This time of year, perfume lovers talk a lot about what fragrances they like to wear for the holidays. Other times of the year, people ponder fragrances for weddings, major birthdays, new jobs, or other milestones. This post won't suggest perfumes for any of these occasions. Instead, it offers a warning. If you wear a beautiful fragrance on a beautiful day, you'll have beautiful memories. But if you wear a beautiful fragrance and things go sour — well, you may as well pour that bottle of Amouage Lyric that was supposed to brighten your spring down the toilet. It will only bring you heartache.
Scent and memory are tightly entwined. Maybe you wouldn't otherwise give it a second sniff, but you might own a bottle of Estée Lauder Youth Dew because you associate it with your grandmother, the one who called you "pumpkin" and hugged you with a grip that would earn her favorable odds in big time wrestling. You might have entertained the possibility of wearing Calvin Klein Euphoria if it didn't remind you so much of the pushy office manager in your last job who made a note of pointing out every time you returned from lunch two minutes late. Maybe you had to give away your bottle of Thierry Mugler Angel because your ex-husband loved it on you — until he left you for some Paris Hilton Siren-wearing homewrecker.
Sometimes you can't help it when a perfume you love becomes tainted with painful memories. For instance, who knew the day you first wore Chanel Bois des Iles they'd call a staff meeting to shut down the office and lay everyone off? But sometimes you do have more control. If you know you're facing something difficult, it's not a good day to try something new. Instead, wear an old favorite already infused with happy associations. For me, Guerlain Vol de Nuit and Caron Tabac Blond are armor against painful times as well as favorites for good times.
If, on the other hand, you are sure of a time you'll want to remember, by all means wear a new fragrance, something that excites you. Buying a new scent for a vacation, for instance, and wearing it every day you're away will bring those memories back each time you wear it at home. Choose a new scent for your wedding you'll want to wear often to call up your happiness (and hopefully not memories of the bridesmaids overindulging in wine coolers in the parking lot, or of the fist fight between your new sister-in-law and the guest who danced a little too friendly with her husband. Or maybe you go to classier weddings than I do.)
It's exciting to take a new bottle of perfume you love from its box. Maybe you've been lucky this holiday season and received a bottle. (Dear Santa, that would be the large L'Artisan Parfumeur Havana Vanille, please.) Just remember to wear it with joy. It will pay you back with happy memories for years to come.
Are there any fragrances you've had to stop wearing because of the memories they bring up? Any you love to wear for the same reason?
My very fabulous grandmother wore Fendi and Opium at the same time – all the time. In Florida. You smelled her coming, but it suited her larger-than-life glamourous persona (we didn’t call her Glam-ma for nothing). When she passed away, my aunts and cousins gathered and we were going through her jewelry box (which was the size of a small dresser) and all her pieces smelled of Fendi and Opium. I put them in a ziploc bag and two years later, her wood tiki-head necklace STILL smells like Grandma. Sigh.
When I smell Jean Nate I think of being tucked into bed – my mother used it in the y0s.
One of my exes wore Bijan for Men which still accelerates my heartbeat before I remember what a cad he was.
I wore Oscar De La Renta’s Volupte in 1993 – when I first moved to New York City and acted like a fool. When I smell it now I feel young and reckless – I recently found a bottle @ TJ Maxx for $10 and snatched it up just for the memories.
Glam-ma! I love it!
I wonder how Volupte will feel to you now? It’s amazing how cracking open perfume you used to wear will bring back the memories.
Volupte is a little too sweet for me these days – I will wear it now and then as a pick me up, but sparingly.
I also bought a bottle of Love’s Baby Soft for the same reason (youthful memories) – I can’t really wear it now but it’s comforting. I also wore Avon’s Odyssey as a teen and again- too sweet for me now, but I used to love it.
It’s interesting how a person’s preference for sweet dwindles over time.
Laura-Fendi and Opium at the same, in Florida? Boy that’s impressive. I should try that combo sometime….. She sounds like quite a lady for sure!
It’s true–there’s something really admirable about it!
Oh, the memories. Fortunately there aren’t many I can’t wear. I have more positives than negatives. A rather funny one is Dior Homme, which I wore the first time I got raging drunk enough to get sick. I’ve had to work hard to rewrite that one! Dior’s Dune is the same way…hey, what’s with the house of Dior? Why am I always wearing it getting sick?! (Poison and Hypnotic are still safe)
That mystery aside, I do love to pull out a fragrance because of its memory-carrying properties. Each time I put on a fragrance I can remember the first time I put it on, and it’s fun to unlock those boxes! I could go on for ages, listing each one, but I’ll just mentally walk down the lane instead!
Oh, Dior Homme! It’s such a fabulous fragrance, I’m glad you were able to overcome any nauseating feelings associated with it. (Me, I’ll never get past the smell of Early Times cheapo whiskey. Ugh.)
Angela, which a lovely topic that drove me to register an account in the middle of night (i’m in hk)!
Comme des Garcons is the one I couldn’t wear anymore, coz it’s a gift from my ex who loves it on me. Our breaking-up was so ugly and it cost me a relationship as well as a life-long fd. Typical sweet memory turns bitter/sour…
On the other hand, CdG’s Kyoto is a scent I associated with a very best fd. It smells lovely on her that’s why I bought it. Perfumes on her always smell so good that I always followed her. Kyoto reminds me our precious friendship.
Alfred Sung’s Sha, a powdery lilac perfume always gave me comfort. I bought it as a gift to cheer up myself a few years back when I was in my first job as PR. It was the hardest time in my life, just graduated from Uni, a extremely stressful job, worsening relationship with my mum and all my friends suddenly disappeared from my side. I felt so helpless and lonely at that time. I was always longing for Sha but I was so poor. In desperate, one day I saw it in a chain cosmetic store called SaSa and it was on sale! from around US$30 to $12. I bought it immediately. Since then this girly scent always soothes my mind and gives me warmth. Though I don’t wear it as often as I did 4 years before.
I mean Comme des Garcon’s Avignon, the one I couldn’t wear anymore.
How strange that two incense scents evoke such different responses! Oh well, I like Kyoto better anyhow.
I love the story about Sha! Now you can look back at that time in your life and look at how far you’ve come.
My mother gave me one of her old bottles of no. 19, which she’s worn her whole life. I find it very refined, and comforting because of the associations. As for bad associations – Angel was never going to be my thing, but a particularly nasty schoolmate used to spray it on in the classroom. Blech!
Oh, and I wore Parfum de Therese to summer balls at university. Beautiful memories there.
I love that perfume.
Wow. Very, very nice indeed!
That’s such a wonderful association to have–your mother and No. 19. Angel, on the other hand, can be so powerful that if you have any bad association with it, you almost have to avoid small rooms and elevators completely.
Very timely, Angela. I’ve been having weird dreams about the moron I dated when I was 18, and was finally able to pin down the cause: It all started when I found a vintage bottle of Ysatis at Goodwill. Makes me mad, because I really do love it. But the association is just too overwhelming, so I may save it for days that I know are going to suck anyway.
For positive associations, I stick to Chanel No. 5. I even spritzed it on the Ugly Doll I took into surgery with me years ago, since they won’t let you wear perfume when you go under the knife. (Not fair! If I die and I already can’t wear makeup, I at least want to smell good! Oh, and the took the Ugly Doll away from me, too. Bastards.) Anyway, the No. 5 is one of the few that has managed to stand up against any associations, negative or positive.
Taking a gal’s doll away in surgery? They deserve to be drenched in Ysatis as payback!
