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I consider myself a coffee purist—99 percent of the time I’m sipping a simple drip or a no-fuss Americano. No sugar, no cream. But every year around this time, I succumb to the frenzy. You know the one: the pumpkin spice latte takeover. Call me basic, but if even Diptyque, the posh fragrance brand from Paris, is on the squash-filled bandwagon, I get a free pass, right?
Because I can’t sip lattes all day long, I find my fixes elsewhere, too: candles and, now, Grove Co.’s new line of seasonally scented cleaning products. That recent discovery took me on a deep dive into all the home products I could gather to indulge my inner basic.
My main criterion was the right balance of sweet and spicy, like a warm slice of Thanksgiving pie, but hold the whipped cream—the goal was cozy but not cloying. Everything needed to look good, too. (My affinity for fall might be plebeian, but I draw the line at pumpkin-shaped soap dispensers or “It’s Fall, Y’all” decor.) I tried 18 different types of detergents, lotions, room sprays, and, naturally, candles to find the best in gourd goodness. Here are all the home products that fed my autumnal appetite.
For the Whole House
The winners: a fast-acting room spray (great for masking bathroom smells), a slow and steady diffuser, and fit-anywhere fragrance cards like the Aromatique Aroma Card I hung in my closet. It’s still 90 degrees where I live, but mentally I’m in a sweater-weather city as I get dressed each morning with notes of clove and cinnamon swirling around me.
For Freshening Up
In the seemingly endless cycle of snacking and dog-cuddling breaks that punctuate my WFH days, there’s a lot of handwashing going on. Because PSL would be a scent that would linger on my hands, it couldn’t be sickeningly sweet. The Williams Sonoma hand soap–and–lotion duo pumps out the perfect fragrance of toasted pecans and warm spices to level out the sugary pumpkin-ness. In the shower, this all-natural honey-based soap leaves my skin feeling supersoft and makes the perfect match for my appropriately shaded Quiet Town curtain.
For Cleaning
True Virgo that I am, I find a quick cleaning routine before bed deeply satisfying. My spritzing and swiping sesh is even more therapeutic with Grove Co.’s latest. The dish soap and all-purpose cleaner turn my nightly chore into a turn-down treat with a buttery aroma.
For Burning
There was no shortage of options in this category, but my favorites were the ones that smelled most like oven-warmed treats. As far as aesthetics, the front-runners came out of a sculptural collection from CTOAN. Without even lighting them, I was drooling over the scent of freshly baked pumpkin loaf. Plus each creation is designed from a size-inclusive, gender-neutral perspective and hand-poured by founder Jodyann Morgan, a queer Black woman living in Wisconsin. That’s anything but basic, if you ask me.