Earlier this week, as Geri recovered from a hip replacement operation, walker at hand, she told me the story of her journey with perfume. We sat in her dining room. A vase held tight white roses with frilly pink edges that opened to blooms as big as a baby’s head. Behind us was a grand piano and a harpsichord. (Geri is an organist with gigs at churches and funeral parlors throughout town, and she occasionally hosts baroque musical ensembles at her house.)
She told me that the first fragrance she knew well was her mother’s Yardley Lavender. “It was the only perfume my dad liked,” she said. Her father didn’t wear fragrance, although he shaved with a mug of soap, and every once in a while he’d clean the family’s eyeglasses with his shaving brush.
Besides her mother’s lavender, Geri’s early awareness of fragrance include her church’s incense and beeswax candles. Portland’s long-defunct department store, Lipmann’s, wafted a sophisticated fragrance Geri couldn't identify but that still intrigues her. Also, one Christmas she toured department store windows in New York City decked out for the holidays. Portland's old Zell’s Jewelry had beautiful holiday displays, too, and she came to associate the Zell’s manager’s Issey Miyake Eau d’Issey with the window displays she saw. Eau d’Issey has spelled sophistication to her ever since.
Travel has also played a strong role in stoking Geri’s interest in scent. “When I was in my mid-twenties, I was on a plane, and the stewardess wore an enchanting perfume.” Geri lifted her bottle of Givenchy Ysatis to compare to the flight attendant’s floral scent. That and the chic way the flight attendant wore her scarf has stayed with Geri.
Later, a friend asked her to buy a bottle of Guerlain Samsara in the duty-free shop in Iceland, and Geri came home with a bottle, too. In later years, European airports yielded bottles of Hermès Le Jardin de Monsieur Li and Un Jardin sur le Toit. (These last two are the fragrances she reaches for most days when she’s working and wants to be fresh for a service but not be intrusive or cloying.)
Geri's fragrance journey continued at home. A friend took her to Portland’s The Perfume House, and each of them came home with a bottle of Rancé Josephine.1 Not long after, another friend told her about the Bois de Jasmin blog, and Geri became an ardent reader. She loves Victoria’s stories of her Ukrainian grandmother, which remind her of her own no-nonsense Saskatchewan grandma.
Bois de Jasmin's articles, along with the discovery of internet perfume discounters, led to occasional purchases of fragrance, from Guerlain Mon Guerlain and Hermès Jour d’Hermès to an enviable bottle of Penhaligon’s Ostara. Geri keeps between twenty and twenty-five bottles of fragrance in a white melamine cabinet in her bathroom. They neatly fill a shelf.
“You didn’t ask me about soap,” Geri said. She loves freshly opened soap and fondly remembers the fat white bar of a Crabtree & Evelyn soap in a friend’s bathroom in San Francisco that sparked her efforts to hit the summer sales for luxurious bars of soap to offer as Christmas gifts to cantors and other associates.
As for notes, Geri was clear that she wasn’t wild about tobacco, and she doesn’t like fragrances that are too sweet. Otherwise, her perfume collection is a mix of floral, tart, heavy, and green without much in the way of leather, cologne, or old chypres. From looking at her bottles, I couldn’t figure out where Geri’s perfume tastes really lay. She doesn’t have a particular fragrance she’s on the lookout for, and she can’t tell you what her ideal perfume would be. She said she’s not great at defining notes.
Then I understood. Geri loves the discovery of fragrance. She loves learning and experimenting. To her, perfume is an adventure, and she cherishes the ride. Not everyone who loves perfume has to be able to recite each perfume house's major perfumers and critique releases of Mitsouko by year. Maybe enjoying exploring scent is more important than knowing the difference between Indian and Australian sandalwood by smell.
Geri pointed out that some old associations linger. Now, as she recovers from her operation, she finds a light dusting of Taylor of London lavender bath powder a comfort as she goes to bed. Mom would approve.
1. A few of you out there are no doubt rolling your eyes with affection. The Perfume House’s owner loved fragrance and storytelling with equal passion. Sometimes that passion overcame strict veracity, and hundreds of visitors heard his story of Rancé’s lucky discovery of vats of perfume made for Napoléon and Josephine, which the company released for sale. The fragrances, he said, were designed to marry each other for a grander scent when two people wore them then mingled their perfume. Thanks to The Perfume House’s owner, every other dressing table in Portland’s tonier neighborhood holds a bottle of Rancé Josephine.
Geri seems like a fun lady! I’ve always been thoroughly impressed by organs and wish that was an easy skill to acquire. We share a affinity for Hermes and Ostara (which can still be easily found on eBay for only dozens of dollars for the intrepid).
