seaside hysteria

Apr 05, 2025

hello.

before we get into today’s letter, a quick announcement: tomorrow i’ll be sending out milk fed’s first q&a podcast for paid subscribers, 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, a weekly q&a audio podcast, and more. nothing polished. just human. i’d love to have you there

on to today’s letter…

the sea has always held something just beyond language. not serenity, but something stranger. something you feel in your chest when the fog rolls in too fast or when the wind changes direction without warning. seaside hysteria feels like a state of being. it’s the ache of memory in salt air, the tenderness of unraveling quietly, the grief that arrives without name or cause.

as someone who has a strong distaste for the beach and warmer months, writing this letter was a healthy challenge. there will always be a twinge of goth and melancholy in these letters because those are the lenses in which i view the world— or at least how i try to aestheticize it. —because that’s how i see the world, or at the very least, how i try to aestheticize it. the sun may be out, but i’m still finding shadows to sit in.

seaside hysteria gothic vibe check…

• the sea is louder than usual today. not just waves—something beneath them.

• there’s an island out there you don’t remember seeing before—like a dream that tasted like salt.

• the boardwalk games are all still running. the prizes hang untouched, faded by sun and sea air. someone wins once in a while, but no one remembers seeing them leave.

• sea mist rolls in like it knows your name. it swallows the shoreline, then parts around you.

• the foghorns sound like mourning. you shut your windows but you still hear them, pulsing through your chest like a memory you’re trying to forget.

seaside hysteria: a fragrance guide

somewhere between myth and memory, a woman walks into the sea.
her hair is tangled with salt, her dress is soaked in rain. she has written no letters, left no note. only a scent—something lilac-laced, storm-touched, or dusted in seaweed—lingers behind.

this letter is for her. and for all of us who know what it feels like to be a little windswept, a little weepy, a little undone by the sea.

this is not your list of warmer weather fragrances— these are scents for selkies, saints, and seaside dissociators. some are haunting. some are tender. all of them carry salt in their blood.

prelude to hysteria (the calm before the storm)

le labo – baie 19
rain on pavement, moss, petrichor, ozone. it doesn’t smell like the ocean—it smells like the air before the ocean arrives.
for: the girl who walks barefoot along the rocks before the sky breaks open. she’s not crying, but the air tastes like she might.
the kind of scent that makes you feel cinematic in grayscale. it’s the breath before the breakdown, the moment before the rain.

rain wood – perfumer h
galbanum, cedar, frankincense, moss, myrrh. a cold, green storm through a forest that leads to the sea.
for: a solitary figure in a raincoat, wandering the cliffs with mud on her boots and a secret lodged in her chest.
this is a damp, spiritual forest that doesn’t care if you’re okay. there’s incense in the background like you just passed a chapel, but it’s been abandoned for years.

swim – gabar
fig, orris, green tea, and currant buds. aquatic but off-kilter. like swimming in your clothes while crying.
for: the one who dives into the sea at dusk, fully clothed, hoping the cold will reset something inside her.
this one smells like surrender. like emotional oversaturation. the green tea and fig pull you under slowly, like a memory you forgot to forget. it’s a perfume for spiraling softly in a saltwater hug.

saltwater saints & sirens

tears – régime des fleurs
lilac, orris, rosewater, ambergris. delicate and drowning.
for: the softest girl in the village, who prays with flower petals and disappears at high tide. you’ll find her rosary tangled in seaweed.
sacred, floral, and faintly funereal—this is a perfume made of ancient grief and whispered lullabies. it wears like a veil. a little powdered, a little spectral.

little flower – régime des fleurs
bleeding heart, black tea, incense, ottoman rose. soft, strange, and sacred.
for: an orphaned bride turned saint, still waiting on the shore for a ghost. she smells like tea, incense, and the last of the roses.
this one is gothic girlhood. it’s the scent of unanswered prayers, candlewax, antique lace, and a locked drawer. if you’ve ever felt more like an apparition than a woman, this is your holy water.

no. 23 – fischersund
seaweed, birch tar, black pepper, tobacco, fir. briny, dark, and wild.
for: the selkie who never shed her skin, now chain-smoking on the black sand beach and pretending not to miss home.
earthy, animalic, and oceanic in the least cliché way—this is not a summer scent, it’s a myth you only half-remember.

la mar – house of bo
gardenia, seawater, tuberose, coconut, ginger. floral, salty, and just a little ghostly.
for: a myth rewritten in salt and gardenia—she drowned centuries ago but still lingers, wearing pearls and impossible longing.
there’s something so unnerving about how pretty this one is. a drowned bride, a sunlit funeral. lush white florals pulled into the undertow.

plastic tears & sunburned hauntings

holy hell – universal flowering
plastic, suntan lotion, toasted seashell, melon, neroli. hot and hallucinatory.
for: the sun-poisoned girl in a polaroid who vanished at seventeen. the scent of melted lip gloss, burned offerings, and bad decisions.
this is pure heatstroke glamour. it smells like pool water, vhs static, and something sugary going sour. you wore it once to impress someone who never called. you’ve been wearing it ever since.

