It seems like every fashion magazine these days has an annual age issue or a monthly section on "looks for every age". In them, women in their 20s must be trendy, women in their 40s are supposed to shell out for Kelly bags and Piaget watches, and women over 50 are doomed to wear only black, white, and jewel tones. Once a woman reaches her mid-30s, she’s supposed to keep skirts below the knees and — even more horrifying — cut her hair. All these "shoulds" have made me think about age and perfume. Are certain fragrances more appropriate for women of certain ages?
Someone who loves scent will almost certainly change her perfume choices as she grows older. I don’t know if this holds up scientifically, but a woman’s sense of smell seems to grow keener as she ages, and women need a canny nose to suss out spoiled food and to detect the first hours of a child’s sickness. A fresh college grad might drink Red Bull and Coke while her mother appreciates a glass of Meursault. Similarly, the daughter might wear Guerlain Insolence while her mother nurses her last bottle of Après L’Ondée. Experience with fragrance moves most people past the fruity floral stage after a few years.
So, women may well wear more complex, less obvious fragrances as they age. But are there rules of thumb for what perfumes a woman should wear depending on her age?Let’s try these on for size. Please feel free to add your two cents:
First, for the most part, perfume advertising will give you an idea of whether the scent works for someone your age. Is the ad a combo of Marie Antoinette and Hello Kitty, like the new Juicy Couture ads? If you’re old enough to vote, give it a pass.
Second, have you been wearing the same scent for a long, long time? You may be stuck in a rut, wearing what suited you in your heyday. Witness the woman in your office who just received her Cross pen for thirty years of service and who is still a Charlie girl. We don’t want that to be you. Keep your nose fresh.
Next, think of a woman you admire who is about your age, or think of her when she was your age. What perfumes do you think might suit her? For instance, say you are in your mid-30s and you adore Katherine Hepburn. If she were 35 today, I bet she’d be wearing Costes or Serge Lutens Daim Blond. She wouldn’t age herself with Habanita, and anything too pure and orange flower or loaded with mango would be laughably innocent on her. (On the other hand, a 35-year old Brigitte Bardot might be perfect washed over with passion fruit and jasmine, and Tallulah Bankhead at the same age would do well with Habanita.)
All of these "rules" aside, I love stories of 14-year olds wearing Tabu as they figure out their womanhood, and I think an 80-year old woman smelling gently of Love’s Baby Soft (can you even get that anymore?) would be fabulous. Sure beats the more common combo of cigarette smoke and Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds.
In the end, a woman should wear the scent that reflects her own complexity, and which she can enjoy, given her level of appreciation for perfume. Let the woman who hasn’t changed bring her bottle of Vera Wang Princess to the retirement home. Me, I’ll be wearing Vol de Nuit.
Note: image via the forums at Images de Parfums.
It's interesting that, for a man, the height of sophistication is picking one thing that suits him at roughly age 20 or so and sticking with it through hell and high water until the coroner suits him for the grave. Men do this with their shirts, socks, and shorts too, as any live-in companion can attest after having sorted through another load of laundry full of nearly transparent threadbare rags. Rare and usually (let's face it) gay is the man who turns out looking as if he were born fully formed that morning along with his suit, the Tom Ford mode. In contrast, women are expected to transform almost daily. For men, agelessness is the absence of change, and for women it is constant change. A friend of mine in his middle age just informed me that his wife had cut her hair very short, which had the effect on the one hand of making her look younger, because short hair often makes women look younger, and on the other hand making her look older, since older women are always cutting their hair short to make themselves look younger. We can't win against time. As for myself, with over 100 perfumes it's hard for me to imagine there is any age-related dimension to them. I don't avoid fruity florals because they're too teen. I avoid them because, with few exceptions, they smell cheap. And I don't avoid Opium, Coco, and their ilk because they smell old; I avoid them because they're humorlessly grand. I *am* about 30 and I love Katharine Hepburn, so what do I wear? Today I'm wearing En Avion. I would happily ripen myself a bit with Habanita. And I would happily go bright and dewy in L'Artisan's Fleur d'Oranger. In the end, the point is we should just smell good and as we like. We should transform because we are ready to transform, and not because our driver's license DOB demands we do. All the rest is just garbage to fill magazines.
