Favorite Things: Xinú, Mexico

Who knew hand sanitizer could become one of my favorite things?

I first discovered Xinú because of hand soap.

We were celebrating my birthday at Pujol in Mexico City, and during the meal I went into the ladies' room and became completely obsessed with the soap. It smelled so good that I actually stopped to look at the bottle to see what it was.

Xinú.

The hand wash that first caught my attention was Menthamericana, a fresh, green scent with peppermint, mandarin, tonka bean and cabreuva. I loved it immediately.

The funny thing is, when I asked my daughter to come with me to the Xinú stores, she already knew exactly where she wanted to go. She had seen Xinú on social media and insisted we go to the round store in Juárez, where most of the perfumes are. Apparently, it is also the most Instagrammable of the three, according to her, which made me a little suss of the whole thing. Despite that knock against it, I really did enjoy the store and their products.

Xinú was founded in Mexico in 2016 by Verónica Peña, Ignacio Cadena and Héctor Esrawe. Peña brought the fascination with plants and fragrance, Cadena comes from a design and hospitality background, and Esrawe is an architect and designer. Even the name is appropriate: Xinú means "nose" in Otomí.

You can see those worlds coming together in the boutiques. There are the perfumes, dried botanicals and plants, but also the architecture, beautifully designed diffusers and other objects. The diffusers in particular are almost little pieces of art. They are the sort of things you actually want to leave sitting out rather than tuck away in a cupboard.

There are three Xinú stores in Mexico City, and each has a different feel. Polanco is more like a laboratory, Juárez is the round perfume-filled space, and Haven in Roma Norte is more focused on scents for the home. Outside Mexico City, there are also stores in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mérida and San Miguel de Allende.

But the thing that has really become one of my favorite travel items is their Mentha Piperita hand sanitizer.

I love the idea that something can be useful and pleasurable at the same time. It does the practical job of keeping germs at bay, but it also smells beautiful, with peppermint, eucalyptus and mandarin. It's a two-fer, and considerably less expensive than perfume.

Besides the hand sanitizer, I usually carry a little vial of No. 4 Monstera. It is green and fresh, with that slightly damp, leafy quality that makes me think of tropical plants after rain. It doesn't smell like a conventional sweet perfume, which is probably why I like it.

I also carry a small vial of Vila essential oil, the scent used at Pujol. That one has a completely different feeling and, for me, is tied to the memory of discovering Xinú in the first place.

Is Xinú a little pretentious? Probably. The beautiful bottles, the architecture, the dried botanicals, the carefully considered scents, but I don't really mind.

The products are beautiful, the scents are genuinely good, and I actually use them.

So yes, hand sanitizer has somehow made it onto my list of favorite things.

xinu.mx