Filigree & Shadow

Photo of 7 year old Diana Crespo sitting with her parents at a table in a restaurant. Her dad is giving a thumbs up.

The public made noise for Liam Ramos and it got him released from Dilley.

Now we must make noise for 7 year old Diana Crespo.

Her parents were taking her for emergency medical care when ICE grabbed them, and she’s rotting in the camp sick and exposed to measles.

Get them out!

Volunteer!

If nothing else brings me happiness in Amsterdam, it’s that almost every taxi I see in the city is a Tesla.

So when I return Sunday for our remaining weeks in Seattle before our final exit, it will be with gratitude in my cold, dead heart that Tesla owners in the U.S. are glorified taxi drivers.

OMG, Boo, twinsies! Only this week is an exception.

Thanks, Boo!
(Why are you up so early?)

I’ve arrived in Amsterdam. Tomorrow is the official check-in when I can have the keys, and then I’ll be busy the rest of the week setting up the apartment for us and the cats when we officially arrive in 27 days.

Added a legend and filtering UI to www.scentedatlas.com. I’ll continue to refine the popup text, but the site is coming along nicely! #fragrancesky #perfumesky

Our friend Alexandra had a break-in overnight. If you’re on Capitol Hill today, stop in at Alexandra’s Macarons and support a woman-owned small business. #seattle

Screenshot of a text message conversation. At the top, a gray message bubble reads, “What happened?! Hold please.” Below it are three consecutive animated GIFs featuring a drag queen in pink outfits with exaggerated makeup and blonde wigs. The first GIF includes bold text reading “OH HONEY.” The next shows the queen seated sideways in a pink outfit. The final GIF shows two drag queens side by side, with the word “HONEY” visible near the left figure. Beneath the GIFs, a gray message bubble reads, “Ohhhhhhh.” The message status at the bottom says “Delivered.”

Me doing the Lord’s work. #LasCulturistas

To do:
• Add a legend and filters for UI clarity.
• Add more information to the popups.

In the words of Agnes Gooch, I think I’ll fix myself a Dr. Pepper.

Just finished the first round of changes to Scented Atlas:
• Using Airtable to collect, normalize, and steward submissions from perfumers and boutiques.
• Using Leaflet to render the map in the browser with OpenStreetMap providing the basemap tiles.

Hopefully I can make this transition in the next few days, then share the website with a wider audience of fellow perfumers who want to take part in this.

I want to de-Google my personal and professional selves as much as possible. I started www.scentedatlas.com using Google Sheets and Google Maps, so my plan is to switch to Airtable and OpenStreetMap, respectively.

#perfumesky

🤞 My request is taken seriously without me having to wake up my lawyer from his den under the volcano.

If, like me, you found your brand name being used on Amazon without your consent, you can send an email to legal@amazon.com.

Remember the human and be polite, as the person who receives your email had nothing to do with the actions of their employer.

Screenshot of a search bar with the text “filigree and shad” typed in. Below it, an autocomplete suggestion reads “filigree and shadow perfume,” with a magnifying glass icon to the left and a close (“X”) icon on the right side of the search field.

FYI (btw), I closed my fragrance studio at the end of September, pending a move to Belgium with my husband and our cats.

I am not selling my now discontinued fragrance line on Amazon. The site is using my brand name for shoppers to find similar fragrances, like… Estée Lauder.

So that’s fun.

I’m so excited to see what the New Year brings.

Thank you for sticking around. I hope you have a safe, healthy, and Happy New Year. As I often liked to say to my studio visitors, “Make good choices!” 🖤

• I introduced my fragrances to attendees of the VIN + OMI fashion show in London.
• I closed my studio in preparation for moving to Europe (still in progress).
• I got to meet my grand-niece.

I also got to spend time with my siblings many several times, and I met so many amazing people this year.

• I got to see mybestfriendfromslowdiveRachelGoswell. (This must be said at lightning speed, finished with tucking one’s hair behind their ear.)
• With your continued support of my business, I was able to make several donations to charitable organizations helping people locally and across the globe.

A grid-style collage combining graphics, photos, and text: a faceted pink heart icon; a block of written testimonial text; a photo of two people smiling inside a perfume shop; donation totals labeled ‘Laughing with a Mouthful of Blood’ ($8,060.50, 2023–2025), ‘Real Rent Duwamish’ ($2,484.00, 2021–2025), and ‘To Bring You My Love’ ($3,500.00, 2024–2025); images of Filigree & Shadow perfume samples and packaging; an empty black-walled studio space; and a close-up of an adult hand gently holding a baby’s foot.

What a year it’s been.
• I launched my last fragrance “Closest to My Heart.”
• An unnamed poet laureate wrote what has to be the best review ever written for a fragrance, featuring “Maggie’s Last Party.”

Thank you. 🖤 My deepest condolences and sympathies to you and your family. May her memory be a blessing.

The holidays can be messy for a lot of us. I hope you are loved and loving, and that you are safe, warm, and healthy.

Christmas Eve hits a little different for me nowadays. Some good, some bad. But I was able to transform my emotions into fragrance that allowed us all to feel something visceral, and that is truly a blessing.

An editor at Fragrantica called A Way To Say Goodbye “a masterpiece.” I also received emails, messages, and comments from customers who shared their stories about their moms with me, and what the fragrance meant to them personally.

Perfume is art, and it is transformative.

I learned to take a cue from musicians I admire, that once their music is made and shared with the world, it is no longer theirs. People will either love or hate what you’ve made, but it’s theirs to do what they choose.

A flat lay collage on a wooden floor featuring several vintage and candid photographs of a woman at different stages of life—feeding a baby, holding a newborn, reading with a child, and smiling in casual indoor settings—arranged around a Filigree & Shadow perfume labeled ‘A Way to Say Goodbye,’ shown both as a roll-on bottle and its boxed packaging.

My therapist suggested that I sell this fragrance I made in memory of my mom. And so I released A Way To Say Goodbye.

Then there’s the chypre perfume she used to wear. We shared a similar proclivity for patchouli wrapping itself around our skin just a little tighter. Some things are inherently genetic.

I worked on a fragrance sketch to help channel my energy into something more than waiting when the minutes drag. It was a memory of the pack of sugar-free peppermint gum she always kept in her leather purse, forever underneath her cosmetics bag.

My husband prepared me with the reality that my final moments with her might be via FaceTime. I wasn’t sure what I would be able to say beyond “I love you.” She passed away 18 days later on Christmas Eve. I never had that final moment.

Five years ago I received a phone call from Swedish in Denver that my mom was admitted after testing positive for COVID-19. The news left me in a state where I was either cleaning my house or lying on the floor.