Chanel No. 5 is a good one to have as your stalwart.
Now I feel less like a dork for taking my stuffed animal(bunny of course!) when I went to have my wisdom teeth out.
Nothing dorky about it! Well, maybe a little. But who cares?
Ysatis is one I’ve not worn since I was 24, at which point it was more or less the only thing I was wearing regularly. I discovered that the guy I was living with was – uh – ‘dating’ another woman, who also wore Ysatis. (Actually, it’s only *just* occurred to me that maybe she borrowed mine?) At any rate, I stopped wearing it immediately; they got engaged 2 weeks after I moved out; and only 20 years later have I finally sent the remains of my bottle to a friend in Boston. She adores it and can wear it without bad memories.
Wow! Now that’s a story. I’m sure I wouldn’t even be able to look at the bottle after an experience like that.
I had to read this a few times, because it sounded uncannily like my old roommate in Boston who had a love of Ysatis and a penchant for boyfriend stealing.
I spotted some 1.7 bottles at TJ Maxx for $9.99 if anyone cares to revisit Ysatis.
Oh! That would be something if it was the same woman.
Highly unlikely since
a) I am English and this happened in Oxford, UK
b) I only came to live here 10 years ago
but uncanny, all the same!
i will most definitely establish a worldwide Miss Kitty V. fan club
i love it
Ugly Doll
Angela- This is of course a timely piece you have posted here. I am very fortunate that I have only one negative association with perfume that was being worn by someone else. It wasn’t even about the person herself, but the damn smell made me sick. I don’t even remember what she said the name was, but thank God she didn’t ask me why I was asking, only that a relative of hers picked it up @ Bloomies. On the upswing, most of my associations with fragrance have been positive. I am attached to Ralph Lauren’s first perfume; Lauren and to Cardin de Pierre Cardin for women because my cousin used to wear it all the time in the late 70’s and I thought she was just so beautiful and smelled great. Great article Angela! Excuse me, must confess I’m making like oatmeal at the moment!
What a great phrase–“making like oatmeal”!
The good associations are, of course, the best ones. I still swoon at the smell of a man freshly scrubbed with Dial soap thanks to someone in my past.
I love the original Dial soap and of course a freshly scrubbed man is always welcomed!
“A freshly scrubbed man is always welcomed” would make a good bumper sticker!
That would go well with my “no shirt, no shoes, no shower, no service” sign I want to hang up.
It kind of does sound like a natural.
So true!
I used to wear Fidji, Magie Noire, Opium, Byzance, when I was adolescent, so now they are not a part of my perfume collection, though I have But I remember in the summer some girlfriends of my mother wearing the most thrilling Joy!! I still recall how awesome the experience was. Joy was for me the forbidden fruit, the ultimate perfume, a myth!
Those are some pretty sophisticated perfumes for a teen!
Joy truly is wonderful. I hope you have a big bottle of it now.
I forgot about Fidji!
that’s funny, Fidji was the first scent I wanted, (and received) as a reaction to all my classmates wearing that dreadful Charlie, it probably started me off in wanting scents nobody else around me had – a good starting point for a perfumista – or maybe Charlie did- can awful scents have such high powers?
Oh yes, I think so. They can turn you off perfume or launch into greater exploration–like they did you! The power of Charlie.
“The power of Charlie” — when my grandmother visited my childhood home, she was strictly forbidden from smoking indoors. This she agreed to, aside from her late-night cigarette which she’d smoke in the guest bathroom with the door shut & the fan on.
After extinguishing her Virginia Slim, she’d spritz a liberal — very liberal — amount of Charlie in the bathroom to “camouflage” the smoke. And then she’d pretend like nothing happened! I’ll forever associate Charlie with cigarettes.
That story is a classic! Charlie and cigarette smoke, ugh.
Ahh, my best friend in high school wore Magie Noire and I thought she was so sophisticated! Her father bought it for her so he could get the makeup gift set that came with it at Christmas
Her father wore makeup?
My mom used to wear Joy for special occasions, and when I smell it I still get an instant flashback of her hugging me goodbye with the babysitter before going out to dinner with my dad! It seemed the epitome of glamour.
I was wearing Tokyo Milk’s Gin & Rosewater the day I went to a surgical specialist’s office this hot summer and got some bad news. Everything came out fine, but do you think I can sniff that stuff again? One whiff is enough to make me hide under the bed!
Angela: sounds like you go to some great weddings! This is a good topic. I’m looking forward to all the tales! Thanks!
Gin and rosewater sounds pretty intriguing, but I’m hoping it wasn’t one of your very favorite perfumes before it picked up its painful associations.
Oh man, the weddings. Let me tell you. My family has a trashy streak that really goes all out at ceremonies.
Angela, I have to say–you’re so graceful and poised that it makes me a little relieved to know somewhere in your family is a trashy streak!
You are too kind. Believe me, I’ve seen the inside of many a trailer.
HA! My husband tells everybody that we got married at the courthouse so my family would have to go through metal detectors first!
Good one!
lol at Julia!
Trashy weddings can be the most fun. I like down-to-earth folks.
Thanks, Tama! We really had fun with it. Second time for both of us, so we didn’t worry about any kind of big affair. We still joke about the party we threw for our friends that weekend at what is now a topless bar, because the biggest decision we had to make was if we wanted regular paper plates or the good Chinet kind. We got married the day before Thanksgiving since it is our favourite holiday, his kids were out of school and could spend the week at home with us, and that is the “big” holiday that everyone in his family travels for so they were already in town and not inconvenienced. We were married by a judge friend of my husband’s in his law firm’s “private rooms” on the top floor of our beautiful courthouse overlooking downtown San Antonio. I wore a silk suit in an amazing fuchsia, and he wore his lawyer suit because we got married after work. I still wear that suit. Unfortunately I didn’t wear fragrance at the time, so I have no beautiful perfume associations.
I am glad that everything turned out fine for you. Isn’t it maddening the way something can trigger a subconscious response when we don’t want it to? Now if we can control that the only time our sub-con is activated is for the association of positive things. What happy people we’d make! Zzzzz. Dreaming state activated.
That would be a terrific skill to have!
Sorry the demon of typography left some words on my message.
So true!
I used to wear Fidji, Magie Noire, Opium, Byzance, when I was adolescent, so now they are not a part of my perfume collection. But I remember in the summer some girlfriends of my mother wearing the most thrilling Joy!! I still recall how awesome the experience was. Joy was for me the forbidden fruit, the ultimate perfume, a myth!
Nice! I hope you wear Joy a lot these days!
I think I’ve mentioned this in a comment before: I wore Chanel Chance during a conference visit with my fellow students to New Orleans, I associated it with good and bad memories. Good because I saw Kermit Ruffins at this awesome club, ate great food, had a blast with my buddies. Bad because I got so wasted and the perfume scent was mixed with the other not so pleasant aromas of French Quarter streets.
What a jumble of responses to Chance! It sounds like, on the whole, it’s good, though.
Yeah it was a chaotic but fun time, when I think about how Chance wore on me I could remember the underlying smokiness of the fragrance.
Sounds like some interesting Chance associations. Fortunately, it’s still my “classy” scent. I associate it most with my AP Psych class senior year, which is a fantastic memory. I had to commute and so it was my first taste of independence. Not to mention that my teacher was amazing.