comète – chanel les exclusifs
iris, heliotrope, almond. soft shimmer, powdered light, delicate and not quite real.
for: the girl you saw dancing on the beach at night, alone, beneath stars so bright they looked like they might speak.
this one is different. comète doesn’t smell like the sea—it smells like the sky above it. it’s weightless, dreamy, and entirely ungrounded. there's something powdered and pale about it, like antique porcelain or the ghost of a lullaby. you wear this when your heartbreak feels too beautiful to cry about. it’s for the girl who sings to comets, who talks to stars, who leaves no footprints in the sand.

the point – clue perfumery
mineral, sea water, porcelain, honey. crystalline and uncanny.
for: she came from the sea with porcelain skin and a honeyed smile, but her eyes didn’t quite belong to this world.
a scent with no body temperature. clean but strange—like something you'd smell in a dream and wake up wanting to chase. there’s something mineral and doll-like about it. a little ceramic. a little uncanny valley.

ilio – diptyque
prickly pear, iris, bergamot. sunshine through tears.
for: she collects cacti and unread letters, laughing too loud at something she won’t explain. summer clings to her like a bruise.
sweet in a way that doesn’t quite trust itself. fruit and florals filtered through something off-kilter. this is not carefree joy—it’s the kind that shows up right before everything breaks.

dreamy florals & philosophical seafoam

valaya – parfums de marly
white peach, aldehydes, orange blossom, musk. fresh, clean and ghostly.
for: victorian girls pressed between pages of books, smelling of white linen and strange restraint.
like a well-behaved ghost. delicate but emotionally unavailable. beautiful, ethereal, and untouchable.

sycomore – chanel les exclusifs
vetiver, cypress, cedar, soft smoke. austere, rooted, and quietly devastating.
for: the woman who lives alone in a stone house by the sea, surrounded by pine and silence. she reads ancient philosophy and doesn’t answer the door.
there is nothing flirtatious about this scent. it smells like conviction. like control. like someone who chose solitude and didn’t regret it—until maybe last night. sycomore is all vetiver and cool smoke, like seawater over firewood. if the other perfumes on this list are girls dissolving into myth, this one is the myth refusing to be softened. sharp, holy, distant.

another 13 – le labo
pear, musk, iso e super. smells like memory on loop.
for: the girl who walks into the ocean without looking back, her name slowly dissolving behind her.
haunting, ambient, impossible to hold. it’s the feeling of missing someone who was never yours. a scent that doesn’t just smell—it echoes.

orphéon – diptyque
juniper, jasmine, powder, cedar. jazz club nostalgia and feminine solitude.
for: stormy nights in borrowed coats, eyeliner still perfect, even if no one’s watching.
if loneliness wore lipstick. smoky, clean, and a little powdery—like standing in the corner of your own life, watching everyone else through soft-focus.

a grove by the sea – arquiste
fig, salt, fennel, fir. coastal, herbal, quietly mythic.
for: a greek widow who still performs the same seaside ritual every solstice, even if she’s forgotten why.
earthy and sacred. like a coastal temple covered in lichen. the fig is ancient and medicinal. the fennel is grief steeped in wine.

kai
gardenia, white florals. clean but haunting.
for: the woman who walked out of the sea and stayed too long—still beautiful, still dripping, still not quite here.
this is the simplest one, and maybe the saddest. a wet floral that clings too closely, like seafoam to skin. she remembers everything, even if she never says it aloud.

if you’re curious about these scents and sampling there are two places i recommend checking out:

scent split is one of my favorites (they have a large selection of niche perfume): use code caitlyn10 for a 10% discount

twisted lily is another site you can try: you can use my code caitlyn10 and click this link for a 10% discount

epilogue

if you’ve ever felt like a siren in hiding, a ghost in white linen, or a girl made mostly of water—then maybe this is your scent wardrobe, too.

and before i transition into books, if candles are your thing (they’re mine), let me recommend a few that fit this vibe…

summer rain byredo (egyptian basil, green fig, sandalwood, tonka bean, spearmint, ginger)

cotton poplin byredo (blue chamomile, linen, white cedarwood, sweet musk) one of my absolute favorites

wood sage sea salt jo malone (ambrette seeds, sea salt, sage)

fischersun no. 23 (amber, leather, fresh air, seasweed, salt, smoke, sitka spruce)

seaside hysteria: a reading list for when you feel salt in your blood

the sea has always been a metaphor for grief, transformation, madness.
it’s where we go when language fails, when love unravels, when time stops behaving the way we expect it to.
the ocean is a mirror, a grave, a mother, a myth. and sometimes, it’s the only thing that makes sense.

so i want to share books for those who feel undone by open water.

they are not beach reads. they are tidal elegies. books that bruise gently. books that drift.

here are books that leave you quiet in a way that feels holy

jamaica inn by daphne du maurier
wild moors, shipwrecks, smuggling, isolation.
a young woman arrives at her aunt’s coastal inn, where everything is fog, suspicion, and masculine violence barely held in check.
the sea is brutal—not romantic, but ravenous.
for: girls who walk cliff paths at night and don’t flinch when the wind howls back.

rebecca by daphne du maurier
a second wife haunted by the first.
a gothic estate where the sea takes what it wants.
fog-drenched, opulent, claustrophobic. the waves are always waiting.
for: emotionally repressed spiral girls who confuse silence with safety.

the sailor who fell from grace with the sea by yukio mishima
obsession, cruelty, saltwater nihilism.
a boy idolizes a sailor, then turns on him when he chooses love over myth.
quietly disturbing and devastatingly beautiful.
for: boys with salt on their eyelashes and knives behind their backs.

