Today the elevator smelled like vanilla.
Not the cloying, synthetic kind from cheap sprays, but real vanilla — warm, creamy, with a light sweetness, as if someone had just taken a tray of fresh buns out of the oven and carried it past me. For a moment, I felt like I wasn’t in a residential building anymore, but in a small bakery, with fresh éclairs in the display window and powdered sugar hanging in the air.
Usually, elevators smell like nothing. Sometimes like other people’s perfume, dust, or wet clothes after the rain. But today it was different. The scent of vanilla made this metal box unexpectedly cozy, almost alive. The mirrors, buttons, and steel walls stayed exactly the same, but the feeling shifted completely. I even caught myself standing there, breathing in, as if trying to figure out where the smell was coming from.
Maybe a neighbor was riding up with a bag of pastries. Or someone spilled coffee with vanilla syrup. Or maybe it was someone’s perfume with a soft vanilla note. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that for a few seconds, a space that usually feels completely impersonal turned into a place with atmosphere.
I think people almost never notice things like this. Most of the time, everyone is standing there, buried in their phone or staring at their reflection in the mirror, just waiting for their floor. A silent transport from point A to point B. And yet, it’s these random, accidental details that quietly shape the mood of the day.
It’s interesting how scent can change a space more than any decor ever could. Smell feels like a kind of magic — the quietest and least conscious of our senses, yet the one most capable of suddenly pulling up a memory, triggering a feeling, or shifting a mood before we even realize it.
I like to think that aesthetics isn’t about beautiful objects or perfect interiors. It’s about how small details and fleeting moments suddenly come together into an image. Like today: the smell of vanilla in an elevator assembled a whole scene for me — morning, a small bakery, sunlight on a display window. All of it inside an ordinary elevator.
The scent disappeared almost immediately after I stepped out. But a certain lightness stayed, as if the day had started a little more pleasantly.
Who would have thought that even an elevator could set the tone for the whole day — if you simply manage to notice it.