The original Burberry reminds me of homecoming, senior year. Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue reminds me of my roommate last year (a frequent remembrance, since everyone and their sister wears it). POTL Luctor et Emergo reminds me of Christmas, specifically the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. I don’t think I have any really negative associations with perfume…except maybe Love Spell from Victoria’s Secret and a few of the more obnoxious Bath and Body Works sprays (Sweet Pea, the Vanilla Sugar one…). Those make me kind of nauseous because my friend wore them all throughout high school. Liberally, constantly reapplying. Ick.
Chance was definitely interesting, can’t say it was entirely bad. It was my signature scent till the beginning stage of grad school when the classes stopped and research began. Then I sorta lost my innocence and started exploring more complex scents.
Oh, and POTL Luctor is on my list of must-try, from your description it sounds delicious. The list is getting longer and longer. It’s getting out of control this perfume obsession
POTL is a good one. I always forget about it. So much perfume, so little time!
POTL is amazing. I spilled my sample (there was genuine tears after that disaster) but a decant is high on my Christmas wishlist, along with a decant of Lubin Idole. Actually, with that one I may just have to save up for a bottle. I’m not usually a sucker for bottle design, but that one…sigh. I hate being a poor college student. Anyway, you have to try POTL. Even if you aren’t in love with it, it’s still incredibly interesting and worth a sniff.
I have a huge bottle of L’Heure Bleu that I am afraid to wear … a few weeks after I bought it, I spritzed some on before going to sleep, and an hour or so later, my husband woke me up to tell me that two very dear friends had died in a car accident earlier that day. So now I won’t wear it because of what might happen if I do …
Your story brings tears to my eyes. My best friend’s only son was killed when he was 22, and I remember so vividly my husband waking me with the news and my denial of it. I have too many things to remind me of that horrible day, but uckily fragrance isn’t one of them. Kevin’s review of L’Heure Bleue somehow makes that fragrance “fit” this sort of situation. If you haven’t read it, you should. Maybe it can become a fragrance that you can learn to appreciate with the cold, slithering, fear. To me, the image of the blue snake he uses in the piece resonates that primal, untouchable thing that we all fear. It is the fragrance I find most appropriate when visiting his grave.
It is such a moody fragrance. Kevin’s review was terrific.
You are so right, and I loved Kevin’s review (all of his reviews!). Our friends had a vacation house on a lake, a place they loved above all else, and my parents have a house facing theirs across a cove. I will be up there in a few weekends, looking across the frozen water at their house and thinking of them. I will wear L’Heure Bleu to symbolize both love and loss, but also the comforting strength of memory.
That sounds perfect. Maybe you’ll infuse the scent with happiness that way, too.
Oh, I’m sorry. Somehow, the eeriness of L’Heure Bleue fits the situation: waking up safe, next to someone you love, confused by the sudden plunge into wakefulness, stricken with sadness.
Thank you Angela! But I don’t want to be afraid of wearing any fragrance, so I’m telling myself that LHB has been around for a long time, and has witnessed decades of good and bad, and it’s still here. We all keep going, no matter what, and our griefs are part of what makes us (hopefully) more complete human beings. So for every LHB low, there is a Diorissimo moment of joy.
What a marvelous attitude!
L’Heure Bleue truly is the hour suspended between light and dark, infused with so much beauty and tension of expectation and anticipation of the unknown. Will it be the kind of magical evening that the sophistication and pure deliciousness of LB turns into good food and good champagne with good friends, romance and singing into the night, or will the evening be the kind when you sink into the soft, powdery, floury sweet and warm/spicy carnation side of LB and you decide to stay in, watch old movies and snuggle down with a loved one, even if it is your giant slobbery dog. Either evening can turn wrong, but if you start out with the latter and it ends being awakened in tragedy, somehow the disorienting and unapproachable side of L’Heure Bleue that is cold and unapproachable, shimmering and slithery/silvery beautiful still seems right.
Bruce Springsteen sings about graveyard boots and smiling skull rings. I have a cemetery dress and it is perfect with L’Heure Bleue and pearls.
What an amazing précis of the perfume! No wonder it’s so legendary.
Whenever I smell The Body Shop’s White Musk I feel like a feshman in college again, about to do something irresponsible. Not a bad thing.
I remember liking Agent Provocateur (though not buying it) and I sprayed it on at a store a couple of weeks ago – and it made me sick with sadness because I had forgotten sampling it during the breakup of my marriage… Never wearing that again!
The White Musk memories sound fun! Not the Agent Provocateur, though.
I have good scent memories for the most part too! A few that take me back in time: Dune, Chanel No. 5, Beautiful…
p.s. Angela, we are asking Santa for the same bottle
Let’s hope Santa stocked up, then!
Tiny, Jewish Santa didn’t bring me any Havana Vanille for Chanukah, but my birthday is coming up and my dad really liked the sample I wore while he was here and he asked me to send him a link. *fingers crossed* I decided to go ahead and mention how much I’ve been wanting a bottle of Daphne, too, as long as he was looking.
Good work. I’m loving my bottle of Daphne, and I so look forward to some Havana Vanille. If Santa doesn’t come through, I’ll make it work one way or another.
Did you know that’s because the olfactory centers in the brain are the closest of the senses to those of memory?
Guerlain’s Samsara is a bittersweet one for me. It’ll always be the smell of my grandma who practically raised me, and who passed away several years ago. My grandpa swore off perfume when she died; I still find it one of the most touching expressions of mourning I know… A few weeks ago I finally gathered the courage to approach Samsara again at an Ulta store, out of morbid curiosity I guess. It’s uncanny how instantly and vividly scents can bring things back… Though I don’t know if it’s been reformulated or if it’s just time, there was a certain warmth and depth to it that’s missing.
Some scents will always remind me of my youth: Benetton’s Colors (I have no idea how and why I loved it!), Nina Ricci’s staid but cheery Ricci Club, Versace’s cheap Blue Jeans (for me it’ll always be the smell of clammy Beirut summer nights when I would spray it on my pillows before going to sleep).
Recently, out of sheer curiosity, I got a scent that I’d given an ex of mine back in those days: Nikos’ Sculpture. Spraying it was like having him right there in the room… I couldn’t take it, as much as I loved it, so I packaged it and mailed it off to him (we’re good friends now).
On a happier note, I bought a travel bottle of TDC’s Bois d’Iris just before going on a sailing trip around the Greek Islands. And now, every time I spray, it’s as if I’m back in that crammed tiny pigeon hall of a cabin under deck, getting ready to step off the boat…
I love your Bois d’Iris memory! You have lots of scent memories, in fact. Proust and his madeline? Must have been its smell and not so much its flavor.
Ah yes, I knew that fact and used it to my advantage. When I studied for exams that require a lot of memorization (which is my weakness, I’m better at math and logical derivation) I would spritz memorable scents then wore the same fragrance to the exam.
Clever!
Smelling Marc Jacobs now gives me an anxiety attack because yeah, it was that perfume that my jerk of an ex bought me back in 2003. Same goes for Origins’ Spring Fever, because that’s what his mother wore and I stole spritzes of it from her bathroom when I stayed over. And I can’t smell Stella at all either because I wore it so much in high school and college during some pretty bad times.
But Narciso Rodriguez for Her smells like this perfume I got as a child that came with a Barbie doll (I don’t remember which one). Now whenever I go into a Sephora or department store, I spritz myself with NR and grin. (And believe me, I’m going nuts trying to remember this Barbie and her perfume — it was awesome!)
Scent memory is awesome. Thanks for this article.
I don’t remember a Barbie with a perfume, but I love the idea of it! Wouldn’t that be a fun one to have?
there’s one on ebay right now… perfume pretty barbie!
