Today's poll topic was suggested by our host, Tama. She wants to know about the last perfume that gave you a big sense-memory hit — a fragrance that evoked a vivid memory, or that gave you the sense of being in another time and place, real or imagined?
If you haven't met, let me introduce you to Tama:
Note: top image is sentinels by muffet at flickr; some rights reserved.
Not the last, but one of the more interesting.
When I first discovered John Varvatos Artisan about a year ago (Thanks to NST’s Kevin – now Artisan is a personal favorite) it reminded me of a great father-son-brother moment. I was staying in Barcelona for a couple months with my older brother, with whom I had just done a huge backpacking trip for months, spanning many countries. We were at the end of our odyssey and starting to fight really bad. Separation anxiety.
My father came to visit us for a week and was trying to keep the peace between us two angry brothers. We rented a car and drove south toward Andalucia, with no particular destination. We decided to take back roads because of the high tolls on the highways.
We ended up driving through miles and miles of orange and tangerine farms, stopping on the side of the road to drink red wine and steal shirt-loads of delicious oranges, in the fragrant southern Spanish rocky valleys.
Artisan by John Varvatos is exactly the smell of that masculine adventure of redemption and brotherly/fatherly love.
what a great story!
Thank you for sharing that story!
Amazing story! Isn’t it funny how sometimes the idea of being away from a loved one can make the relationship so volatile? Sounds like your dad brought the peace it perfectly. Thank you!
Wonderful description–I can see the place and “feel” the emotion in your story. Perfect first entry for the poll; thanks for sharing.
I agree entirely – a wonderful story.
Just chiming in – I love this response!
Wonderful memory, Tom!
Chanel No 5 reminds me of being a child with my grandmother. I love this one for that reason 🙂
Ajne Sublime and Atelier’s Vanille Insensee remind me of our lovely holiday in San Diego: the beach, the parks, Spanish Village….love those frags and that city!
The same history as I like Chanel Nº5!!! Classy grandmothers, huh??
Chanel #5 reminds me of being 13, when I first wore it! I’m glad I have managed to get over that and enjoy it again. I get hits of scent that remind me of my grandmas but I don’t remember what they wore.
Good morning Tama dearest!
I’m going to ponder this lovely question while having some caffeine sitting in the sun and then I shall answer 😉 …
Enjoy your day hosting!<3
See you soon, bebe!
I’ve commented here many times on how Miss Dior reminds me of when my mom used to wear it for primary school meetings or holiday events.
Also Eau Sauvage brings back the early-mid eighties and sunny spring days.
Caleche and MaGriffe evoke my late aunt and so does Nocturnes de Caron (she was really a closet perfumista as you can see 😉 )
But the latest one that transports me is Gucci II pour homme.. I sampled it while on vacation on Barcelona in 2007.. it is so distinctive.. I am transported to those days walking the streets in Barcelona in the afternoon. Talk about teleportation! 😀
I especially love scents that take me places! Sounds like you have a nice one to have an association with.
It happened to me the strongest about two weeks ago, with L’Artisan Passage d’Enfer. And what was incredible to me was that the same fragrance brought back two very distinct memories, one local and one very “foreign,” and one from my childhood and the other just from last year. First I recognized the smell of my grandmother’s house in rural Canada – and more precisely her kitchen and the bedroom right above, in which we slept when we spent one or two weeks in the summer there. It was *exactly* the smell! And then, about five or ten minutes later, it hit me – it *also* smelled exactly like the streets of Singapore, that I visited last year! Someone suggested it could be the incense (I never saw my grandmother burn incense, but she certainly went to the Catholic mass at least once a week so could have brought back the smell), but I don’t really know what it is. It was just so mesmerizing.
And I didn’t even really like the smell! 🙂
I don’t think you have to particularly like a smell to enjoy the feelings it brings. Sometimes it’s just fun to whiff them.
And of course, when I was in Singapore, I never once thought that it smelled like my grandmother’s house. It all just came together with this fragrance.
That’s funny!
Sorry, not even scent can jog my memory! But Sa Majeste La Rose, partly due to the smell and partly due to the name, remind me of this scene in H.C. Anderson’s ‘Little Ida’, where a child peeps through a keyhole and sees all these cut flowers from the vases come alive in the night and waltzing. Most beautiful of all are the royal couple, I think both King and Queen were red roses with gold crowns seated on their crimson petals!
That sounds pretty cool!
What a nice story! I get whiffs of things that remind me of my Dad, too, but nothing like that! Of course muguet would remind you of him – it was the scent you associated with him coming home to you!
Ack – that was supposed to go under Daisy’s comment!!!
LOL–well this clinches it! You’re going to need to ask your mom to get you some Sa Majeste while she’s in the UK ! I still think you need to try some Highness Rose…
Haha! Actually I found a place here that stocks a few Montales. The only one they had a tester of, though, was Black Oud. Wow, I thought, the beast. I COULD NOT SMELL IT! The assistant there said it was faint on me and added a spray. Soft, but very very nice. Within an hour it had disappeared. How is that possible when it is revered for its sillage and longevity???
I can only recall two perfume triggered scent memories.
The first was when my perfume-buddy sent me some vintage Muguet des Bois and it took me back to when I was maybe 8yrs old : my parents room had a window that overlooked the driveway and winding barely paved country road we lived on— I would sneak a spritz of my mom’s Muguet des Bois (she never wore perfume anyhow, don’t know why she even had it) , flop across my parents bed, prop my chin on my hands, the classic laying on your stomach, knees bent , feet twined….and watch out the window for my daddy’s car to come up the road every afternoon….I was always a daddy’s girl. Dad’s been gone 20 years…still brings a tear to my eye to think of his sudden passing. I like to sniff Muguet now and then but I never wear it.
Beautiful!
That’s such a sweet story, Daisy.
Very sweet, indeed.
Hugs to you (((Daisy))).
aww thanks y’all *sniffle*
it’s kind of weird how my dad hardly ever wore any fragrance but Muguet reminds me of him!
See above for my reply – posting spazz-out.
{{{{{{Daisy}}}}}}
I was a daddy’s girl too, and I also miss him everyday. A whiff of Old Spice always brings tears to my eyes!
((((((((Rapple))))))) *more sniffling*
Now I’m a little teary-eyed, but in a good way. I love how scents can stir memories of loved ones with such immediacy. Is that a word? I just mean that for the briefest time, it’s like they are right next to you again.
