once upon a time, everything was magic

when magic smelled like sugar and everything felt golden

hello.

i’ve always believed in magic.
i just never thought it would end up behind a paywall.

i say this with genuine unease. it’s not the love of disney that unsettles me, it’s the intensity. the hoarding. the collections. the manufactured whimsy. the kind of unchecked consumption that feels more like devotion than fandom. it’s like watching nostalgia turn into obsession, and obsession turn into content.

the films have lost their soul. the parks feel overrun and overbuilt. everything is about the next release, the next drop, the next way to monetize a feeling. it’s not about story or magic anymore. it’s about content. consumption. spectacle. the magic has been boiled down into something branded and hyper-optimized, and people still eat it up.

and yet, despite all of this, i still find myself loving disneyland.

not in the loud, costume wearing, merch collecting way. or in the way that requires themed water bottles or a curated instagram feed. my love lives somewhere quieter and interior. the kind of love that lingers from childhood, untouched by irony or adulthood’s need to explain everything away. it’s not about the brand or the spectacle. it’s about a feeling. and no matter how much has changed, that feeling hasn’t fully disappeared. that feeling flickers back to life every time i smell vanilla. not just any vanilla, the vanilla that used to float down main street in the late afternoon, mingling with cinnamon sugar and warm waffle cones. the scent of churros being pulled fresh from the fryer, dusted with sugar and handed over with a smile and the way the air always smelled a little buttery, a little sweet, like a dream you could almost touch. it was decadent and artificial in the best possible way. like the world was pausing to give you a treat. even now, years later, the smallest hint of that smell takes me back. not to the disneyland that exists today, but to the one i remember. the one that felt safe and the place that felt like home.

i was lucky enough to grow up in southern california during what felt like disneyland’s golden hour. the late nineties and early 2000s, when everything still felt a little grainy and golden, like an old home video. california adventure had just opened, and it still played the beach boys on loop near the pier. the rollercoaster was still called california screamin’. a proper, thrilling name before it was flattened into another branded pixar ride. the tower of terror still loomed in its full, eerie glory, and the park hadn’t yet been buried under layers of intellectual property and forced nostalgia.

it felt untouched back then. a little faded around the edges, but in a good way. like it hadn’t been polished for the internet yet. there were no mobile apps or lightning lanes or people filming every second of their day for content. it wasn’t about aesthetics or followers or what you wore. it was about how it felt. and it felt real. or at least real enough.

maybe i was just too young to see the wires or maybe i wanted to believe in the illusion. but there was something about that version of disneyland that felt like it belonged to us. not the corporation or the influencers. us. the kids eating mickey-shaped ice cream bars with chocolate on our cheeks, the families watching fireworks with churro dust on their fingers, the dancers running through the hotel hallways with hairspray in our lungs and glitter in our shoes. that was the disney i knew. the disney that felt like magic without having to try so hard.

(this post is free, but if you enjoy this newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber and be part of a smaller circle where things feel a little softer, a little more personal, you’ll get early access to my youtube videos and a weekly media consumption roundup filled with articles, video essays, podcasts, and other references to make you smarter. i’d love to have you there)

for eighteen years, i did ballet. i was also on a competitive dance team, which meant most weekends were spent in tights and rhinestones, in studios or echoing auditoriums filled with hairspray and nerves. but the disneyland competitions were different. they were the highlight. every year, we’d pack into cars and hotel rooms, lugging garment bags and curling irons and too many cans of glitter spray. we’d stay at the disney hotels and slip into the parks between routines, still wearing false lashes and red lipstick, our competition jackets donned over leotards and tights and sequins catching in the sun.

there was something surreal about riding space mountain with adrenaline still pulsing through your body from just having danced on a stage. or standing in line for ice cream while your hair was still frozen in a perfect bun and walking through the park with your team, laughing so hard your ribs hurt, eating pretzels and churros with stage makeup smudged under your eyes. those weekends felt suspended in time. untouchable. the energy was electric, the joy was real, and for once, nothing felt heavy.