I love that name! I’ll have to go look at it.
I’m having trouble resisting the Disney Princess Perfumes and lip glosses right now!
When I was divorced I wore Cool Water for Women every day. It just happened that way; it was my favorite perfume at the time.
I still love the smell of it… but cannot wear it. I have a mini in my desk drawer right now but I can’t seem to ever bring myself to put it on. I doubt I’ll ever wear it again. It was one of the saddest times of my life, and I guess I can’t get over that memory hump.
On the other hand, Bulgari’s Eau Parfumée Thé Blanc was in the bathroom of the hotel where I spent my honeymoon with my beloved – it was the soap and the shower gel – and I love it so much. I ordered a set of it as soon as we got home. In fact I put it on this morning, when I wasn’t feeling so great (another short night’s sleep) and it made me smile happy.
Of the two scents, in my opinion the Bulgari is the nicest. So I’m glad that’s the one that makes you happiest!
I was perfume shopping in the middle of the night, and Neiman’s has an anniversary LE bottle of Bvlgari that is beautiful. Unfortunately it has a bulb atomizer on a long cord, but you can always decant the fragrance into something else. They also have a 125th anniversary coffret and a guest collection.
http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/catalog/prod.jhtml?itemId=prod99310012&parentId=cat10470832&masterId=cat10470744&index=2&cmCat=cat000000cat000285cat10470744cat10470832
I think I’m to young to have attained many scent memories, but I wore Vanilla Fields and a honeysuckle body spray from mid- grade school through junior high so those scents embody innocence and youth to me. My mother is a vivacious redhead that wears too much makeup and loves to wear purple, animal prints, suede, leather, and high heels and her signature scent that will always conjure her up to me- Red Door.
Your mother should guest star on Absolutely Fabulous! Whew. What an image.
Sounds like me in the 90’s. Am I your mother??
Uh oh. Now the blog’s turning into daytime reality TV…
March 2009. Really bad place in my life. Very depressed. I decide to have my hair cut and go to a new hairdresser, one suggested by a friend. Never, never do such things when you feel like that. Result: he made me feel really ugly and humiliated. I came back home crying, feeling hopelessly stupid for being so passive, with a horrible perm and a horrible color and with a lot less money in my purse. That day, hoping in a fresh start (sometimes you start from your hair…) I wore Broadway nite for the first time. Love it or hate it, I think it’s a fragrance you can happily wear only when you feel lighthearted and strong. Obviously now I can’t help seeing it as a horrible perm in a bottle…
You’re right: a transformative haircut when you’re depressed is a bad idea. It should go right in the Book of Indisputable Facts next to “never cut your own bangs after you’ve had two glasses of wine”.
This is why I cannot have bangs. It is just too tempting.
I know what you mean. The last time I decided to give myself bangs, I ended up with a nasty short fringe. Never again.
Awww! That’s a shame, because Broadway Nite really is FABULOUS. (The kind of fabulous that has to be accompanied by jazz hands.)
Yeah, I know… I smell my bottle from time to time, to see if I can handle it, but last time one tiny spritz on the back of my hand was too much, enough to make me feel stupid like that day
I really hate those kind of hairdressers. Don’t they know we are going there because we need to boost our self-image? I was having an especially bad day many years ago – PMS, long term relationship going bad but still planning the wedding, face breaking out, low self-esteem, halfway through college and thinking that I was probably going to wait tables my whole life, etc. – and I decided I needed a new look and went to the snooty expensive guy who cut my then soon to be husband and then even sooner ex-husband’s hair. He was terrible to me. Very passive aggressive and condescending, showing me pictures and asking me if I could “understand” the haircut and saying “don’t take this the wrong way” but I REALLY needed a facial. He lowered my self esteem even more and gave me a really crappy early 90’s “artistic” haircut. For a fortune. I took great pleasure in going to the huge snooty salon he used to work out of and getting it fixed by one of their “lower” stylists and telling him who did it. HE took great pleasure in telling (and embarrassingly, showing) the haircut to everybody in the studio including the owner. Almost twenty years later, my life situation is totally different and I can afford to get my hair cut anywhere I want, but I still remember you Victor….
Ugh Victor! What a jerk. He probably made a lot of people miserable. Guys like that shouldn’t be allowed to have scissors.
For me Opium is also special. An older cousin wore it when I was a clumsy ugly teenager. She was rather like Monica Belucci and also an amazing person.
Now she doesn’t use it any more, but I do. I’m still not glamorous, but Opium really transforms me. Funny enough, though I enjoy wearing it, the memories are far more vivid when I spray it on something else near me than when I’m wearing it.
Poison gives me a headache, though I rather like the smell. An aunt wore it in the past. Though she’s a really awful, smelling Poison brings back wonderful memories of happy times.
How terrific to have a glamorous cousin like that! Opium and Poison are both such big perfumes, I can see how they’d be especially evocative.
I forgot to say thanks for the article. I find memories and associations even more important than scent.
Yes my cousin is an amazing person and a great inspiration.
I’ve also had a pushy sales person put me off Cinema when it first came out. A year ago, sniffing on my own I fell in love. Maybe if an incident isn’t bad enough, you can override it.
You’re welcome, of course.
Yes, I guess you can get past painful associations with a particular perfume, and it’s worth trying if you really love the scent.
I like that Opium transforms you and makes you glamorous. It is a beautiful scent and not one that just anyone can wear. Perfume Shrine had an article on “chic” a while back, and she mentioned that she finds Opium worn casually to be very chic. I’ve mentioned it before, but I think your favourite perfume worn with jeans, a t-shirt and good shoes are the perfect outfit. Good shoes and a good bag can take you anywhere.
I agree. Good shoes and bag (and a good bra, I think) are the absolute fundamentals. Add a good perfume and you’re set.
Polo Green still makes my heart beat fast 25 years later, for reasons we’ve discussed elsewhere.
Shalimar is my armour. It is my love, the thing that lives on my sheets and pillows and lulls me to sleep every night. The one that always makes me inhale deeply and marvel every single time how something can be so perfect, and wonder why it took me so long to see it.
I’m still pretty new to perfumes (time-wise, financial investment is another matter), but my first “real” perfume is one I love so much I don’t even tell people what it is and I don’t wear it very often because my associations with it are too strong and personal to be shared with the public. It is the one that will make me weep for what is lost someday.
Oh boy. I am dying to know what that perfume is. Joy parfum? Vintage Miss Dior parfum? Scandal?
hey julia..u and i have the same love/sense for shalimar!!! i couldn’t even imagine what that fragrance is(your specical one)…but i am sure happy for you to have it !!!
It’s a wonderful fragrance. You two must smell divine.
Thank you! I read this and had to go apply some vintage extrait from a rosebud bottle. Ahhhhhh….the bergamot amazes me every time. Maybe that is why I love it so much – bergamot is the fragrance I used during my son’s birth and it always reminds me and my husband of that night.
This is such an evocative topic that sounds so easy at the beginning, but the way it has developed in this thread has me thinking about sense memory in a different way. The way you introduced it did a great job of targeting a select set of memories that everybody has and many of the responses it has elicited have moved me to tears. So many people discussing some of the most vulnerable places they have been in their lives over perfume. I love it! Thanks, Angela.
You’re welcome! I’m grateful to you and everyone else who has commented.
I can say absolutely that on one particular day when I was getting divorced about 10 years ago, I specifically did NOT wear any fragrance at all. Nothing for about three weeks just to make sure my fav frag that I always wore didn’t get ruined for me…..