I’m always next to my dad when I’m gardening….Dad had fabulous flowerbeds. In the weeks before he died we spent a lot of time on the phone (me in Michigan, him in PA) pouring over our Cooley’s Gardens and Becks catalogs…..planning out the new bearded iris beds and daffodil beds we were both putting in –we made sure we got different varieties of Iris so later we could swap rhizomes and have twice as many varieties! We talked on Friday night because we had both just gotten big crates of things to plant…I opened mine and was inspecting—dad said he was waiting til Saturday to open his so he could inspect and start planting right away. He dropped dead of a stroke Saturday morning just before 8 AM…..he never got to open his crates of bulbs. Mom planted them a week or so later, she said it was the hardest thing to do. Two weeks later I moved into my new house and planted my flower bulbs in the pouring rain, wearing my dad’s favorite blue plaid Pendelton wool shirt that was his favorite garden shirt (mom sent it to me right away, she knew I’d need it) Of course I cried buckets, but who could tell? it was raining already.
This brought tears to my eyes. What a wonderful way to honor your dad and grieve.
Daisy that was a beautiful tribute and story. ILY<3
Beautiful & poignant.
You’ve gutted me, R.! My dad was a huge horse racing fan (I’m sure my mom would have preferred he garden 😉 ) and to this day (12 1/2 years later) my youngest brother says he tears up when he goes to Keeneland.
yep, I sure understand you brother’s feelings–I tear up when I plant bulbs…and it’s been a long long time.
Gosh, someone should have warned me I would need tissues to read these posts….so touching! I love that your mom went ahead with the bulbs, as did you. Am sure it was bittersweet when they bloomed.
The next spring my mom spread daddy’s ashes over his flowerbeds…it’s totally what he would have wanted. She swears she can feel him there.
Wow, that really got me! Tearing up over here!
In my family my grandfather was the gardener, so I think of him often when I am digging in the dirt. The proudest moment of his gardening life was getting his picture in the local paper holding a potato with a 20 foot long sprout on it that had been in our root cellar. (Yes, we lived in a VERY small town.) I can’t even see a potato without thinking of him.
hey, that would be a proud moment for any gardener! a 20 foot sprout? ….so umm….what kind of fertilizer was he using (not that I’d steal gardening tips or anything…)
Daisy, he was an organic gardener – the mega-sprout was the result of a little sliver of light coming into our root cellar, and the potato was reaching for it! I think the potatoes were probably Kennebecs, big vigorous spuds with lots of stored energy.
Oh Daisy, how bittersweet. Picturing you in the flowerbeds in the rain made me feel so melancholy.
Even though I can’t relate to all of the lovely daddy’s girl stories [my parents divorced when I was very young. I was told when I was 10 years old that my father had another family now and wouldn’t be seeing me anymore] I do feel happy for all of you that got to experience a relationship like that. Though I can’t help but be filled with mixed emotions.
(((((Rustic)))) Clearly he was not worthy of you and your mom!
That’s very sad, but sometimes that is how it is. I don’t think parents who hate each other always think things through.
RusticDove, I can identify a little – my mother is not a very maternal type and I have no comforting scent associations so when I read anecdotes of that kind I also feel a bit mixed-up over it.
Such a beautiful, poignant tribute to your father, Daisy. Thank you for sharing with us!
Loving the Dad associations. Old Spice is definitely mine.
Mine, too. Feeling very lucky to still have him around.
You are indeed!
Mine too 🙂
Daisy-what a flood of connected memories! My sister and I used to take little walking adventures, and if we could stop in a pharmacy and try on fragrances, more the better. Muguet dB was our total favorite! The bottle, the shade of green,the illustration, the frag! we’d spritz away… ultimately we saved our allowances and bought a bottle. A few years later, I was 16 or 17, my dad gifted me with some Chanel 19, and that was my signature for twenty more years. He’s been gone now ten years and it’s only in the last five that I’ve been branching out and trying new ones, happily, but they both evoke childhood: innocence and sisterhood, and late adolescence and womanhood..and Daddy!
There are two: Voyage D’Hermès and Lolita Lempicka Fleur de Corail (Coral Flower). The two remebered me my teen ages. Voyage I don’t know why, but coral flower cause it brings to my mind my school at that time and there were a pleasant person who wore a fragrace too much similar: it was not Lolita’s cause it’s from 2008.
Fleur de Corail actually came out in the summer of 2008, so maybe your friend was a bit ahead of the curve!
I actually posted my story (below) on mua’s fragrance board recently as the moment was so intense for me – I thought about it for days afterwards and wanted to be able to share it with someone. Not a perfume memory, but still a scent memory:
I took a bar of soap out of its package (Yardley Almond and Oatmeal soap) and put it in a soap box, then walked away. Later I got a whiff of the soap scent on my hands and was immediately taken back to high school days (a long time ago for me). Although we didn’t use this soap then, something about it was similar to a soap that my mom kept stacked in her linen closet.
What was amazing was that it didn’t just remind me, or give me a memory snapshot of the linen closet, but it took me back so vividly that for a moment in time, I WAS 17 again, standing in front of the wooden linen shelves in the cool, dark hallway of our old farmhouse looking for a towel after swimming (and probably dripping all over the wood floor…). I was wearing my bright orange terrycloth bikini and thinking my silly high school thoughts – “wonder if my tan is darker,” “wish my hair would dry straighter,” “what should we do tonight?”, etc.
My dad has since died, mom no longer lives there, I am many years older and my oldest son has just moved out after finishing college to start his first job many miles away. A bittersweet feeling stayed with me the rest of the day. I was so young, I had not experienced much loss, my world seemed (relatively) simple…
(BTW, Je Reviens was my fragrance of choice back then.)
Oh, that is wonderful – a true transport! I can picture it myself. Thank you!
hey, that reminded me of MY hot pink terry cloth bikini…..*shudders*
Lovely, you tell that story really well.
This is more unfortunate than anything else… I got a sample pack a couple weeks ago of Kilian’s. I *thought* that Straight to Heaven was the lavender one, the one I hadn’t tried. Sprayed it on and, NOOOOOO!!! It’s my ex’s scent! You’d think I’d know, I always bought it for her. I washed it off, but it managed to get EVERYWHERE. It was somehow even on my pillows. It was like she was there, and it was awful. What’s crazy if that I think even if I had known what it was, I wouldn’t have expected it to make me crazy like that and might have still tried it on. Now I know. Sigh… one of these days I will be able to escape her. (And stop annoying others by having her be the constant topic of conversation.)
Enough time hasn’t passed yet Ms K – you can’t get over something like that quickly. You can ‘vent’ to us anytime! XO
yep….not enough time has passed. I wonder if you wore the sample and went and made some new BIG memory if it would save the fragrance for you….something you’ve never done before—like a hot air balloon ride….rock wall climbing….shoot, it could just be a wild night BOWLING with some crazy folks. Like thumbing your nose at those pesky painful memories!