they were some of the only moments in my childhood that weren’t marked by something difficult. and because of that, disneyland became more than just a theme park to me. it became a safe place in my memory. a setting where i was allowed to be joyful. where i didn’t have to flinch or brace or explain. it didn’t matter that it wasn’t perfect. what mattered was how it made me feel at the time. light. like i could breathe. like i belonged to something soft and glittering and good. and that’s the version of disney i carry with me. not the corporate one, not the crowded one, but the one that gave me something golden to hold onto when i needed it most.

later, i went through a phase of resentment. i hated what disney had become. the endless branding. the corporate greed. the artificial joy. the parks felt less like a place and more like a backdrop for marketing. everything was curated for photos, every snack had a hashtag, every moment felt sponsored. the films were forgettable, the storytelling hollow, and yet the hype machine never slowed down. it was disorienting. like watching someone you once loved grow into something unrecognizable. and the worst part was how many adults leaned into it. not just with enthusiasm, but with identity. there was no irony, no distance, just a kind of relentless cheerfulness that felt more like denial than joy. it didn’t feel magical anymore. it felt manic.

but recently, i’ve softened.

not toward disney as a company. they continue to represent a lot of what’s wrong with our culture: excess, commodification, nostalgia as product. the magic now feels licensed and shrink wrapped, hollowed out and sold back to us in pieces. but i’ve softened toward myself. toward the version of me that still wants to walk down main street, eat a churro, and feel ten years old again. the version that doesn’t care how curated it all is, as long as it still smells like vanilla and cinnamon and something sweet enough to believe in. i’ve stopped shaming that part of me. because there’s something important about letting yourself feel joy, even if it’s simple. even if it’s tied to a version of the past that no longer exists.

nostalgia isn’t always regression. sometimes it’s survival. when the world feels heavy, we all reach for something light. sometimes that’s a cartoon or an old song or a smell or a film you’ve seen a hundred times. sometimes it’s a place that doesn’t feel quite real anymore, but still lives in you like muscle memory. nostalgia can be a kind of self-parenting. it can be a way to remember who you were before the burnout, before the image management, before adulthood chipped away at your softness.

the key is holding it gently. not using it to disappear, but to reconnect. to comfort your inner child without lying to your current self. because the truth is, disney today is not what it was. and it never will be. but that doesn’t mean i can’t remember it. and it doesn’t mean i can’t let a part of me believe in it again. not for what it is, but for what it meant.

there’s a fragrance that reminds me of all of this. fugazzi’s vanilla haze. it smells like waffle cones and cinnamon sugar churros, like warm nights on main street when everything felt safe and golden. it’s sweet, but not in a cheap way. it’s comforting, nostalgic, a little dreamlike. it smells like being ten years old and holding my mom’s hand, like laughing with a churro in one hand and the whole world still ahead of me.

and maybe that’s all i really want. not to live in the past, but to visit it. to remember the parts that felt untouched. to let something as simple as the scent of vanilla remind me that there was once magic, and that maybe, quietly, there still is.

i find that same feeling in the films i still return to.

my favorite disney films are the ones with soft color palettes and slower pacing. winnie the pooh, 101 dalmatians, cinderella, peter pan, sleeping beauty. they’re tender, a little sad, and completely unafraid to linger in silence. they don’t try to dazzle you. they just invite you in.

what i miss most, sometimes, are the opening titles of those old films. not the polished ones we have now, but the storybooks. the gold-lettered pages that opened slowly, set to sweeping strings. they felt like rituals. like the beginning of a dream. cinderella, sleeping beauty, snow white, they all began this way, with velvet music and reverence. they weren’t in a rush. they made space for wonder before anything else. and somehow, that space felt sacred. like the film itself was asking you to believe.

but it wasn’t just disney.