But I have a funny story about scents being ruined with events & memory, and what can you say about kids? My sisters and I used to play “kidnapper” when we were little kids in the 70s — we’d hold a washclothe over the face to mimic chloroform as was often shown on TV shows, and then pretend we passed, out etc. Kind of a good guy-bad guy game… well one day my older sister put a HUGE amount of Coty’s Muguet des Bois on a washclothe and then held it over my face. I can tell you that I still can’t smell strong LOTV without wanting to puke!
Does it bring back memories of Patty Hearst? It cracks me up that you guys played kidnappers. Of course, my cousin and I used to play amputee. We’d tie our feet to the backs of our thighs and waddle around on the stumps.
Kids – you gotta love all that imagination and fearlessness… we played a number of games that crack me up and embarass me as well!
You two both crack me up! I’ll have to rack my memory to see if I can remember any very silly games we played.
Yes, do!
Oh lord I remember crazier childhood games. I believe my older cousin Tasha was out to terrify me and her sisters with witchy make believe, she would get us to hold seances at the graveyard across from my house, and play bloody mary and light as a feather stiff as a board.
I must be the only person who is happy that Magie Noire has been reformulated. When I was in college my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend was still his roommate. She was happy to have *her* new swains sleep over, but hated it when *I* turned up, and would pout about in a gallic manner. She wore Magie Noire, and every time I smelled the old version anywhere my fists would clench…
I swear I can see that woman right now, just from your description! I think we’ve all known someone like her. Ugh.
The Magie Noire of the ’80s has always smelled like cat pee to me, so I’m laughing thinking of it as a mean girl’s signature perfume.
Sounds like the girl Annie was talking about wouldn’t have been opposed to peeing to mark her territory, so it’s fitting.
Thanks to everyone for making me laugh about this irritating olfactory memory, especially Miss Kitty!
It is fitting!
Sigh. I love #19, but I was wearing it the day I got layed off from my well paying (for 24 year old at least!) job this past January, and I haven’t really worn it since. I’m thinking on the year anniversery of losing the job I’ll wear it, go do something fabulous, and make it mean something good again.
Love in White reminds me of one of my best friends and her wedding, since that was what I was wearing, and she dabbed some of it on behind her ears too, even though she had originally dismissed the thought of having perfume on that day.
My first boyfriend wore Empirio Armani and I can still pick it out a mile away, though now, instead of swooning, I think of silly high school romances, even though we’re still friends, almost 9 years later.
A weird moment, though, in scent/memory things came to me at a Nordstrom’s about a year ago. I was haphazardly spraying the Guerlains about, and got to Jicky. As soon as it was sprayed, I was instantly reminded of my high society great-aunt who was all kinds of amazing. It was like an arrow to the heart. A direct hit of a million happy childhood memories. I don’t know if she wore Jicky ,but she always had perfume for me to play with at her house. Perhaps that was one of them….
How terrific to have an aunt who (probably) wore Jicky! She must have been something else. I’m picturing martinis, hilarious gossip, beautiful flower arrangements, exotic travel, and beloved pets.
I also have a very special aunt and I have only fond memories of her. If only she had let me play with Jicky as a child and I had the joy of rediscovering it as an adult! I feel lucky that I at least discovered Jicky and I have nothing but glamorous feelings surrounding it! I love how many of these memories involve Guerlain fragrances.
You’re lucky. The Guerlains would make wonderful memory prompts.
My first real boss, an insane Frenchwoman, killed YSL Paris for me. I loved that stuff, but she wore it too, and I had to surrender to the manic bombast of her personality. Not such a bad thing, though; Paris was my wildly over-applied high school scent, and it was probably high time to put it behind me.
Now I’m facing a conundrum that’s curiously related to your post… Perfume-wise, this year has been the year of L’Air du Desert Marocain for me, but at the same time it’s been mostly a dismal, depressing year in my life. On the one hand, I’ve really NEEDED my L’Air — that stuff has truly helped me get through some rough patches — but on the other, I worry that I’m dooming it to forever holding dismal, depressing associations in my mind…
Oh boy, that’s a tough one–your conflict over L’air, that is. If it has helped you feel better, you’re probably better off investing in a bottle. Every time you wear it you can make a point of noticing something beautiful or kind. Maybe it will boost the whole year!
Oh, I have a bottle of L’Air (half-full by now!); I just hope I’ll be able to wear it in happier times, too.
And I think I’m going to give up my battle to learn to love Mitsouko… It sometimes makes my stomach churn, and it finally dawned on me that an absolutely dreadful friend of my mother used to wear it, and there’s no way I can surmount that obstacle!
Oh, well that makes everything different about Mitsouko! Too bad a mean person ruined it for you.
I pitched a nearly full bottle of CH 212 before my last move because it was a present from my controlling college boyfriend. The one I’ve never stopped wearing, even after it was around during the tough times, is Angel. A little spritz still makes me feel like I could take on the world! The original Donna Karan Chaos reminds me of my first job as a cashier at Walgreens. Hugo Boss Woman is what my sister wore when she was an angry teenager; I used to call it “Eau de Beast”.
Recently, I’ve been wearing a lot of Chanel No 5 EDT. It smells calm, cool, and poised, qualities which I admire (without having much to do with them, of course).
You have a lot of great perfume associations (and some great perfume, too)!
I love Lolita Lempica-
So I took the bottle to my trip to Washington D.C. On my way there and on my way back, I was car-sick.
I havn’t touched the bottle since then. =(
Oh, I can completely imagine that. Yuck.
Yes! A few weeks ago, I was trying to figure out why I rarely wear a shiny new bottle of perfume the day I get it. I finally realized that without actually thinking about it, I’m protecting its associations, waiting for a day that’s pretty much assured to be good before that perfume has its first spritz-with-abandon day.
On negative associations, for a long time – I’m finally getting over it – tuberose annoyed me. I could acknowledge that it was a lovely scent, but smelling it made me feel annoyed, crowded, bothered, rebellious, resentful. I assume that it reminded me of someone that frequently wore that scent.
I do remember a kindergarten teacher that made me feel exactly that way. As an example of her personality, when she crossed a room and a child was in her path, she would nudge the child aside rather than changing her path one inch, no matter how much clear space there was.
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn that she wore some strong tuberose perfume.
I bet you’re right! I bet it was that pushy teacher. I wonder how many of her former students are terrorized by tuberose now.
Quite a hell of a demeanor for — of all things — a kindergarten teacher! Wow!
I’ve probably mentioned this one before… (once or twice… a day… all autumn…
) but Sonoma Scent Studio Tabac Aurea is the olfactory ghost of my high school boyfriend. It smells of dry leaves, leather jacket, a faint whiff of tobacco and Old Spice deodorant, warm skin and stolen kisses. The first time I tested TA, I sat at my desk at work* with my wrist glued to my nose and my emotions banging around from guilt to lust and back.
I found it so gorgeous – hey, Jimmy was the Titanic of my love life, but he smelled great! – that I bought a bottle anyway, and now I’ve worn it often enough that I have other associations with it, and he’s beginning to fade away.
*This testing-at-work thing may be a Bad Idea… I’m also remembering the day I put on Citizen Queen and was embarrassed at how sensual it was. Poor Daisy, I sent her this panicky email screeching about how she should have WARNED me not to wear this slutty thing to work. (It doesn’t have the same effect on her, apparently, so she didn’t know of anything to warn me about!)