They say it takes half the amount of time you were together to really heal. I don’t care to ascribe to that myself, but everyone has their own time frame. You were deeply hurt and the wound is still fresh. The associations are still new. Maybe some day these scents will give you more joyful memories, but until then, just maybe avoid them (unless you get in the mood to wallow in self-pity, which can happen 🙂 ). Thanks, Miss Kitty, hugs to you.
Well, we were together eleven years, so I shudder in horror at the thought that it could take half that long to move on. 🙂 I do hear a year is about standard for a lot of people– or at least, after a year you stop crying every day.
My brother, who can’t stand to be single for 5 seconds, informs me it’s one month for each year, which seems more reasonable than 1/2. (Can you imagine if you’d been w/someone 20, 30 years? There wouldn’t be time to move on! :D)
I think just like any kind of grieving, it’s really individual….how quickly or slowly you move thru the stages and reach understanding, resolution and then acceptance….and then one day you’ll realize that it doesn’t hurt so much and you’ll be ready to move on. Baby steps…just keep taking baby steps….as long as most of them are moving forward; you’ll be fine.
Oh! What a shock, Miss Kitty V! Hugs to you. Did you end up trying A Taste of Heaven (the lavender one)? It’s my discovery of the year. I simply adore it!
No, out of all the things that wasn’t in the sampler scent, that was one! 🙁 I love the Kilians. (Kind of love Kilian himself, too. Hey, is *he* single?) I need to try that and the Incense Oud, and maybe I’ll finally be all caught up. 😉
I need to try the Incense Oud, too, as everyone is raving about it even for an oud wimp like me. I will make a note to send you a sample of Taste, as I broke down and bought the travel bottle set.
Huanani, I’m glad someone else is feeling ATOH. It doesn’t seem to get a lotta love on the blogs but it has been a slow creeper into my good graces and after months I know I need some. Thank goodness for the travel refill set!
Oh, good, another fan! I love Caron Pour Homme, and this one seems to be a richer, more complex, more amazing sibling. Just delicious!
Miss Kitty~ I don’t think you’ll ever get over it. Someone we once loved I feel we always will in a way.. but time will make it more bearable and you go right ahead and talk about it as much as you want or need. XOXO I still wanna mess her up real good though! Will that make you smile??? 😉
Yes!! 😉
Awww, Miss Kitty, scent is such a powerful memory! I’m sorry that one is still so painful for you. But like others have said, you just vent all you want to us. We love you! I was just thinking about you earlier today as I read Erin’s post about ’90’s perfumes. Several people commented about wearing Sunflowers in the ’90’s and I thought of our conversation about the DSN! 😀
I forgot about the DSN! LOL! 🙂
Thank you all so much for your patience, compassion, and understanding. I do feel like you hit a point where people are saying, God, get over it already! Having validation helps, knowing that people understand it’s a process.
It will take time, and it is a process….kind of a crappy process….but don’t you dare start remembering B. as perfect or start thinking you weren’t good enough or tried hard enough or whatever. I worry that you are trying to place blame on yourself. And you should NOT ! You are wonderfully smart and funny and beautiful and loyal …all around a very valuable person–and you DESERVE to be treated as such!
You do hit that point…but you’re not anywhere near it just yet. It hasn’t been that long… and we’re not that cold-hearted. 😉
yep, plus we’re also down with Tamara’s plan to go kick some butt.
Count me in and – I’ll bring Rufous with!
sweet, lovable Rufous? perhaps he can do some vicious shedding…that’s not a bad idea…I’ll bring Roxie and in five minutes or less she can have the entire place covered with white dog hair…that’d be torture for anyone…
Good morning all (or afternoon as the case may be! West Coastie here who needed to sleep in)!
One of my strangest sense memory hits came a few years ago when I used some Kiss My Face Honey and Calendula lotion on my hands and inhaled from them deeply. The sense memory was very strong, and I knew it was not real. I went right to India. It somehow confirmed for me a past-life memory incident I had once that was brief but extremely vivid.
Linden, honey, and scents based on those or a combo (Aftelier Honey Blossom, MAC Naked Honey, d’Orsay Tilleul are big culprits here) instantly put a visual into my head of tall feathered grasses in the hot sun, with gleaming motes of pollen and tiny insects swirling around, insects buzzing in the trees, the air dense and heated, smelling if grass, hay, flowers and sweetness.
Andy Tauer’s Incense Extreme smells exactly like my mother’s art studio (she smelled it and said “crystal varnishes”). I know that it will be a difficult smell when she is gone.
What a cool story Tama. My mom & I had an experience one time where we ‘relived’ a past life experience together, but I won’t go into that here since it’s not scent related, but you reminded me of it. 🙂
I always wonder if people will think I am crazy that I went back for that brief but vivid moment, but a lot of people have had similar experiences.
I’ve had several very vivid past life memories, but none of them triggered by scent. How very interesting! Thanks for sharing.
The actual memory I had was not scented, but the honey scent acted as more a confirmation, because it made me feel in the same place, if that makes sense.
That totally makes sense. It was the time and place that the scent recalled rather than the actual memory/scene.
Tama, thank you for sharing that story. I think we’re all more than we realize we are, and our place i this world is far greater and more established that we could ever understand. I think if you have an open heart, you’re able to catch moments of clarity like that.
I’m fascinated by the idea of a past life scent memory. I wonder how many we have without realizing it? Such mysteries!
Do you ever dream of other people and places and when you wake you know you’ve never met them or ever been to those places yet are left with a lingering feeling that you should know them…if you could just remember?
Gosh, I got so excited to answer that I knocked my beverage over! Grrr.
Yes! There are very specific places I dream about, and I have been tempted more than once to set out to find them. One is actually a place I have heard described by other people, and there are usually other people there when I have dreamed about it – kind of a large open field with Grecian/Roman/whatever columns and kind of a stage at one end.
cool! I have so many dreams that I’m really at a loss to explain…and I’ve noticed that in some I know that I’m me, but also that I’m not “this” me….it’s very odd, no bearing on reality at all. On the other hand: Gil has dreams about running in track meets and football games from years ago….or the occasional “work dream” …where I’ve learned to just make up a plausible answer for example I don’t say “you’re dreaming” or “what file??” I give responses like: ” I put those documents on your desk” or “that file is back in the file room, I’ll get it for you…” settles him right back down…still asleep. But all of his dreams seem to be reality based on events that we can pinpoint. Although he says that I am always at his track meets and various other games from high school and college (yes, I married the jock) but I didn’t meet him until years later. So he’s just placing me at these real events from his past.
