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The best hotel makes you feel far fancier than you get to be at home: crisp sheets, airy rooms, top-of-the-line soaps, an in-house bartender. You are basically cosplaying a rich person. Even better is when you can find sneaky ways to bring this luxury home with you. Maybe you're pocketing some of those tiny bottles of geranium leaf body cleanser. For me, recently, it's been all about finding out how to make my apartment smell like a cool hotel room—specifically, a room at the Rose Hotel in Venice, CA.
I recently capped off a trip to LA with a few days at the Rose, where I'd wake up and have my little French press and locally baked croissant, then walk a hundred feet to the beach and read until I got bored or sunburnt or both. It's essentially a really nice beach house, minimally appointed in cool grey tones and beachy, hollywood-adjacent art. It feels like the sort of place that comes with its own foggy Instagram filter. And when you walk into your room, the aroma alone makes you feel like you are in a completely different tax bracket. It's refreshing, citrusy and just earthy enough to make you not feel like you're in an upscale Bath and Body Works. It makes you not want to leave the room, to cuddle under your striped Pendleton blanket forever.
The very friendly (also way cooler than me but it's fine!) staff told me that the essential oil they burn in their Muji diffusers is from Aesop, just like their soaps and shampoos, which are still hiding in my medicine cabinet for a rainy day. I procured the diffuser and the oil (maybe the same price per weight as high-end truffle oil) and now, reader, my apartment smells much more like a fancy hotel room and much less like the anchovy pasta I cooked for dinner last night. Bonus points for the fact that, unlike most essential oil diffusers, the Muji model is not ugly.
Some people like to bring home trinkets from their travels, which is great! I'm so happy about the Dollywood keychain my best friend brought me! But finding ways to make your home life a little bit more like your occasional-and-somewhat-luxurious travel life can be even an even better addition to your home than, say, that wall hanging you were considering. Or you can just buy the oil and skip the trip. Up to you.