I’ve had testing disasters, too, so I’m sympathetic! I still haven’t tried Tabac Aurea, but you make it sound to die for.
I have to say-fragrance and memory are so vividly linked for me. Chanel No 5 and Oscar de la Renta’s Ruffles are must-have comfort scents. Chanel No 5 reminds me of wonderful friends and family get-to-gethers, and Ruffles of my beloved grandmother, now passed.
You and Miss Kitty would be very happy hanging out together with your bottles of No. 5!
I’d love to come to that party too! Chanel No 5 parfum has become my faking that I have it all together fragrance these last few months. Anytime I am a shambles and I have something big to get done at work or need a little escapism from my toddler cluttered household, I reach for the No 5. It gives me confidence at work and glamor in sweat pants! I imagine someday the smell of No 5 will remind me of these crazy “salad” days…
It sounds like No. 5 is you personal assistant–there to take care of business when you can’t go it alone.
I will alwasy associate LouLou with an interesting time in my life – they guy I was in love with during college adored it. But apparently not as much as the Aqua di Gio and Tuscany his ‘real’ girlfriend wore. He always smelled like Hugo Boss Elements and I still smile whenever I catch a whiff. Even though he broke my heart.
Oh, and Cool Water! Another looser I dated, but boy was he handsome.
I need a bottle of Loulou. And I feel your pain on the handsome loser front. (We probably all do!)
Funny you chose Euphoria. When it first came out, I pushed a magazine sample on my sister and she had to have a bottle. So I bought it for her (and, when she wasn’t looking, I borrowed some ;3 ). She proceeded to use it every time she smoked to “cover” the smell. Let me tell you, I can’t stand it now. Thankfully she moved on to B&BW stuff–I don’t care if she ruins any of those for me.
That’s funny! I think a nice rose chypre would have been the ticket for covering cigarette smoke. Something about them smells like nicotine to me.
My sister is not a moss person. She’s a laundry-grade “white musk” person. Eauch.
I actually haven’t tried any rose chypres. :<
Guerlain Parure always makes me thinking of smelling a fancy lady after she’d smoked a cigarette.
I love this little exchange. Parure for sure; Cristalle and (old) Azuree all strike me as perfect with cigarette smoke, and I mean that as a compliment. And I’m familiar with that particular combo of Euphoria + smoke, and GAG.
I can totally see both of those scents with cigarettes, especially the Azuree. I wonder if it’s partly the moss?
Or Jasmin et Cigarette.
That would be a good one.
What a sentimental idea!….I love it. Well, I’ll join the Chanel No5 camp. I actually started a thread on “if you could choose just one fragrance what would it be?”. A difficult task for many a perfumista/o but I finally decided on No5 because it’s the one I couldn’t possibly live without. It reminds me of my wonderful grandmother and I wear it when I miss her terribly, as my good-luck fragrance, when I need comfort, etc.
Thanks for starting this
It’s nice when you have a scent that is comfort in a bottle. Don’t run out!
I have a lot of perfumes associated with being young and foolish: Noa by Cacharel, Gucci Rush, Champs Elysees. The perfumes I won’t come near these days. Yack! Especially Cabotine by Gres. This was my first French perfume given to me by my first boy-friend. I actually hated it but wore it because I didn’t want to upset him. It was horrible!
Oh no! Faking liking the perfume is better than faking other things, I guess.
You write the best posts. I love the vacation idea. I’ve done that twice, which is why OJ Champaca is now evocative of Thailand and Cambodia, and my little bottle of iPdF Arancia Dolce is redolent of Italy…
While we don’t want a fragrance tainted by bad memories, some fragrances are so strong in the psyche I feel like they are there just to help us overcome difficult moments. I’ve deployed both Mitsouko and (vintage) Femme in such situations. They’re my magic shields. They have superpowers.
Femme and Mitsouko–yes! Femme is definitely a “hear me roar” perfume. I’m going to pull it out for sure the next time I fear having to take any sass. Mitsouko would be a great shield against heartache, I think. It’s so introspective but strong.
Doesn’t she?!
Great piece once again, Angela.
Like Jared, I remember so many of the scents I’ve aquired during perfumania, especially the very early days — when I first opened the vials of my first TPC (then Fragrant Fripperies) order to sniff Jardin Sur le Nil, Jo Malone Lime Basil Mandarin, CBIHP Memory of Kindness.
Then there are scents that bring back old memories: YSL Kouros which I wore in the late 80s — actually a bit of an embarrassing scent memory when I think of how much I might have worn, even to the office during the day! Ack! Drakkar Noir and Polo, which instantly remind me of high school senior year. Serge Noire drydown reminds me of a type of patchouli incense my mother used to have in the 70s. Also during that time, her signature scent was Ciara, which I haven’t smelled in well over 25 years… I’m curious to see what the reaction will be if I ever sniff a dab of it, or if I even remember it.
More recently, I wore Jubilation XXV on my 40th birthday and on New Year’s Eve 2008. For my 41st birthday it was Feminité du Bois extrait. Last Christmas was Noir Epices and I’m trying to decide this year whether to go with that or Epic Woman. Somehow, Noir Epices is very Christmas-y to me, like a spicy orange pomander or orange-peel-laden potpourri.
All such fabulous fragrances! I think Noir Epices would be perfect for Christmas. Feminite du Bois, too (for by the fire). And, of course, Jub XXV (for midnight mass).
Are there any perfumes you avoid because of bad memories?
I was worried to try Tommy Man because I wore it about ten years ago and I thought it would make me sad to think of an ex who used to often say “it smells like you”. When I bought a bottle a little over a year ago, I mainly just found it insipid and not evocative of any sad memories or emotion at all (my brain is good enough at pulling that baggage up all on its own at the darndest times, apparently; no scent cue required).
Damned old brain. Well, at least it was only Tommy Man and not something brilliant.
I’m reading this thread rather wistfully because I really don’t have any strong emotional links to fragrances. I do remember strong likes and dislikes dating back to teenagehood, but they all seem to be related to the fragrance only, not to people or associated experiences. This is just the way I’m wired — my brain is especially good at locking out memories of negative things. That part is good, I guess! Great fragrances do lift me up, like great music does, but again — it all seems to be about the fragrance.
It’s nice, then, that you don’t have to worry about those emotional pangs triggered by a scent.
My vote is for Noir Epices
but you know I am biased… Of course, Ive not yet smelled Epic.
Havana Vanille is so well-rounded, spicy-oriented-with-sweet -behind scent. Great pick!
Did you hear that, Santa?
I think I heard a faint HO HO HO!
I hope so!
I would have to say that Chanel No. 5 is also my number one comfort scent and the one I reach for most before going to bed. However, Hiris always brings me great memories. When it first came out, I was planning my first trip to Italy and bought a bottle to bring with me. Everyone on the trip commented on my fragrance. I have been to Italy several times through the years and always wore Hiris when I was there. So now when I spray it on, I always think of Italy (even though it is a French scent) and brings instant memories of my various trips.
For some reason, iris makes me think of Italy, so I totally get the connection. What a nice association!
Joy is the one for me. My Mom wore it when I was a kid and I was endlessly fascinated by that black bottle. She has given me some ove rthe years, and I remember when I turned 30, she gave me the rest of a 1/4-oz bottle of perfume and rubbed an extravagant amount on me. I probably reeked but what a great smell when it is applied with abandon! I have a bottle of the EDT, which is just not the same, and will eventually need to get some parfum again. My Mom is still around, and now my associations with her are vetivers and varnishy incenses like the Tauers, because she is an artist and her studio smells like crystal varnishes. One Opus Oils perfume, “Eros”, smells exactly like I think of my mom as smelling.