I don’t think it’s as simple as guys have different types of dreams than women do.
Tama — sounds like you’ve been “around” for a very long time!
Not people, but I frequently dream of living in dwellings that I know I’ve never seen before.
I can’t think of a scent triggered memory at the moment, but may I go off topic briefly and talk about Shalimar Initial? Wearing it today and while it’s obviously Shalimar – no doubt about it – It works wonderfully well for me! Finally – a Shalimar I can wear and enjoy. It’s beginning it’s dry down phase now and it’s so creamy and smooth. I’m very happy about it.
Another OT, but I have to say RIP Amy Winehouse. She just couldn’t get it together and it’s just a very sad situation.
Oh, my God, I had not heard about Amy Winehouse, although given the latest news I had heard about her, I am not completely surprised. That poor thing, I have felt so sorry for her and her inability to heal. People trashed her and made fun, but I am coming from a standpoint of “there but from the Grace of God go I” and her pain was evident.
Shalimar Initial does not work on me at all!! My last Shalimar hope is the Ode de Vanille, which I have a sample of and am almost afraid to try.
Poor Amy….what a sad end. Talent, but also too many demons I guess.
I agree, no one knows the pain that poor girl was suffering, and we’ll never know.
Such a tragic loss-a huge voice in such a fragile soul…
It was very sad to hear about Amy – such a waste of life and talent, and so many people tried to help her and failed.
For me all that Amy was doing recently was figuring an ask of help!!! Jesus, were were her friends?? And her family? Such a pitty a tallented person dying like that… such a pitty any person dying like that…
About Shalimar Parfum Initial —oh Rustic! I hear you! FINALLY a Shalimar for ME!!! yay!! Creamy and smooth indeed….maybe this is what original Shalimar is underneath the skanky overwhelming halitosis note that I just can’t abide.
Parfum Initial is sort of messing with my head.
I got a weensy samp of it from Miss Daisy (thanks!) and tried it yesterday. Background, because it seems to matter: I admire the original more than love it, although I do adore Shalimar Light. But this Initial thing… disaster for two hours, followed by something rather mildly pleasant that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with Shalimar! The drydown reminds me of a very quiet, well-behaved Citizen Queen or Putain des Palaces – which I like. That part was quite nice. I still can’t figure out what SPI has to do with Shalimar…
And it was truly, truly terrible for the first two hours: chemical spill nightmare. I was relieved when it settled down.
holy cow!! I’m sorry to have sent a toxic chemical spill to your house….no scent twin action here! 😀
But that’s just the way it goes….you just never know.
Maybe the next sample I send will be amazing!
The end note of Demeter’s Gingerale reminds me of vacations in MN my family went on when I was a child. The lakeside cabin we rented was surrounded by a thick stand of trees & was panelled in every room; the woody smell dominated everything. When the top notes fade on Gingerale, I’m taken right back to that cabin, humidity and all.
Oooh, wonderful! Gingerale is such a fun and happy scent.
Seems everyone loves Demeter Gingerale…..I’m scared of it…scared to sniff it….when I was a little kid whenever I was sick my mom would give me gingerale….not sure if it was truly supposed to settle my stomach or just distract me because soda pop was a “treat” to have….either way, don’t recall it ever really making me feel any better…but I was sick a lot and now the very idea of gingerale makes me feel a little ill! (maybe mom should have just given me some hot tea and toast and called it good.)
I have always used gingerale in times of distress – my Mom says when I was a toddler in the hospital having surgery I would ask for it all plaintively. Ginger is good for your tummy in real life. When have a cold I mix orange juice with gingerale – it is a nice little drink and I don’t get queasy from too much orange juice.
Nope, tea would have had the same effect. My mom used to give me tea when I had tummy troubles and it wasn’t until I was well into my 30’s that I could even attempt to drink the stuff. I was also put off by any fragrance that smelled like tea. I like tea and how it smells now but every now and then I still am reminded of being sick as a kid.
Yeah, grocery store ginger ale really bugged me until very recently. I called it The Sick Drink. Over the winter I discovered Vernor’s at my local Wal-Mart, and it is wonderfuls. (ScentScelf laughs at me – says it is but a pale copy of its youthful self, and since the original company was bought by a larger one, “you might as well be drinking Seagram’s.” But I disagree. It’s far better, especially if you stick a piece of candied ginger in the glass for a few minutes before imbibing.
Vernor’s was a childhood fave- it is a mere shadow of its former self but it’s still good. When I really want a ginger hit I get Reed’s.
Hey Tama, everyone,
My first scent memory is of my mom and dad going out on date night, she’d get dressed up, smelling of rose perfume (she used Lancome makeup which I think smells like roses) and come in to my room to kiss me good night.
The last perfume I gifted her before she passed away was Creed’s Fleur de The Rose Bulgare, it reminds me of those times when she kissed me good-night.
Awwww. That is so sweet. What a nice gift to give her. Thank you.
My most recent scent memory is especially frustrating because the scent that triggered it is one of the Webber estate unnamed scents (from WAFT by Carol) that was probably a mod for a scent he was working on. But as soon as I took a sniff I was instantly transported back in time to the ’60’s. It very strongly reminded me of something but whatever it was eluded my grasp.
Oh, that would drive me nuts!!
Breath of God smells like my Mom’s bathroom during a lot of the 60s and 70s but I have no idea what note does it or what she had in there to create that aroma.
Oh, I agree! That’s a very evocative scent!
When I sniff Armani (not all that often), it takes me back to the mid eighties and my past career as an actor. I was playing the role of an opera diva in a Snitzler play. My costume (turn of the last century) was a skimpy corset and petticoat and my wig was deep winey red (I’m a green eyed blonde with fair skin)–so in order to make my very exposed skin even whiter, I used Armani dusting powder on my “belle poitrine” This made things very pleasant for my leading man who spent most of our scenes together with his face pressed to my neck and chest!! And everynight as we left the stage, he would whisper to me, “you smell so good!!” It was a wonderful, crazy time and with just a tiny whiff of Armani, I can recite all my lines!!!
And you KNOW if he catches a whiff of Armani, he is instantly transported to your lovely neck!
I was just thinking the exact same thing!!! that’d he’d get a whiff of Armani and muse “this reminds me of a beautiful actress I once knew…”
My sister is 10 years older than I and when we were younger she used to wear Opium. The smell now reminds me of being a little girl in awe of my beautiful, sophisticated sister.
Oh nice – I have a beloved sister but that is a bit reversed – if I smell Coco, it reminds me of my younger, much prettier sister!
I’m a little sad that I don’t have a great scent memory. While both my mother and grandmother owned a couple of bottles of perfume, I don’t think they ever wore them (around me, anyway). I think they felt perfume was for special events.