água viva by clarice lispector
not a story, a current. a monologue without punctuation.
a meditation on time, feeling, beauty—fluid and disintegrating.
no beach, no waves. just you, dissolving.
for: sirens who stopped singing because their silence became the spell.

the odyssey by homer
storms, monsters, longing, exile.
odysseus tries to get home, but the sea won’t let him. his men are eaten. time stretches. grief thickens.
meanwhile, the women wait—some weaving, some warning, some turning men into pigs.
it’s not just a journey. it’s the original epic of spiraling, shipwrecked masculinity—and the women who endure around its edges.
for: the ones who know returning is often stranger than leaving.
for the witches, the widows, the sirens who never stop singing.

our wives under the sea by julia armfield
the holy grail of aquatic grief and transformation. sapphic, poetic, and profoundly eerie.
a woman returns from a deep-sea expedition… wrong. her wife tries to love her through it, as if love can anchor a body that no longer belongs to the surface.this book is cold and beautiful, like a pearl you find in a ruin.

to the lighthouse by virginia woolf
a book where nothing happens and everything happens.
a house by the sea, filled with people who misunderstand each other in quiet, devastating ways.
it’s not about the lighthouse—it’s about absence, about the unreachable, about the impossibility of permanence.
read it on a windy day. cry for no reason. then cry because now you know why.

medea by euripides
woman as elemental force. betrayed, exiled, enraged.
she kills her children and walks off into myth. her pain is so huge it becomes divine.
recommended translation: anne carson, for lines that feel like burning salt into open skin.

fragments by sappho (trans. anne carson)
each line is a shoreline.
her poems arrive broken—edges soft, meaning half-erased—but the ache remains.
some fragments are barely full sentences, but they still ruin you.
sappho is the saint of salt-rimmed longing, the original voice of girlhood yearning.
reading her feels like waking up after dreaming of someone you’ve never met but desperately miss.

the waves by virginia woolf
this is not a novel—it’s a tide.
six voices merge and dissolve into one consciousness, rising and falling like foam. their identities blur, time bends, the language fractures and reforms.
there’s no plot in the traditional sense, only rhythm. grief becomes syntax. memory becomes sea spray.

circe by madeline miller
an exiled witch on an island learns to survive, to thrive, to reclaim.
circe is what happens when the woman scorned stays in solitude long enough to remember her own name.
the sea surrounds her. it watches, it tests, it transforms.
this is for the ones who’ve been cast out and decided to bloom anyway.
she doesn’t need rescuing. she needs a garden and a sharp spell.

the sea, the sea by iris murdoch
an aging man retreats to a house on the coast. he believes he’s found peace. he hasn’t. instead, he finds obsession, delusion, ghosts of past lovers, and the kind of silence that doesn’t soothe—it scrapes.
this book is psychological erosion.
the sea here doesn’t offer redemption. it reflects everything ugly you try to hide from yourself.

bluets by maggie nelson
a quiet, looping meditation on the color blue that ends up being about everything: heartbreak, devotion, solitude, desire.
it doesn’t mention the sea, but it feels submerged in it.
grief ripples through these short fragments like tidewater around stones.
you’ll finish it and feel like someone gently touched your shoulder just before vanishing.

the summer book by tove jansson
a child and her grandmother live on a small island and speak to each other in half-phrases and glances.
the grief is never named, but it saturates the soil.
this book is full of light, but not joy.
it’s quiet the way old wounds are quiet.

these are books to read on the edge of things:
the shore, the self, the line between what you were and what you’re becoming.

lastly, i want to leave you with some films and shows that encapsulates this atmospheric letter:

portrait of a lady on fire (2019) – women in love, waves crashing, longing so intense it burns. coastal cliffs, silence, and secrets. a core seaside hysteria film.
by the sea (2015) – slow, self-indulgent, and kind of terrible in a hypnotic way. a crumbling marriage, a mediterranean hotel, and jolie brooding in oversized sunglasses on a cliff.
rebecca (2020) – gothic estate perched on a stormy english coast. sea as threat, memory, and mystery.
big little lies – monterey cliffs, crashing waves, secrets beneath perfect lives.
aftersun (2022) - the sea as memory, the sun as ache. a daughter remembers her father through fragmented footage and submerged grief.

seaside hysteria is something you carry. it’s the way certain books ruin you gently. the way a film leaves you silent for hours. the way a fragrance can make you feel like someone else entirely—someone older, sadder, holier. it’s an elegy for every version of yourself that dissolved under moonlight or memory. so take what you need: a book, a song, or a scent you only use when you’re near water.