How To Make Your Home Smell Like A Williams-Sonoma

Few places so clearly define luxury, festivity, and warmth as Williams-Sonoma. The retail company is a favorite mall stop, loved for its high-end cookware, gadgets, generous samples, gourmet snacks, and baking mixes.  Williams-Sonoma creates a welcoming atmosphere by using unique, sumptuous scents that vary by season to seduce even the most reluctant shopper. This is not by accident — the human sense most tied to vivid memory is smell, according to Discovery. This phenomenon explains why the scent of, say, lemon can trigger a childhood memory of, perhaps, baking cakes with your grandmother. 

Whenever you smell the warming scents of Williams-Sonoma, you will be launched into such happy moments, whether they're associated with a pleasant shopping trip to the store, special holiday meals, and so on. But how can you recreate these nostalgic scents at home? This guide will walk you through the aromas and recipes that give the store a unique, comforting feeling that you can have right at home.

While you might not be whipping up pumpkin cinnamon pancakes like the in-store chefs at Williams-Sonoma, you can still get those yummy scents in your home with the help of simmer pots. Simmer pots are essentially wet potpourri that can be diffused through steam; they tend to be more intense and far-reaching than dry potpourri and typically use fresh ingredients like herbs, citrus, and dried spices. Williams-Sonoma was nice enough to release their own simmer pot recipes, so you know you're getting the real deal.

For a spicy holiday scent, they recommend using 1 orange cut into slices, ½ cup of fresh cranberries, 2 cinnamon sticks, ½ cup of mulling spices, 1 sprig of Rosemary (or pine needles from your holiday tree), and 8 cups of water. If you don't have a mulling spice mix, you can use star anise, nutmeg, ginger, or allspice berries. This will make your house smell like Christmas after simmering for two hours uncovered.

If you're looking for a clean spring refresh, try the following recipe: 3 sprigs of Rosemary, 1 lemon cut into slices, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns, and 8 cups of water. Just bring the pot to a boil, turn the heat down to keep it steaming for a few hours, and enjoy these delicious scents.