Smell Wonder

The best thing about leaving Hawai‘i is coming back – and it’s never more true than the moment you step off the airplane and smell the sweet scent of flowers wafting from a nearby lei stand or planter. Ahh. Home sweet home.

To keep the house you call home smelling just as sweet, Alora Ambiance diffusers bring a virtual Hawaii garden into any room. 

Alora owner Annie Gibbons-Hope formulates many of the scents at her four-acre property in Palolo, drawing inspiration from the expanse of trees and flowers growing around her. Isola, the most tropical-smelling fragrance (the Italian name means island), combines a hint of fig with gardenia and tuberose, which grow in her yard. Agrume, the line’s new citrus fragrance, smells of oranges, the grapefruits growing on her property and the eucalyptus trees she smells when up on Tantalus Drive .

Stopping to smell the flowers so often means the next Alora scent is never more than a sniff away.  

Gibbons-Hope’s weekly trips to the Kapi‘ olani Community College farmers’ market introduced her to Maui ’s Ali‘i Kula Lavender farm. The local blossoms inspired a new lavender fragrance, available late this summer or in early fall.

Heaven scent, indeed.  

Available at Baik Designs, Gentry Pacific Design Center, 560 N. Nimitz Hwy., 808.524.2290 and Pualani Hawaii, 2863 Kalakaua Ave., 808.923.0753. Also available online at www.aloraambiance.com