However, just last we I got a sample of Emeraude in a swap, and it immediately took me back. But there was no exact memory of who, where or what. I just had a strong feeling, but no exact memory of the distant past.
That was why the poll suggests real or not real. I know what you mean – sometimes you are just transported to another place and time whether or not it is defined – it is just a gut feeling.
I ordered samples of most of the Piguet scents, but it was Visa that brought memories of my sweet Grandmother flooding back. All I could smell was Gran’s facepowder (Rimmel in Tiger Lily), her glorious red lippie (I can’t remember the name), and her beautiful soft, sweet skin. It was a few seconds before I realised tears were starting to come, happy ones, at happy memories. I miss her terribly, but every time I open that sample, I can bring back a big smooshie Gran hug anytime I need it. I think I’ll have to spring for a full bottle sometime. Sleep tight, Gran x
Nice! I need to find something that smells like my grandma. I have smelled things that smell like her but I can’t remember what now. I don’t think she wore a lot of perfume, but like yours, the combination of her creams and cosmetics had a very definite scent.
I was a freshman in college in 1969, and my roommate kept a splash bottle of English Leather in the top dresser drawer. One day in the spring, it got knocked over somehow, and most of the bottle was spilled into the dresser. The entire dorm suite reeked of English Leather for the rest of the school year.
For many years after that I’d have this strange time-travel experience every time I passed someone in the street wearing English Leather. No matter when or where it happened, I would suddenly be back in NYC and it would be spring of 1969. It was very uncanny. Finally, they reformulated the fragrance and it stopped happening. I ought to get a vintage bottle and try it again, although just thinking about it I pretty much remember what it smelled like.
I love trying to remember how something smelled. Usually it is just slightly out of my reach – I almost get it, but not quite. If I were you I’d almost have to track a bottle down!
English Leather, Jade East, British Sterling, Canoe…. those were the days! 🙂
A few weeks ago I picked up a spray bottle of Jovan White Musk off a counter in a drugstore. I had worn it a lot in high school and hadn’t smelled it since.
Watery musk, something metallic and I remembered standing in the girl’s restroom at school- tile walls and linoleum flooring, the paint on the stalls a pale green that always looked old. I used to wear a mauve lipstick by Covergirl and was always changing my hair color. My father didn’t like perfume or scents of any kind, always complained if he could smell perfume on me and I wore the Jovan WM because it seemed like a scent that wasn’t really there.
It wasn’t a happy scent memory, more of a reminder that however hard my life can be right now at least I know who I am. Like most teenagers I didn’t have a clue back then and Jovan WM really brought back those feelings of longing and ambivalence.
P.S. While my father hated perfume he also encouraged me and my sisters not to wear make up – he always told us that women were more beautiful without it. He truly appreciated natural feminine beauty and also encouraged us to lift weights. Thanks Dad!
Ahh those teen memories, so full of angst and yet starting to become what you will become. Thanks for this contribution – your dad sounds pretty great, actually. Love the weightlifting part – I wish my dad had encouraged something like that. Mine didn’t like the makeup thing so much, but he gave me quite a bit of perfume himself.
Wow, not sure if I used the word “always” enough . . . I really do sound like my teenage self, LOL!
Caswell-Massey’s Freesia, which my mom gave me for Christmas a while back, reminds me so much of this little perfume gift set given to me by a favorite babysitter when I was about 9 years old. I remember being so surprised she got me this gift and I felt so special. It had a little plastic bottle with a round pink top, and a pink container of powder with a powder puff. The perfume smelled like a very sweet floral, very innocent and girly. I remember that babysitter always let me stay up late, and told me not to tell my parents. 🙂
Nice! I was a failure a a babysitter and rarely got called back to the same house twice. Sounds like yours knew how to do it.
A few weeks ago I dabbed on a bit Mediterraneo and instantly was back in our family kitchen on Chestnut Street. Late afternoon, home from the pool, tea was brewing and we were shucking corn from my grandfather’s garden. I was totally surprised but it was a nice memory!
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to smell Youth Dew without thinking of my mother. She rarely wore anything else and it was everywhere in her house. A friend, who recently bought Mom’s old bedroom furniture, called me this week to tell me that she opened the door to that room and it was if my mom had spent the night the scent was so strong.
Ooh, isn’t that spooky? Just as I was writing my comment, yours popped in before mine – Youth Dew and mothers.
Youth Dew does seem to be a prevalent scent among moms. Someone in my family had some, but my mom wore Joy.
When I was nine years old my little nephew was visiting. He had just recently started to walk – or in his case – run, and had escaped into my mother’s bedroom. My mother went to look for him and seconds later I heard her exclain “Oh my God, it’s all down the curtains, I’ll never get it out of them.” Of course I had to run to find out what all the excitement was about and the smell of Youth Dew met me down the hall. I just stood at the doorway laughing, while she was still in a flap about her curtains. The smell was overwhelming as the bottle had broken and all the contents were down the curtains and in the carpet. That smell stayed in the room for ages. She had only recently gotten the bottle as a present, and hadn’t had a chance to use it very much, as perfume for her was worn only when going out at night. Any time someone walks by me wearing it I’m immediately transported back to that moment, and it reminds me of her more than any of the other perfumes she wore, even though she didn’t get another bottle of Youth Dew, and in later years she declared that her favourite fragrance was actually Anais Anais. Next time I see my nephew I think I’ll share this little memory with him, as he was too young to remember. Oh, and she never did get the stain out of those curtains.
No, I’m not surprised, considering it was Youth Dew. Anyway, if you mother liked Anais Anais so much, hopefully she did not regret the loss of the YD. They are so different!
Oh, dear! I’m not surprised she never got another bottle – she was probably tired of smelling it after a while! Fun memory!
Hi Tama
I had interviewed kilian about back to black and Amy winehouse do that is one scent memory
The more recent ones are PG losieau du nuit which I wore when I met Pierre Guillaime and traversee when i met Bertrand Duchaufour
But my first is Rochas Femme as I chose that for my grandmother when I was a kid and wearing visa on m’y wedding day
ThE strongest is the smell of my nieces head when she was 4onths old the most beautiful scent in the world
Have fun today
Michelyn
Thank you for stopping by, Michelyn. How nice to be able to associate scents with such talented people and such momentous events. I need to smell Visa again, and remember it was what you wore.
I have those moments quote frequently as I seem to be acutely wired that way. A recent one that really got me was Ineke’s Field Notes From Paris, which zoomed me back to a European adventure I had when I was a teenager which was a LOOONG time ago. A hotel in Rotterdam, a clandestine speakeasy club, and a smoky disco late at night, all wrapped up with a kiss from a mysterious stranger who only spoke German but we communicated just fine anyway. Those were the days, and that perfume just encapsulated it all for me.
