A single scent can pull you straight back into a moment you haven’t thought about for years. Fresh laundry. Sea air. The smell of baking in the kitchen.
That strange time-travel trick comes down to how the brain processes smell.
Most senses travel through the brain’s logical processing centres first. Smell takes a shortcut. Scent signals go directly to the limbic system, the part of the brain connected to emotion and memory.
This means scent and memory are tightly wired together.
Scientists sometimes call this the Proust Effect, named after the writer Marcel Proust, who famously described childhood memories rushing back when he tasted a madeleine cake dipped in tea.
It’s why certain fragrances feel instantly comforting. They’re not just smells. They’re tiny fragments of memory floating in the air.
This strange loop between scent and memory is actually how our Hugs From Home candle—and ultimately Robin In The Room itself—began.
One day we realised the scent of Oud reminded us of walking into the home of someone very special. It was just an air freshener, but the moment we smelled it we were instantly back there again.
That tiny moment sparked an idea. What if we could recreate that feeling at home?
After plenty of experimenting, we finally created a candle that did exactly that. The moment it’s lit, it feels like stepping back through that familiar doorway.
That candle became Hugs From Home, and in many ways it was the first step in the Robin In The Room journey.
It’s still the candle we burn most often in our own home and, to us, Hugs From Home will always be Nanny’s Hugs.