What's a product, scent, or object that defined an era of your life?

Episode Four with Shain Kish

This week on The Confession Book, I’m joined by Shain Kish — a writer, makeup artist, and my friend. Shain has a natural gift for weaving care and playful openness into everything he does, all while creating welcoming touch points into men’s beauty and style.

I call Shain my lonely pearl Merman because we’re all just lonely pearls at sea and whenever he swims in and out of my world, I get introduced to what’s cool, interesting and alive outside my own little bubble.

This conversation brought us into scent trails, memory portals, the complexity of family, and why certain fragrances live in our minds long after the first encounter.

As always, we begin with one question.

Listen to the full episode

From the Conversation

Michelle: What’s a product, scent, or object that defined an era of your life?

Shain: This could go so many ways, but the one that comes first is my mom’s perfume when I was a kid — Beautiful by Estée Lauder. It’s this punchy gardenia that just screams late ’80s, early ’90s. I had such separation anxiety when she’d leave, and I’d follow the scent trail around just to feel close to her. But my favorite thing was when she’d come home from a night out. She’d always wake me up to tell me she was home, give me a hug, and I’d get this mix of gardenia, bar smoke, and alcohol. It was this amazing mixture of a life.

Michelle: Raunchy and floral gardenia could also describe a bit of your style.

Shain: It really could! I still love those scents. When I first moved to New York, I remember going to the Le Labo counter at Barneys, and the guy there was like, “This rose scent is like the hottest man you’ve ever seen, working in his garden, sweaty, handing you a rose.” I was like, say less, take my rent money.

After the Conversation

What is your greatest extravagance?As a Taurus I love all extravagance, but one thing that I think is so extra and so chic is De Mamiel altitude oil. It's like a modern day smelling salt non-toxic popper LOL. I hit it after long commutes or when I'm feeling stressed!

What do you most value in your friends?Connection. I love when you don't speak to someone for a while and you can still pick right back up where you left off.

What’s the last…

Song you listened to: F**k Me Eyes by Ethel Cain. She is just so cool and poetic.

Book you read: Maybe This Will Save Me by Tommy Dorfman

Show you watched: I'm currently very obsessed with the tv show Smoke. BUT also watch a top ten weirdo terrifying movie called Bring Her Back it was absolutely terrifying lol

See Shain, Read Shain

After Thoughts…

Scent is memory, but it’s also a marker of the different versions of ourselves we’ve lived through. The things we hold close — a fragrance, an object, a song — can become portals back to who we were, helping us retrieve the parts we left behind, bringing them forward into who we are today.

They invite us to reflect through new lenses, and sometimes to let go of the fantasies we’ve built around memories that, when revisited, start to feel different with time.

A sensory reminder that nothing is fixed, not even the way we remember.