A kiss can be the best form of communication of all. 🙂
My typos are horrendous sorry
No worries.
Ohhhh! Darn it 27 y.o. society: carried another “rock’n’roll” star: Ammy Winehouse! Poor girl!!!! Hope God takes care of her, she’ll need so much! 🙁 🙁 🙁
I know, an exclusive and very sad club to be a member of.
Incense like Heeley Cardinal or Cdg incense series remind me of when I used to be an altar boy.
Not being Catholic I never associate those scents with church. I fainted in church once when I was a kid and my grandparents decided to give it up. I have gone to High Mass, though, and love the censers.
I hope your altar boy memories are kind ones.
Your grandparents gave up church because you fainted once??
Too funny.
Oh, they didn’t give up church, they just gave up on taking ME.
Well, that makes more sense. 🙂
Oh absolutely Tama, absolutely.
Brecourt Mauvais Garcon- sorry this is a little vague, but the ‘memory’ evoked was a pleasant sense of de ja vu, made me feel a little hungry wearing it, and kept me sniffing at my wrists all-day to try and figure-out what it was that I was trying to remember.
That has happened to me, as well; now I can’t remember what did it.
When I first sniffed Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker, I instantly thought of my late maternal grandmother. I swear it smells exactly how she used to smell, even though it was released seven years after she passed away. I wish I knew what perfume she wore–it had to be vintage. I think my love for perfume comes from her, whom I called “va” (short for ava, which is portuguese for “grandmother”). It completely skipped a generation in my family, as my own mother doesn’t wear much perfume and isn’t crazy about it as I am and, as I suspect, my grandmother was.
I have heard that Lovely does include the notes from something else that was a discontinued or vintage scent that SJP loved, but who knows. I wonder what she wore?
Hi Tama,
My scent memory was with FM’s En Passant. It instantly brought me back to the house I grew up in. Our backyard had three very old and vey large lilac bushes in them, 2 purple and 1 white. My nana baked bread in our kitchen every morning at 5 am sharp…my bedroom overlooked the backyard and for about two weeks every spring, I would wake up with the aromas of lilacs and freshly baked bread in my bedroom. Now, you would have thought that I would have remembered this when I was first looking at this perfume, it is very clearly mentioned in most reviews about the bread smell and the lilac of course, but no…my pea brain did not put 2 and 2 together until I smelled it on me …it was a wonderful moment of light dawning…
Oh, I love En Passant too, and it also was very nostalgic for me, to the point of bringing tears to my eyes. So beautiful!
Reading notes and experiencing them are very different. En Passant is a lovely perfume, and I love the memory it has evoked!
Hi, Tama! What a wonderful idea for a discussion! I am envious of those of you who have this scent memory experience regularly. The closest I’ve come is with L’Artisan Fleur de Liane. It takes me back to my adolescence, when I took many hikes in the forests of Hawai’i with my dad and with friends. FdL strongly reminds me of those trails, with their smell of rich mud, fresh damp vegetation (both green and floral), and the hint of sea air in the background. It is not a perfect match, but near enough that I smile at the memories.
Forget the perfume memory….I’d rather have the visual memory of hiking in Hawaii! Haven’t been yet but hope to get there some day.
You are so right, Tiara. Those forests are a feast for the senses!
That is a wonderful memory – hope you have a big supply of that, and sounds like I need to see if I have a sample….
Tama, let me know if you don’t! I think you might enjoy it!
I have lots to spare if you need a sample!
One of my grandmothers never wore perfume, so I was surprised when she floated out of a sample of Elizabeth W’s Sweet Tea.
And I’ve mentioned before that SSS Tabac Aurea is a near dead ringer for my high school boyfriend. Whoa. (Actually, to get the Jimmy effect, you’d have to do about a half-spritz and walk through it – it’s some powerful stuff – and then put on your leather jacket and drum to Bon Jovi on the steering wheel of your car. Yes. Yes, I WAS dumb enough to date a drummer…) Aaaanyway, the first time I smelled TA, I put on a couple of drops from a sample vial, and suddenly I was 21 and desperate to break up with this idiot who dropped out of college and told me he was perfectly okay with working an hourly job with the telephone company while I made “big money with a college degree.” I was terrified that he’d kill himself if I broke up with him, since I knew he’d had at least one episode of mental illness as a preteen, AND because his mama was, um, overly involved.
I see him on Facebook (don’t worry now, The CEO is aware) every now and then. He did get married, but not until he was 38… AFTER his mama passed on, mind you.
But the dude smelled Totally AWEsome.
Glad you got out of that one! But at least he was willing to hold some kind of job while you made the big money, rather than making you work to support his schooling only to dump you when he passed the bar exam or something (know a few of those). Does sound like he smelled really great, though.
Not a *bad* guy at all. He did get a job at the phone company… working alongside his mother! (eekwattawitch. And he told her everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Stuff you’d think would be private. Like the First Time… and she told him it couldn’t possibly have been my first time.) At the time I was cherishing the idea of moving to NYC to work in publishing, while he was thinking I’d come back home, picket fence, etc.
RE: Mom. ewwwwwwwwwwww
Great story, Mals! 🙂
Great weekend poll topic!
A few months ago I sampled Bal d’Afrique and instantly was transported, neither to Africa nor to Jacqueline Baker’s Paris, but to the sidewalks of Seoul’s shopping district, which I visited long ago. Long-forgotten memories of street vendors and elevator girls in pastel pillbox hats and red bean flavored shaved ice crowded into my mind. I promptly bought a bottle, breaking my usual rule of sampling something to death before committing to a purchase. Cheaper (and easier) than flying back to Seoul…
Neat!! I’ll have to smell that again – I remember it being pretty nice. Definitely cheaper than a trip to Seoul.
Shalimar takes me back immediately a very specific place in Mauritius where I grew up. I’m standing in front of the open door of a wardrobe with thin plywood shelves at the house by the sea owned by my grandparents in Grand Baie. We regularly went there for holidays. For years I thought it was the smell of the wood which must somehow be the same as a wood note in Shalimar but couldn’t understand how that might be the case. Then a couple of years ago in a blinding flash I realised that somone had probably spilt a bottle of Shalimar in the cupboard and it had soaked into the cheap porous wood. A memory from 45 years ago explained at last!
Catherine
Good one! Nice to have the mystery solved.
Great topic, and thanks for hosting, Tama!
