Dia Lupo's mall-coded scent grails 𐙚🧁🍡

Her favorite gourmands, nostalgic body spray, and more.

Hunter S. Thompson went to Vegas on drugs so Dia Lupo could go to the strip club while seven months pregnant. I first discovered Dia’s writing on Substack shortly after I moved to Philadelphia back in 2021, and I was thrilled to find someone cool in my city chronicling her life on the edge. I devoured her musings about everything from the glory of the mall to working as a corporate girly to grief, and eventually her becoming a mom and moving to suburban New Jersey—on my way! Fortunately for us, Dia is a fellow fraghead. We talked to her about what Appalachia smells like, her new brand of gonzo journalism, her bitchy poodle’s signature scent, the Bath & Bodyworks grail she’s buying on ebay, and more.

First things first: how many spritzes and where?

It depends on performance. With something fucking annoying that makes people glare in the elevator, like Alien by Mugler or Coco Mademoiselle, one or two spritzes: one on the neck and one into the air to walk through.

Otherwise, four. I knowingly commit the cardinal sin of spraying one wrist and dabbing it against the other, so that’s one. One on each inner elbow. One on the neck. I love to fill a room, but fragrance is like personality; there’s fills a room (derogatory) and fills a room (complimentary).

What’s the first fragrance you ever bought? What was your most recent fragrance buy?

My first fragrance was J’adore Dior. I was in middle school, nurturing a budding obsession with fashion magazines. I smelled a sample of J’adore and begged my mom. It served as my Christmas and birthday present. I had the bottle for a couple years. I remember warming up with my cheerleading squad for a football game and someone asked me what I was wearing, and I replied “Jay Adore” despite knowing how to say it after three years of French lessons, not wanting to sound corny pronouncing it correctly. Classic.

I recently purchased Bianco Latte by Giardini di Toscana a good two years post-hype. I was half asleep, possessed by my sleep paralysis demon who loves a gourmand. It scratched a longtime itch for a bomb of vanilla.

We hear you’re a sample slut like us—what samples or scents are you loving right now?

BIGGG advocate for sampling as fragrance is a slippery slope for excess. Two of my recent samples turned into full-bottle purchases: Bianco Latte, and Blanche Bete by Liquides Imaginaires. They’re very different fragrances, and though I haven’t layered them (yet), they feel like sisters to me—like sexy milk and cookies.

Most recently I received a sample of Dior Addict Purple Glow from the makeup counter at Nordstrom. Smells like drinking a glass of Welch’s grape juice while getting your ears pierced at Claire’s. I don’t love it, but I love its spirit.

You’ve been part of heralding in a sort of personal essay renaissance on Substack. Recently you wrote about a day at the Philly spa and called it ‘gonza journalism’ aka gonzo but make it femme. What does gonza smell like?

First of all, thank you so much. I am really humbled to share the space with so many fun, smart writers doing interesting things. As for Gonza, she lives in all of us. She’s who you are when you’re locked into an experience, firing on all cylinders, if only in your mind. So she smells exciting and mysterious and chameleon-like, but fully accessible. Receptive to the vibe. The fragrance that comes to mind, which is also one of my most complimented, is YSL Libre. A bit of nominative determinism there, as freedom is central to the Gonza ethos. But I don’t know, something about that bright orange and sneaky lavender gives me “bad bitch sitting in the corner of the function Realizing Things.”

Give us your 2025 in top, middle, and base notes.

I started the year very pregnant and everything was intense. Then I had my baby and things got intense in a new way, both devastating and euphoric. Then the end of the year was just pure bliss.

Top: Patchouli, Black Pepper, Cloves, Cherry

Middle: Rose, Salt, Milk

Base: Vanilla, Marshmallow, Musk, Cashmeran

You’re a mom—were there any scents you found repulsive or particularly addictive during pregnancy? Are there any scents you associate with motherhood?

Fragrance brought me immense comfort during pregnancy. My senses were so high and my body was so depleted and I wanted to luxuriate in everything that smelled and felt amazing. The scent that captures that period of my life is You or Someone Like You by Etat Libre d’Orange. Strange, because it’s not a comforting scent at all. It’s not something you wear to lay in bed in silk pajamas. It’s this minty watery rose that feels deeply transportive. I had every pregnancy symptom under the sun, so an escape in a bottle resonated heavily.

You’ve written about growing up in deep Pennsylvania, living and clubbing out your 20s in Philadelphia, and now you’re reporting live from the N.J suburbs. Give us the scents of those eras.

Rural Pennsylvania was this exact Wild Honeysuckle body splash from Bath & Body Works. Philly bildungsroman was For Her by Narciso Rodriguez which I smelled on a Parisian girl crossing the street in Old City and chased her down to ID; I wore For Her exclusively for at least five years. Burb life is Mon Guerlain: frictionless, delightful, mall-coded.

What perfume or scent are you the most nostalgic about?

The previous question was the first time I’ve thought about Wild Honeysuckle in at least a decade and I am, in this moment, overcome by nostalgia. There was something pure about living in a place ruled by nature and simplicity where I didn’t even know what Sephora was, just wanting to smell like this flower that grew outside my family home. I will probably order that eBay listing just to relive this experience.

Are there any popular perfumes or notes you simply don’t fuck with?

I PASSIONATELY HATE BACCARAT ROUGE 540 AND, BY EXTENSION, CLOUD BY ARIANA GRANDE.

You’re also mother to a devastatingly chic poodle. If he wore a perfume, what would it be?

My poodle is my entire world. He is a mischievous tyrant who’d be great on reality television. His redeeming quality is that he is pathologically loving, even if his affection is generally extended on his terms. He would wear something in-your-face and unserious. Something with an addictive quality that you can’t quite put your finger on. He would wear Delizia di Marshmallow by Kyse.