there were other worlds that raised me.

the soft watercolor hedgerows of brambly hedge, where mice wore bonnets and planned seasonal feasts in hollow tree trunks. the gentle melancholy of frog and toad, who taught me that love could look like baking cookies for someone even when you’re sad. the delicate ink lines of beatrix potter, where every creature had a little coat and an emotional inner life, and even the foxes felt somehow elegant. these books didn’t need high stakes and they didn’t teach lessons in the obvious way. they just showed you what it looked like to live a quiet, thoughtful life. a life with routines. with tea. with soft blankets and handwritten notes. they understood the rhythm of childhood… the kind that doesn’t need plot, just mood. a teacup. a mushroom. a window with the rain against it. a gentle friendship that says: you’re safe here.

and then there were the cartoons.

slow, or strange, and devastatingly sincere. my neighbor totoro, kiki’s delivery service, sailor moon, little bear, madeline, the world of peter rabbit and friends. they moved like dreams. they let you sit in silence. they gave you time to feel things. ghibli films, especially, never rushed their magic. they understood that wonder lives in the in-between moments. the way steam rises from a cup of tea, or how the grass moves in the wind. sailor moon was different, but in a way that felt just as intimate. it was sparkly and pink and emotional and powerful, like watching girlhood become a force field. even now, just hearing the opening melody of a ghibli film or seeing the pastel shimmer of sailor moon’s transformation sequence can make me emotional. not because i miss being a child, but because those stories made space for softness. they made space for wonder.

sometimes i think these books and shows gave me a kind of emotional language that real life didn’t. they taught me how to pay attention and recognize tenderness as its own kind of strength.

---

i’ve found that same feeling in books, too. not children’s books, but novels that carry the hush of memory. stories that feel sunlit and ghostly all at once. they’re not about nostalgia, but they make me feel it. they feel like a place i once knew.

a few books that still hold that feeling:

– rebecca by daphne du maurier
– a room with a view by e.m. forster
– jane eyre by charlotte brontë
– the sea, the sea by iris murdoch
– bonjour tristesse by françoise sagan

---

to close out… a few more fragrances carry that feeling for me. like little time machines. not loud or complicated, just soft, familiar, and full of memory.

vanilla haze by fugazzi
the scent of warm waffle cones and cinnamon sugar churros. main street in the early 2000s. a golden evening with my mom’s hand in mine.

lull by gabar
orange blossom and black tea, soft red apples, a whisper of cherry and rose. it smells like curling up under a blanket with a book you’ve read a hundred times. like the calm that comes after the crying.

molecule 01 + iris by escentric molecules
barely there, but beautiful. soft iris over warm skin. it smells like silence in a sunlit room. like being alone, but not lonely. like the feeling of waking up early on a saturday with nothing to do.

white rice by d’annam
gentle and milky. it smells like comfort food and quiet kitchens, like jasmine steamed into rice and warm memories passed down. it’s tender, familiar, and deeply human.

snow moon magic by sorce
lavender sugar and vanilla milk and chai spice. like sipping something warm while watching the snow fall. it smells like kiki’s delivery service in a bottle. cozy, magical, and a little sleepy in the best way.

sometimes a scent is the only way back. sometimes it’s the only thing that knows how to find you.

they’re haunted in the quietest way. full of longing, loneliness, pale mornings, and sun-warmed afternoons. they remind me that beauty doesn’t always shout. sometimes it just waits patiently for you to return to it.

and maybe that’s what nostalgia really is. not an escape, but a return. not to the world as it was, but to the way you once felt inside it.

(leaving you with a comforting playlist)

okay, that’s all for today.

if you’re curious about sampling you can use my link at scent split for a discount on all samples and full size bottles

if you’re not ready to become a paid subscriber and you have the capacity to leave a tip, that would be so appreciated.

i love you.

bye.

(follow ig, tiktok, youtube, pinterest and spotify for more)