So interesting and true about many men picking one course at a young-ish age–say gold toe socks, boxers, and Habit Rouge–and resisting any change. (Heck, a lot of men will eat the exact same thing for lunch for five years running.)
And as you say, wearing perfume that suits your mood and personality is always the best course. Probably the biggest problem people run into with perfume is simply not smelling and appreciating it, but buying the same bottle time after time by reflex rather than conscious choice.
I almost wrote En Avion for Hepburn! I always seem to choose old scents to write about, so I tried to pick something new. (Note, too, that Hepburn kept her hair long until the end.)
This is really interesting in relation to that new book by Brizendine on the female brain that is causing such a stir. I believe the argument is that the female personality is much more sea-like and changeable over the course of a life than a man's, due to hormones. It seems to me that it is a depressing but self-evident fact that there is a biological reason for my father's 30 year addiction to Brut deodorant.
…or my father's attachment to Old Spice. (He still complains that the Old Spice company is chintzy on the amount of rope they include with their soap on a rope.) I always loved the medallion glued on the Brut bottle. My grandfather wore Brut.
I'm going to put the Brizendine book on hold at the library–it sounds really interesting.
This is such an interesting post! I always have conflicting feelings in how “beauty” media approaches age: On one hand, it's refreshing to see women of all ages now being included in that realm; However, it's also sad…that women of all ages are being included in that realm! Instead of society shifting power, there is a “See! Now you can revolve your mid-life around attractiveness—just like society pressured you to do in your teens and twenties!”
So, I guess it all comes down to keeping up confidence of self throughout life—influences shouldn't make the choices for you! Ironically, the scents that were designed to be appealing to an older age group were the ones I wore as a teen and in my early twenties. Lately, though, I haven't been feeling so serious. Sophistication is less important to me as I grow into myself! The sweeter scents are starting to appeal to me. Overall, I'd say wear what inspires you, nomatter what the year or moment!
I love Tania's response!
I share your conflicting feelings about fashion media and age. I love it that we can be considered beautiful by the media after we're 25, but I hate it that we are supposed to follow the media's rules. Why not just plain be beautiful? And smell beautiful? But I still think that the price of being beautiful is to pay attention. When you get dressed, see yourself. When you pull up your hair, see it and love what you do with it. When you reach for that bottle of perfume, really smell what you apply. If you love what it does for you, it's beautiful, no matter what Vogue says that month. Plus, the more you pay attention, the keener your eye (and nose) grow for beauty.
Now I'm on a rant! Thanks for your comment, I love how thoughtful it is, and how it makes me think, too.
It's intersting the Tabu and the 14 year old. That was me. And I still have a thirty year old bottle of Tabu that I keep around for good luck.
I am not sure what it all means though. Age and culture, expectations, perfume, etc.. I have never let it rule me, and in the process, have tried to maintain an elegant balance. Recently I have had thoughts of a Rain perfume that I would buy in my teens. I don't even remember the brand name, it's been so long. As well, I love re-reading books that I read long ago. But as I am looking forward to my next fifty years, I find that most of what I have always liked have stayed the same. Jeans, boots, Colors, Music, Art, Politics. Yes we do look older on the outside, but on the inside everything seems to be much the same. I notice it most in my mother, who (now in her 70's) is to me, a very young person, much more so than I remember her to be when I was twenty, thirty or forty.
Maybe we don't so much change as evolve. When you reread the books you first read a while ago, do you find yourself appreciating them in a new way? That's the key for me. Once the books or perfume or whatever has stopped piquing my interest, it's time to move on. My taste may not change, the level of sophistication I require might (or not, I do still love that nasty boxed mac and cheese).