I just organized my… sizeable collection after moving it to a bigger closet. I feel like a dragon sitting on my pile of gold. I wonder if I could narrow it down to only 25 on a tray.
She is a fun lady! Very easy to talk to and get along with. (And thanks for the tip of the Ostara!)
For me, it would be a fun party game to think of limiting my collection to 25 bottles, but I’m not sure I could pull it off. *sigh*
Thank you Geri for sharing your collection, and of course thanks to Angela for getting the scoop!
I love feeling like I’m getting a sneak peek of someone’s stash of lovelies!
I definitely put Ysatis in my top 5 of all time. And like Geri, I feel the fun of fragrance is in the adventure of trying new things and learning to appreciate notes…
It really is fun to explore fragrance! The more I know, the more there is to learn.
I’m another Portlander of “a certain age”, and the mention of the scent of Lipmann’s took me right back to the 60s! Frederick & Nelson’s (which Lipmann’s acquired, iirc) had the same elegant fragrance wafting from the air ducts, and I loved riding up and down the escalators, inhaling deeply and watching all the dressed-to-the-nines ladies conducting their shopping. (There was a time when ladies dressed up, wearing stockings and heels and coats with fur collars, and sometimes even hats, to go shopping in downtown department stores. Believe it or not.)
Oh, I would so much have loved to see that! And to have chicken salad and tea in the lunch room after. And definitely to have shopped the perfume counter.
I totally miss the formality that we used to have as far as dressing for occasion. I think society has leaned a bit TOO casual, and it shows in all other areas as well as dress. For example, back in the day, we dressed up for church…pantyhose and all. Now anything goes. Same for travel. Even though I certainly don’t dress up for traveling, I still try to dress a notch up, because I think you get better customer service that way. (Or maybe you just hold yourself better and therefore get it…)
PS: I should say this about church: I totally get that the important thing is not how we LOOK in church, and anyone wearing anything should feel welcome. I just think it’s nice to dress up and therefore create a certain mindset for certain occasions…..
Putting some effort into what you wear and how you present yourself is a way to show respect, I think. It makes an occasion more special–even if it’s just meeting a friend for coffee– because you’ve put yourself in the frame of mind that it’s a special occasion.
I so agree, Angela!
Yes! I’ve tried to drill this into my sons. As young white men, they can get away with wearing just about anything anywhere. I have tried to show them that that is an accident of birth. When my oldest left to study in Jordan for a quarter in 10th grade, I insisted he wear slacks and proper shoes on the plane ride. Showing up in sweats and flip flops was way too disrespectful of his hosts in my book. My son genuinely did not understand. I think he does now.
Thank you for opening my eyes to that! I hadn’t thought about privilege and clothing, but now I do.
I love this story. Geri’s interests chime with mine – music and fragrance . . .
I’m always so impressed by people talented in music!
Thanks for sharing this, Angela! It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten a peek into someone’s perfume closet
You’re welcome! I’m not sure why it took me so long to do another one!
Thoroughly enjoyed this post. ?
I’m glad that you did! Thank you!
Lovely, many thanks to Geri and Angela. Sounds like Geri is a relatively slow collector, which gives her time to thoroughly enjoy them. I like this. So many of us gorge ourselves to exhaustion and forget that perfume is supposed to be fun and make us feel good! It’s not supposed to be a chore.
You’re so right! When the “shoulds” start to creep into enjoying perfume, some of the fun vanishes.
“Geri loves the discovery of fragrance. She loves learning and experimenting. To her, perfume is an adventure, and she cherishes the ride.” Definitely describes me, and I bet a lot of others on NST.
I hope so! That’s the whole fun of perfume.
Hi Geri! I had a no-nonsense Saskatchewan grandma too.
Thanks for the peek into your closet! I loved Ysatis and Cabotine too.
Every family should have a no-nonsense grandma!
I’m a friend of Geri, and I am so delighted to read this. You have her exactly right. Perfume is an adventure for her and it is great fun to talk about it with her. She gave me a present of the Comme des Garcons Incense Avignon, which I love.
I suffer migraines and intolerant locals, so don’t get to wear perfumes as much as I want, but I love to take them out of their two cabinets and box and take a whiff or two. Latest in the nostalgia rotation is Paloma Picasso.
Lately I’ve taken to mixing essential oils which don’t provoke migraine or the intolerant, like lavender and cedarwood, into my own concoctions.
Thank you so much for your article on Geri. Just delightful.
I’m so glad you enjoyed this post! I really admire Geri’s joy of exploration of scent. I wish we all had more of it.
I’m glad you enjoy fragrance, too, and that you’re able to tolerate a whiff or two now and then. The CdG Avignon is just plain wonderful.