I don’t really have any bad associations – I just find that it is hard for me to back to perfumes I used to wear (except the constant Joy, and my first “adult” perfume, l’Heure Bleue, recently reacquired). It’s like once I am done with them, I really am. No more Poison, or Paloma, or Dune.
What a great thing to have a mother show you the wonders of being profligate with perfume. I love it that you think of resins when you think of her, too.
On my way to a 2 weeks vacation on the French Riviera, I bought a bottle of Lolita Lempicka Au Masculin at the duty free store. Memories of long dinners al fresco in great company with a glamourous view of the Mediterranean sea are only a spray away.
I also keep a bottle of Krizia Uomo that I no longer really wear, but the scent always reminds me of the early spring I experienced one year going from frigid Quebec city to Vancouver.
Those are wonderful memories–so clear in how you describe them.
This happened yesterday ironically. I was wearing YSl Elle when I got caught in a jam stuck in a car that smelt really WEIRD and with an extremely hyper baby…… You can guess the rest.
Uh oh. I hope you had some wet wipes handy.
First comment here, long time lurker.
My two biggest memory scents are both Guerlains. My mother’s favourite perfume has always been Mitsouko; when she was in the hospital for a lyposarcoma and a knee surgery, respectively, I was glad she wasn’t allowed perfume in the hospital. Being anointed with her scent helped.
I’m fairly young, and I had my first solo vacation to Paris this summer. I bought Spiritueuse Double Vanille at the flagship on the Champs-Elysees, and sprayed it on delightedly every morning in that little hotel room on the Rue St-Antoine. Every time I spritz it on I have a flashback. It hurts in the best way, because for those two weeks I really was that awesome!
Thanks for the awesome topic on this awesome blog.
Welcome! I love your story about SDV and bringing back feelings of being alone, happy, and fabulous in Paris. Makes me want my own bottle to see if I can somehow squeeze out the same magic!
certain scents remind me of my teens – anais anais, angel, various CK’s. There’s no way I could wear any of them now. Issey Miyake reminds me of my undergrad years. Kingdom and Stella McCartney remind me of my post-grad years in America. Those were the days when I only owned one or two scents! Now I own many decants and change my scent on a daily basis depending on the weather, the occasion, my mood, the man I am meeting! So I doubt one particular scent will ever be associated with a special time/place anymore………….I will choose my wedding perfume very carefully, however, and it will most likely be a Giacobetti or an Ormonde Jayne.
I wore Babe when I was 15, and although I haven’t smelled it in years, I always wonder what kind of feelings I’d have if I did smell it. Kind of like your teen fragrances.
Angela!
I remember owning a 1oz bottle of Babe in my teens, too. It was so beautiful then. Silly me – think I gave it to goodwill somewhere down the road. Wish I had kept it now – hind sight.
I’m going to have to keep my eyes open at yard sales for it. You never know.
L’eau d’Issey reminds me of the winter I wandered around in Venice. Although it gets no love here, I still like to wear it to remind myself of that time. It was perfect for all that wet marble and rain.
Well, between you and me, I had my fling with L’eau d’Issey, too. But there have been a lot of fusty chypres since then.
i have NO perfume memories, nothing, zero…now i wonder why that is….sunday night would be my first…
my dh and i were out to a BIG fancy Barmitzvah and well…i wore jubliation 25 ( achoice out of my gazillion that i have) and well he put on jubilation xxv ( a choice out of his aobut a seventy fifth of a gazillion i have given him) and we only connected it in the car on the way….well…we smelled like “apples and oranges”a perfect scent match…and i am so not a matchy person..it was quite a special moment of discovery!!
Wow, your car must have smelled like a capsule from heaven. I love love love both of those scents. That’s the way to make a perfect scent memory!
yeah…pity we had to leave the capsule
love,love,love them both too
My uncle used to wear Zino Davidoff in my childhood all the time,
He was so kind to me,and i loved him so much, he died at the age of 37, and every time i smell Zino Davidoff I like to burst into tears. so hard fo me.
So young! I hope one day when the grieving wears down you smell it and remember all the things you loved about him.
Too true that a scent will bring those memories (good or bad) rushing back. Actually, I will avoid wearing fragrance when I am sick, and also when I know it will be a difficult day, or when I am going through trying times – just don’t want those associations.
Some fragrance memories:
My first boyfriend wore Old Spice; I will always love that one, even though our relationship wasn’t a long one.
My beloved uncle wore Canoe.
Ambush or Heaven Sent will always remind me of my teen years, as I wore both at different times. And Skinny Dip (another that is long gone) would remind me of traveling with the middle school chorus to give a concert someplace.
L’Origan reminds me of my mom, and Charlie and Sweet Honesty of my aunt.
And creosote reminds me of the boardwalks at the New Jersey Shore…oh, wait…that’s not perfume… ; – )
Old Spice reminds me of my dad. I love that.
As for creosote, I wouldn’t be surprised if Serge doesn’t construct a scent around it–and it would be brilliant!
I can’t smell Arpege without thinking of my mother, to whom I owe an appreciation of my two great loves in life: perfume and food.
I vividly remember, when I was just becoming acquainted with MUA, sniffing a sample of Coriandre which someone had sent me in a swap, and my mind immediately blurted out “Aunt Lucille!” I had had no idea what fragrance she wore, but that must have been it.
One perfume was ruined for me (24 Faubourg) after I bought it on a long plane trip and kept wearing it through the resulting jet lag and queasy stomach. The funny things is, I still love the scent even though I can’t wear it because it makes me feel sick.
Another one, Vol de Nuit, always make me feel happy and pampered, since it reminds me of shopping in the Guerlain flagship store with my DH and a lovely perfumista friend. I chose that fragrance, and the chic saleslady asked me if I wanted to wear it, so I said yes, not knowing that this would mean she would spritz me from head to toe with the atomizer. Since we had planned to go to more perfume shops that day, and this was our first stop, I realized just an instant too late why W & N were standing behind the lady, waving their hands and mouthing “no,no!” LOL!
Those are great memories! All that Vol de Nuit (love Vol de Nuit)–you must have smelled pretty fabulous, even if you weren’t able to smell anything else that day.
I wore Rapture in my late teens while dating my future hubby when he bought some for me as a Valentine’s Day gift. I used to scent love letters I’d write to him with it and he’d keep them on the shelf next to his bed so he could smell them as he went to sleep.
When we got married, it was what I wore on my wedding day. It’s not my absolute favorite fragrance, but it probably holds the most sentimental value of anything else I have. When we went on a cruise for our honeymoon, I picked up a couple bottles of Coolwater in the duty-free shop, and I loved how the marine freshness of the perfume blended with the crisp ocean air when we’d go up on deck. I still keep a little bottle around though I haven’t worn it in years. I just like to take off the cap and smell it for instant wonderful memories.
When we were expecting the twins, I remember wearing a VS apple body splash since it was the strongest fragrance I could stand for the majority of the pregnancy. I had the world’s worst morning sickness and used to sadly pass by my few perfume bottles, too sick to even get close to them, which was really lousy. But I have a lot of happy ‘firsts’ associated with that splash, which just seemed to fit perfectly with my chemistry.