It sounds like you're really conscious about staying true to yourself, which I admire. In fact, I'm going to dig out my bottle of Tabu and spritz some on!
Maybe for females, but this male smells this… as a biologist stuck selling mens frag.-I note the following…current medical literature says our sense of smell decreases with age, perhaps its why Aramis and Brut still rules over 60, comes in loud and clear,also, I see the Old Spice guys in mid life go Colonia by Aqua di Parma or Creeds Tweed, males like what has worked, or may work to attract the female OR like “you all”, (Male of the South) what just smells good to us…And in matters of the heart, guys still get weak knees when a whiff of the scent of the women that got away, or the wife waiting at home for us hits the remaining olfactory neurons left..a kiss is still a kiss, but a smell, now thats a lasting memory…but yu'all knew that too I bet.
You're the perfect person to comment, being a man, a biologist, and someone who sells men's fragrances! Does the sense of smell diminish for women, too? Maybe I'd better pack away some of my Guerlains for my golden years. And I know what you mean about how evocative smells can be. I'm still a sucker for a man who smells of Dial soap, the orange one. Thanks for your comment.
Hi, everybody! I´m 35, also a biologist, and my interest in perfume grows stronger with age. I must say that my tastes were defined since I was 17 or so, I bought Rive Gauche by YSL, my first adult scent, and I keep on liking oriental fragrances in cold weather and citrus ones in warm weather. I also have a thing for masculine scents, I wear some of the a lot…And smells ARE evocative…
So true..
Many of my [much] older friends lament that the mirror fails to reveal the perpetual adolescent lurking beneath the wizened exterior…
I say, make yourself happy, and , if you can, those around you-
To thine own self be true, and hang the rest…
[BTW, ZZ, if you are Ms. Zorn- I'm absolutely thrilled [all puns intended] to be awaiting Sienna Sun ! I'm going to kiss my mailfolk when it arrives !]
I may not enjoy the way others perfume themselves, but it's their choice, NOT mine.
AND, I resent being made to feel old-fashioned if I adore something from another era …
Do we burn Bauhaus?
Shred Vermeer?
Murder Mahler?
WHAT???
I agree with the level of sophistication becoming keener or more refined. It is similar to developing a discerning eye when looking at fine art.
As far as rereading books goes. Most of what I read is nonfiction. I have a few books about and by Richard Feynman the theoretical physicist. I love just picking one up and turning to a page. Some things like my reading and take on philosophy have evolved. Once I was all intense and hell bent on making a point. Now I tend to listen and observe, perhaps making up for all the time that I did not listen. My beliefs have not changed, just the way in which I choose to display (or not) them.
C. Yes I hope you enjoy the Sienna Sun, full of coffee, not for everyone, but definately different, and possibly a bit old school, like Tabu.
The Rive Gauche, I remember that perfume in the blue and black. A friend of mine wore it. It was always too big for me. My first grown up perfume, one that I started wearing in my teens, was the original Zen Perfume by Shiseido
Yikes, a Cultural Revolution for perfume! I can't seem to leave the house without something from 1957 on me, whether it's a purse, coat, necklace, or perfume. But I do try to stay true to myself as I age. I don't think that it means that I look (or smell) older, but smarter, deeper, and more experienced.
Now I'm really in the mood for the Mahler, off to the stereo….
Have you tried the Divine L'Homme Sage? It's a men's scent I adore. L'Homme de Coeur is great, too, it has more iris. (I'm not sure I would have appreciated it so much ten years ago.) I've always loved the blue and black metal canister of Rive Gauche. It must have seemed really adult.
My first grown-up perfume was Chanel 22. Then I did a drastic switch in college to Coco and Dolce Gabanna as I tried my best to be Anna Magnani. Today I'm settled down with a gentle spray of Eau des Merveilles.
Oh, yes, I wore Rive Gauche throughout my faculty years, it was my signature! I must try the scents you mention, Angela, thank you. I really use a lot Dior Homme, Terre d´Hermes, M7 Fresh,…