Image by strangerthingstv

This Thanksgiving, I am most grateful for a weird thing that has nothing to do with pie: Stranger Things is returning for its fifth and final season. My snacks are preselected, my drinks are lined up, my emotional support blanket is washed, and my watch companion, a.k.a. my husband, is warned to stay awake for the whole thing. I cannot be watching that thing alone, because a) I need to discuss things with someone the moment they happen, and b) it’s scary. Until the premiere drops, I am passing the time with my usual weekday routine of living and wondering what the Upside Down smells like. A normal thought. Totally fine.

To investigate, I tried Bath and Body Works’ Upside Down candle, which my friend generously lent for three hours. I haven’t tried the others, though, and they’re not available anymore, so if you do try them, tell me what demagorgons smell like. 

Upside Down candle is a blend of mossy stone, smoky birch, and eerie fog, inspired by the Hawkins woods at their creepiest. I was surprised that someone, somewhere, imagined the Upside Down smelled so good.  Reddit, however, disagrees. According to the hive mind, the Upside Down smells like sulfur, rot, decay, and all the things you politely avoid in real life. Sure, nothing grows there except demogorgons, demodogs, demobats, demo-something, and trauma, but must it be a punishment for the nose, I wonder. If a dimension can invert itself, why can’t it also smell like a candy shop? Let me manifest.

Which leads me to my strongest and most unserious theory. Vecna smells incredible. Specifically, he smells like Bohoboco Red Wine Brown Sugar. There is logic here; stay with me, I won’t disappoint you. My brain associates Vecna with the color red. Red vines. Red portals. Red unfinished business. So naturally, my scent pick leans red wine. Bohoboco’s Red Wine Brown Sugar is an Amber Vanilla number launched in 2016 with notes of red berries, dried fruits, raspberry, red wine, cedar, patchouli, liquor, brown sugar, leather, and caramel. It is delicious, yes, but it’s also villain-coded in a refined, European-art-film way. That being said, it doesn’t mean that you cannot wear it, angel-hearts. 

You’re in the Upside Down and Vecna makes your acquaintance, and your blood is frozen. The clocks chime and do that irritating sound, but then the air shifts. A swirl of red wine and caramelized brown sugar curls in the darkness. A whisper of leather and cedar. You pause. You question your survival instincts. For one absurd moment, you think “he actually smells… good?” And that, dear reader, is how villains win. They lure you in with something irresistible. In this case, brown sugar. Mmmm. 

So while Reddit chooses sulfur and decay, I am choosing gourmand glamour for my Upside Down. If we only get one more season, let me have this fantasy. Let Vecna smell like a niche Polish masterpiece. Let the monsters have their fragrance era. And let Stranger Things return with all the drama, dread, and ’80s nostalgia. 

Oh, one more thing, I am sure Eleven smells like Dedcool Xtra Milk. Fight me on this one, will you? You will surely lose!