With my youngest, I was well on the way to being a perfumista and remember diving headlong into a slew of CSP decants and one of Britney Spears Fantasy before I knew I was pregnant. I couldn’t figure out why those and some BPALs I thought nice enough upon first sniff were so stomach-turning when I put them on… Until I realized it was another case of the “three week flu” and we were going to have another child. The CEO still loves picking on me about that one since he says he knew I was pregnant before I did because of the moment I complained about his switching brands of cigarettes for how terrible the smoke smelled on him when he’d return from “checking the weather.” I did the same thing when expecting the twins and it’s become a long running joke between us. When he runs to pick up more, I remind him not to buy any packs of Stork Unfiltereds and our friends look at us like we’re out of our minds.
Thankfully I was able to kiss and make up with BS Fantasy and the CSPs, but had no luck with the BPALs. I was finally able to wear frags later into carrying my youngest, and really loved Hanae Mori most back then.
As far as coworkers who didn’t understand how judiciously one must apply fragrance in a work environment, I had one who’d alternate between dousing herself with Tommy Hilfiger something and Rapture several times a day. It was always hard to use the ladies’ room after her because I’d nearly need to hold my breath and be in and out as quickly as possible so as not to feel smothered by the lingering sillage. She’d just drift around in clouds of the stuff and even polite requests for her to please try spraying some before arriving at work and not retouching throughout the day went unheeded. I wondered if she just couldn’t smell herself after a while and figured more was better, when it certainly was not.
I also used to work near someone who’d pour on TBS’s vanilla perfume oil back when it actually smelled like vanilla, and it was like sitting near a giant cupcake for most of the day. I do love vanilla, but not *that* much, though I do wish I could find some of what she was wearing now since the current TBS vanilla is just a disgrace and shadow of what it once was. I certainly have no problem comparing it to the memory of what my coworker wore, at any rate.
Rapture! Man, that one reminds me of a hooker in a moth eaten rabbit fur jacket.
I didn’t like it upon first application either given it was the 90’s and I was so used to vague floral/fresh, but I find a lot of the amber comes out on my skin and now it’s just one of those frags I’d miss on a sentimental level if it ever goes out of production. I only wear it a few times a year, but it’s so wonderful to have the CEO slip his arms around my waist and nuzzle his nose in my neck as he does… The reward is far worth the fragrance not being something I’d otherwise choose for myself, in my opinion.
He even ran to the mall a couple hours before our twins were born around 11:30 p.m. on Feb 13 and almost missed the birth because he wanted to buy me more as an anniversary gift given we were married on Valentine’s Day. I opened it before I was whisked off for the birth because I knew I’d likely end up sleeping off most of our special day and it was our last moments as just a married couple. The bit of tradition amidst the chaos was really sweet.
That is such a wonderful story! As my grandmother would have said, It breaks my heart. You’ve definitely got to keep a bottle of Rapture around at all times.
Someone should do a post on pregnancy and smell–lots of people could relate!
Unrelated question: Which perfumes feature cherry blossom notes aside from the ones from The Body Shop & Bath &Works
L’Occitane en Provence has their cherry blossom fragrances, but they may be seasonal. However, I don’t believe the cherry blossom flower actually has a scent (and I’ve buried my nose in many cherry blossoms). In my experience (as I have a sentimental attachment to cherry blossoms and would love a fragrance too), these perfumes have been disappointing. They use artificial-smelling cherry fruit notes to represent the flower.
I’ve never smelt cherry blossoms before, lol, do they really not have a scent? I know Guerlain comes out with a limited edition Cherry Blossom perfume every year for Japan or something though
I can’t help you much on that one.
CK Eternity for Men – cannot abide it because an old college boyfriend wore it, got shatteringly drunk and into a fist fight and then proceeded to vomit and soil himself. I had the task of cleaning vomit and excrement off my entry floor. That was the end of the boyfriend.
Ciara – my Mum had the brilliant idea of sending my sister and I off to her friend’s house for 2 weeks while she vacationed. The woman had cats that peed and sprayed on everything (everything!) and she wore copious amounts of Ciara. To this day, I cannot separate the 2 scents; they are one and the same to me.
Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers – a sad cheery perfume I wore when my heart was broken at 23. It helped on bad days. Of course, it’s a screecher/scrubber to my older nose, but I have important memories of it.
Whew! Those are not pretty stories–particularly the one about the boyfriend. I bet he can’t wear that fragrance anymore, either.
Nothing I’d stop wearing that I can think of, although the one I’d NEVER wear is Calvin Klein’s Eternity because during my pregnancy, it was the one fragrance that made me want to vomit, and one of the office sec’y wore it with a huge sillage.
Georgio Beverly Hills in the mid ’80s was the most ubiquitous sillage monster in the NYC subway cars. Thank goodness it’s gone by the wayside.
My husband has the bad memory of every other highschool girl wearing Avon Sweet Honesty. Thank goodness I haven’t worn it in 30+ years…
I remember Sweet Honesty, and it was mega cloying. I wonder if Avon still makes it?
I’d throw a tantrum if they didn’t – it’s practically iconic! (I don’t wear it, but man, that was probably one of the first perfumes I could name if asked to recite a list – it was everywhere!)
I’ll have to see if I can snag a sample somewhere. Surely there’s an Avon lady hiding out somewhere in the neighborhood.
strangely perfume does not take me back to any memories, only music does that to me. Oh, and the taste of whiskey takes me back to a teen episode decades ago,
Music is wildly evocative, too. Heck, there are songs about songs people can’t listen to anymore.
Music and scent together… unbeatable combination (well, except for liquor)
Beautiful music, perfume, glass of wine…it happens all the time! (But not maybe often enough.)
I am packing my bags today ready to leave a foreign country which I have just moved to 3 and half months ago after giving up my life and career to move in with the man I love and whom at that time was a fiance. Two days ago I was told to leave because he doesn’t love me anymore.
And now I am looking at my 6 bottles of Eau de Merveilles. It was something that I wore on our first date and even before that it’s my staple perfume.
Big big sigh..
What an epic chapter of your life! Major. I’m sorry you have to go through this, and you might have to kiss Eau des Merveilles goodbye for good. I had something similar but on a much, much smaller scale happen once, and I tied my ex’s clothing to street trees for homeless people. Maybe you could do that with the perfume–leave odd bottles in public places as a grand gesture.
Angela, thank you for your kind words. I didn’t return the engagement ring that he gave me but instead i went around the streets and looked for the cutest kitten that I can find (or at least one that I would love to adopt) and tied my ring on a ribbon around its neck. Let someone find it and use it for some good.
I will leave the bottles of perfume along the park bench that we used to sit and talk after work. Thank for the idea.
Very grand gestures! Something to tell your grandchildren.
People always say time cures all pain. Some great poet said “time is measured in heartbeats.” So I think the big secret is to make as much time as you can by filling your life with heartbeats of fascinating people, new things to do, and fun people to do them with. You will not be defeated.
It’s been more than a year since I’ve visited this site. And now I am back to thank you, Angela.
For some reason what you said above, about time measured in heartbeats, stayed in my head and as I was flying back home in the plane I kept repeating it like a mantra and I’ve never looked back since.
Instead of going back home in defeat I moved to a different country, working for a company, slowly but surely working my way back again to the executive position I was before, with the support of my family and friends and surrounded by new friends and colleagues.
I have now realized, that no matter how bad things are, it WILL pass.
You are right Angela, I will not be defeated. Thank you for having faith in me
You are amazing! Only the strongest, most passionate people can take the risks you’ve taken and played them through. That kind of character is sure to lead to an incredibly rich life. I’m so glad you came back to let me know how the story played out.