One of the reasons I started using ebay was to find vintage perfumes that I have used at various points in time, such as White Shoulders, which I remembered as smelling really nice and not at all like anything else. When I finally found a bottle of the right vintage, I realized that, although it did smell good and just as I remembered it, it made me feel anxious. I think that must have been how I felt at some point in high school when I was wearing it.
AG Un Matin d’Orage vividly reminds me of the West African coast during the rainy season.
Sometimes it is hard to go back. I’ve been successful with Chanel No. 5 but I wonder how I would do with Ambush, Heaven Sent, or even Jontue and Tatiana, all scents I wore when I was younger and going through a lot of different experiences.
Usually they don’t smell quite as good as I remembered, perhaps because I’m exposed to more luxurious scents now. My best experience is with Shalimar, which I bought when I was young because I read about it in a Truman Capote story, was deeply frustrated because I did not like it and had wasted the money – but now I love it!
Oh my goodness! White Shoulders! I used to wear that as my summer fragrance back in my first year of college. My signature scent for years was Revlon’s Intimate, which was a world away from White Shoulders.
I’d smelled WS on an old neighborhood friend I’d run into, and had to know what it was. She was a girl I’d always admired: a Grace Kelly type — lovely, blond, composed, sophisticated. I was a chaotic, exotic brunette art student. She dressed neatly and conservatively, in classic styles. I wore my hair down past my shoulders and dressed like a hippie. We couldn’t be more unalike! But I really, really liked White Shoulders. Wearing it felt like I was donning a more sophisticated personality, the way one would put on a formal outfit. And it was a great warm weather fragrance — it was like drinking something cool and delicious. Thanks for mentioning it, Noz. I’d forgotten all about that scent.
White Shoulders smelled so wonderful then, and still smells good. Perfume is really a wormhole to the past, isn’t it?
I loved White Shoulders back in high school. My great aunt wore it too although I couldn’t tell that’s what it was on her. It smelled totally different on her. On me it was nice and flowery yet on her it turned into something warmer and richer. It’s hard to explain. I liked how it smelled on me but I loved how it smelled on her.
Interesting – I don’t think I’ve ever smelled it on anyone else. It smells abstract to me, both sparkling and rich at the same time. I wish I could find the scent I wore in college, a Russian perfume called Laila. It seems to be long gone.
I am blanking on a scent memory but I have so enjoyed reading the memories various perfumes and other smells evoke for other people. There must be a connection between the scent-obsessed and the romantic and nostalgic, as it seems like few can paint such vivid descriptions and conjure emotion in such a short space like a perfumista. Thanks all!
It’s fun, isn’t it? Thanks for reading!
Just this past Thursday!
I head to Gordman’s for my bi-weekly “Bargain Bin Frangrance Spree.” I don’t always buy something but they have a huge perfume section of mostly mainstream stuff which is delightful as you can purchase a mainstream fragrance that retails for $50-$60 for 50% off or more. I don’t often wander over to the “Ultra Cheap” shelves stocked with the knock off and “impostor fragrances,” but I saw a pretty purple bottle labeled, “Moonlight Ever After.”
http://www.perfumearomatics.com/moonlighteverafter.html
After the initial atomizer sniff to determine if it had even a prayer of being palatable, I sprayed a shot on my arm and was blown away at the refreshing sweet, clean, musky floral notes in it that immediately reminded me of when I was a kid and my mom and I would get our cluttered house cleaned up from the winter months. There was this room spray she had picked a case of up from some posh gift shoppe at the mall that had been going out of business and she would only spray it during the full house cleanings, and it would mix with the other scents from cleaning agents, and fresh air blowing through the screen doors and windows.
This smelled so reminiscent of that all over clean smell and the happiness that winter was over and it was spring time. I couldn’t believe that something so close to that scent was in a bottle and I immediately picked up 3 of them at $5.99 each. I gave one to my mom today, the other is in the back of the perfume drawer in my dresser and the last one is currently on my desk as I write this while I inhale big whiffs of my sleeve where I just hosed it down with it. 🙂
What a cool find! Especially nice that you can share it with your mom.
How fin to find some random perfume ttat can evoke such wonderful feelings. That it was cheap is definitely a bonus.
Ack, sure with I could delete!! That was meant as a response to Anne!! And would have been nice to proofread first. Sigh.
Hi Tama!
Unfortunately, a negative association on my end. I had just received some TPC samples of some Serge Lutens exclusive-range scents. I was wearing Tubereuse Criminelle when, as I was driving, I got cold chills. I was experiencing the worst pain I’ve ever had. A quick (and nerve-wracking) drive to the ER, a handful of hours and a few ineffective doses of morphine later, I learned I had a kidney stone. Thankfully I passed it while still swimming with the lone Percocet, but I can’t handle TC anymore. I have a decant that languishes on my perfume shelf and probably will until my next swap.
Gosh, just typing that made me remember that pain. Jeez. : P
Oh, I definitely misread the topic. Oh well. xD
Ah, but still valid, as you associate the scent with the pain, and if you smell it, it brings it back. Sorry you wiped out such an interesting fragrance!
I grow scented geraniums indoors. Every time I pinch my rose geranium, it never fails to make me feel happy and optimistic. The scent transports me back to my unhappy childhood. The good times were when I stayed with an aunt and uncle in the country. My memories of being with them are all in technicolor; my other memories are black and white. (Sort of like in the film The Wizard of Oz which starts out in black and white and turns to color when Dorothy arrives in Oz.)
My maternal grandfather was a very perceptive man. While he was unable to interfere in my unhappy home life, he created a wonderful experience that is with me to this day. It happened on one of my birthdays (in May), I don’t know how old I was, maybe nine. That afternoon, I came home from school and when I opened the door to my small bedroom, I was confronted by a garden! My two windowsills were full of brightly colorful, flowering plants and Grandpa instructed me to pinch the geranium leaves. The wonderful, tangy rose aroma that released is what I now smell with my geranium plant.
I couldn’t go live in the country with my aunt and uncle, but my grandfather brought a bit of the country to my city room. Here I am, more than fifty years later, living in a suburb with a beautiful garden full of colors, textures and scents. And the rose geranium to remind me of that happy moment from years ago.
That’s beautiful!
That’s wonderful – how delightful that you had family who saw your unhappiness and chose to try to do something about it. I love the scent of rose geraniums, but there are so many lovely ones.
Thanks for hosting this poll, Tama. It’s been fun reading through all the comments.
I have many kinds of scented geraniums. The rose is my favorite, but I particularly like the chocolate-peppermint and the old spice.
You’re welcome – and I’ll keep an eye out for those other scents – I was allocated a little plot of land for a garden at my new apartment building.
