightful, are an entirely different, balsam-based scent.)

Now that I’m a potpourri convert, I’m planning to make it my standard, all-purpose present because it is luxurious, addictive-and, most important, the sort of thing that people are unlikely to buy for themselves. Of course, for present-giving purposes, a creative container adds exponentially to the perceived value of gift potpourri.

It’s hard to imagine a container that could go over better with post-modern pals than Michael Garratt’s pillared and pedimented potpourri boxes, which range from a single-column version ($40) to the six-teen-column mini-Parthenon ($720). The Greek-influenced containers, which come filled with sandalwood in the smaller models and myrrh in the larger ones, are part of “Classic Style: One at Arresta,” a recently opened exhibit at Arresta that features cabanas, pillow shams, napkins, stationery, furniture, and clothing with a classical motif.