A Mother’s Day conversation on love, legacy, and the ways memory continues to shape us
With Mother’s Day approaching, my conversation with Natasha Gregson Wagner felt especially meaningful.
Natasha, the daughter of Natalie Wood, spoke about motherhood, memory, creativity, and the ways love continues to shape us long after someone is gone.
We talked about her fragrance line, now relaunched as L’Amour Mère, along with family traditions, handwritten letters, old Hollywood films, and what it means to become a mother when your own mother is no longer here on earth.
The thread through all of it was memory. Not as something distant, but as something you carry.
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Where the fragrance began
When I asked Natasha what inspired her to create the original Natalie fragrance, she described it simply.
“It was just like an act of gratitude,” she said. “An act of love.”
It also came from something she was navigating at the time.
“Sometimes when you have a child, you need a model to be a mom,” she said. “And because my mom wasn’t here on earth anymore, I didn’t have that model.”
She wasn’t saying it dramatically. It felt more like something she had to sit with.
“I was curious how I was going to move forward as a mother without her.”
What she came to understand changed that.
“What I learned was that those eleven years I had with her were enough time for me to know how to mother my daughter.”
From there, the fragrance became a way to express something that didn’t really have a direct outlet.
“I just wanted to thank her in a more esoteric way,” she said, “through the ethers, through space and time.”
“I think of fragrance as something that can break through time.”
A story told through scent
Natasha spoke about fragrance as a form of storytelling.
“There’s storytelling with film and with art and with books,” she said. “So it’s fun to think about telling a story through scent notes.”
That personal starting point is also what allows other people to connect to it.
“When you create something that’s super personal or specific, it becomes universal.”
I shared that I feel especially connected to the rose scent because my grandmother’s name was Rose, and she loved the scent of rose. Wearing it makes me feel calm and connected.
Natasha immediately understood.
“That’s what I love,” she said.
L’Amour Mère
The fragrance line is now being relaunched as L’Amour Mère, meaning “mother love.”
The original Natalie scent remains unchanged. La Rose has been renamed C Love, and a third fragrance, Lyublyu, has been added.
Natasha explained that when she first created the fragrance, she wasn’t thinking of it as a business.
“It was more of a creative offering,” she said.
Over time, she realized she wanted to continue it, but in a way that reflected where she is now.
“I’m not the same person that I was when I started it,” she said. “I’ve grown, and I want it to reflect who I am today.”
“I’m an entrepreneur now,” she added. “And I feel proud of that.”
The new scent
One of the additions to the relaunch is Lyublyu, inspired by her grandmother.
She described it as honey-forward, with notes like honeysuckle, jasmine, sandalwood, patchouli, and incense.
The scent is tied to a memory from when she was a child living in the South of France.
She and her grandmother would walk through a small town and up toward a church. Along the way, there were layers of scent. Inside, she remembers incense and the smell of old wood.
That is what the fragrance is meant to evoke.
Commemorating moments
When I asked about traditions she’s carried into her own life, Natasha went back to how her parents approached celebrations.
“My parents celebrated everything,” she said. “Christmas, Easter, birthdays, and made each of us feel really special.”
There was also something quieter that stayed with her.
“For birthdays or Christmas, my mom would give me a book, write me a letter, and usually a piece of jewelry.”
Then she summed it up in a way that felt like the center of everything we had been talking about.
“If I just boil it down, it’s about commemorating moments and time in a way that feels beautiful and special.”
Natasha still has all the letters her parents wrote to her. And when Clover was little, she began writing notes to her and saving them.
“I think those things really matter,” she said.
That idea carries through everything. Letters. Traditions. Fragrance. Memory.
Between two worlds
Natasha grew up between Los Angeles and South Wales.
“Going to the UK in the 80s felt like landing on the moon,” she said.
She described it as a completely different world, shaped by what she called “Margaret Thatcher’s England,” where her father and stepmother lived on a farm in South Wales.
“There was so much consistency and stability,” she said. “I learned how to cook in their kitchen, and we had family dinner every night. My dad would go to the market.”
It stood in contrast to her life in Los Angeles.
“I got the best of both worlds,” she said. “It helped me understand that the life I was living in Los Angeles wasn’t really a normal life.”
That experience shaped her ability to adapt.
“I became very much of a shape shifter,” she said. “I adapted easily.”
It also shaped how she sees daily life now.
“I truly believe that the day-to-day activities of life are essential for spiritual growth and emotional stability.”
Family and loss
Natasha has five sisters and described herself as close with them, while also acknowledging the complexity of those relationships.
“We’ve worked on our relationships,” she said. “They’re all different.”
She also spoke about the impact of losing her mother.
“We were all deeply affected by the loss of my mom,” she said. “Even my siblings who she wasn’t their mom.”
She described herself as someone who values harmony.
“I’m a Libra, so I like harmony,” she said. “I like to talk about feelings, but not everybody likes to do that.”
What she learned from her mother
When I asked about a life lesson that still guides her, Natasha shared something she was told when she was pregnant.
“I remember asking, what do I teach my child? I don’t even know what to teach.”
The response stayed with her.
“You don’t need to teach your child anything. You are the example for your child. How you behave in the world is what your child will learn from you.”
That became a way of understanding what she had learned from her own mother.
“I observed her being kind and gracious,” she said. “I observed her celebrating the arts.”
Growing into herself
Natasha also spoke about the parts of life she didn’t get to go through with her mother, especially adolescence.
“That was a real period of insecurity for me,” she said.
She described what it was like growing up with a mother who had such a strong presence.
“It took me a long time to find my own self-worth in all of that.”
“I think she would have walked that walk with me,” she said.
Instead, she had to figure much of that out on her own.
Film, music, books, and everyday life
When I asked about her mother’s films, she said it’s difficult to choose just one.
“I don’t have a favorite,” she said. “I just wish she got to make more.”
She mentioned several, including West Side Story and Inside Daisy Clover, and talked about watching Splendor in the Grass with her daughter at the TCM Film Festival.
“Depending on what’s going on in your life or in the world, certain films can reflect that back to you in a way that feels nourishing or comforting or satiating,” she said.
Music is part of that landscape too. Natasha described her taste as rooted in the 70s, drawn to folk and classic rock.
She also spoke about her love of reading. She mentioned authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald, including The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night, along with books like Light Years by James Salter and Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. She said she recently read All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert, and spoke about how much she values books that explore emotion, grief, and the inner life.
She described herself as a seeker, someone drawn to learning, reflection, and the emotional layers of life.
Reading is something she now shares with her daughter as well.
“My mom loved to read to me,” she said. “I definitely became a reader because of her.”
She mentioned giving her daughter a memoir, Into the Magic Shop by James R. Doty, continuing that tradition.
And in everyday life, that same balance carries through at home. She described cooking with Clover, from arugula salads with homemade dressing to simple, comforting meals like pasta with vodka sauce and chicken meatballs. They’ve also made things together like strawberry ice cream, blending frozen strawberries with yogurt and tahini, a mix of creativity and ease in the kitchen.
Certain foods carry memory as well.
“Borscht reminds me of my mom,” she said. “Shepherd’s Pie reminds me of my daddy Gregson.”
Grounding
When things feel overwhelming, Natasha keeps it simple.
“Meditation, nature, dog walks, conversations with people I love.”
She also views self-care in a broad way.
“It can be lunch with a good friend,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be something big.”
There was a sense of continuity in the way Natasha spoke about her mother.
Not just in what she said, but in how she weaves those memories into her daily life.
The letters she kept.
The ones she now writes.
The way she builds meaning into small moments.
It’s all part of how she carries that legacy forward.
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