What a wonderful grandfather! And interesting to hear about the different geranium scents. I think of my mother whenever I smell petunias.
Jonette, I loved your story. And I will think of it next time I smell a rose geranium!
Gucci pour homme transported me back to my grandmother’s gift shop. She sold a lot of cane furniture, carved wooden chests and incense. I used to sit in the shop window and pretend to be a mannequin. I always thought if I stood really still I could fool people… how silly!
Morgan, department stores used to occasionally use live mannequins, so you might have missed out on a career!
Morgan, I often walk through a building where large events are held, mostly conferences and award dinners, but occasionally private parties. A particularly luxurious one had what I thought were life-sized plaster replicas of ancient Greek statues – until one of them moved! It was a magical effect. Even without the white grease paint, I bet you fooled and delighted many those who saw you.
Lonestar memories reminds me of the creosote bushes that grow in arizona (where i grew up) and fragrance the air after the rain.
I live in europe now and last winter, when the frosts got really bad, i would sniff my empty sample vial and remember the sunny hikes i would take with my parents when i went to visit the southwest.
The drydown lasts through the second day and is absolutely gorgeous 🙂
Mmmm, I like that perfume. Andy really knows how to make an evocative fragrance, for sure.
I was transported to a greenhouse by sniffing Malle’s LYS MÉDITERRANÉE. Not really a specific memory, but I was there, in the flower shop. I walked through the door and was hit by the cool lush greens all around me. It was an immediate relief from the brightness of the outside sun and it’s radiating heat. The fans buzzed away in the background as the cool mist settled around me. Baskets of plants and flowers of every color lined the perimeter as I made my way deeper into the store. To my right was the refrigerated section with pink carnations and roses of every color (hello yellow) winking at me. To my left, potted plants featuring tall white lilies with their giant green leaves begged me to take them home. Breath it in… you’re there!
Maybe scent is the key to unlocking the space time continuum?
CM, you may have a good theory there – you were certainly transported! Now they need to make scents that can take you anywhere you want to go!
I have a few. Back in my teens, I was addicted to fashion magazines, and at the time, scent strips for LouLou and Calvin were ubiquitous. Any time I smell either of those, I’m instantly transported back to the lazy summers of my teens. The first time I tested AG Heure Exquise, it smelled just like Jean Nate Fresh Musk, which I wore in 1986 (connected in my head to the movie Top Gun… more teen summer memories).
The biggest ones, though, have come from CBIHP, and they take me back further yet, to elementary school. Wild Hunt smells just like the evergreen forest across the road from my parents’ house, where we used to play all year. We’d cross country ski in the winter, “ford the streams” from snow melt in the early spring (aka, steal planks from the neighbor’s garage and set them from one hillock of prairie grasses to the next to walk across), and build “houses” in the summer, using branches and mats of dried needles. A Room With a View perfectly captures the smell of late August and back to school… the dusty gravel driveway, grasses and wildflowers baking in the hot August sun… wearing it, I can hear the cicadas, feel the scratchy brush of a grasshopper whizzing by, and picture the monarch caterpillars munching away on the milkweed along the drive. And oh, the anticipation of a new school year, complete with brand new clothes and supplies! I probably need a bottle of that one, don’t you think? 😉
CB is king of evoking places and memories. I definitely think you need A Room With a View if it does that much for you!
I have yet to love a single CBIHP. They’re kind of cool, they just don’t sing to me.
I wonder, though, if Greenbriar 1968 might do something for me: “It is blended with Sawdust, Fresh Cut Hay, Worn Leather Work Gloves, Pipe Tobacco and a healthy amount of Dirt. There is also a faint whiff of cotton overalls covered in Axel [sic] Grease…” Might be the smell of my grandfather’s farm truck.
That sounds like a good one to try!
The minute I sniffed Eau D’ Italie Au Lac, I imeadaiately saw childhood trips to Lake George. which is in upstate New York. I saw the little beach at the front of the house of my father’s colleague; and the water parting before some sailboat my brother and I were sailing across the lake.
Nice memory! I don’t know if I’ve ever tried any Eau d’Italie scents – I need to remedy that.
Chanel Pour Homme.. reminds me of my dear father who died a martyrs death more than 20 years ago. I still have the last bottle he owned, and each time I see it I wonder what kind of world would allow a bottle of perfume to outlive a 5 year old girls father..
Good question. But I’m glad you have something as precious as his scent, still with you. hugs.
Big hugs to you, rock-n-rose. Like Merlin, I am glad you have something to remember him by. It does seem awfully unfair, though.
McClintock brings back horrid anxiety attacks even 20 years after the fact. I wore it to the prom. First date/nerves, numb hands, racing heart (not in the good way). I make a point of being in a really good mood when I wear a perfume for the first time so that it gets a fair shot.
Oh no!!! Good idea to test things out when you are calm.
I would have to say that L’Interdit (original version) and Chanel No. 5 have been the two fragrances that just upon picking up the bottle and getting a light whiff, evoke memories from years past. I have worn both of those scents since I was 20 years old. L’Interdit has changed many times and more so than Chanel No. 5. Every time I spritz on L’Interdit, I am back in my twenties. Chanel No. 5 has always been my comfort scent and the one that I most apply before going to bed since I was a very young woman. I have no clue why that is but I would have to say that every time I even just small #5, it makes me feel happy or nostalgic–but in a good way. As for L’Interdit, I have a bottle of every formulation and all are very nice, but only the original evokes those memories. Although Chanel No. 5 has also been tweaked/reformulated through the years, it still always smells like #5 and always takes me back in time to my younger days.
The only fragrance (so far) that has given me, as you put it, a big “sense-memory hit” is Hermes’ Caleche Soie de Parfum. When I first started going out and hunting for samples and whiffs of fragrance to satiate this scent addiction (which was only a few months ago), I popped by Scentiment, a small store in a local mall that has a ton of niche and discontinued fragrances. I spotted a box on the shelf with pretty writing and read the name: Caleche. It sounded so wonderful, French and feminine, so I asked to try it. The employee who was helping me raised her eyebrows a bit, but sprayed my wrist obligingly.
It was like being transported back to my childhood, on warm summer nights when my parents would hire a babysitter and go out on a date. My brothers and I would be so excited at the prospect of a night of movies, and I remember as my mother walked around the house finding her things and getting ready, her favourite perfume would trail behind her, a soft pillow of flowers and powder. To me, Caleche will always signify flowy skirts, pearls and twilight evenings; watching the car headlights pull out from the driveway and dissapear down the street; waiting patiently, eyes closed but listening attentively, for the sound of my parents’ return and my mother creeping in to give me a kiss goodnight.