I saw this in the underground station today:
I often think that smell is one of our underappreciated senses. We usually think of sight and hearing, but smell can be so evocative. I love the smell of
-
- just-mown grass
- sheets after having dried in the sun
- freshly-brewed or ground coffee
- freshly baked bread
- plastic dolls
- sun tan lotion
- Vicks Vaporub
- Johnson’s baby powder
- hot asphalt after a few drops of rain
- lilac, gardenia and jasmine in spring and summer
- carnations and roses
- the earth after rain (petrichor)
Some perfumes awake memories:
- Old Spice (my dad)
- 4711 (my granny)
- Fenjal bath oil and soap (my mom)
- Calvin Klein Escape, Ck One (an ex)
- Brut and Jade East deoderant (my first boyfriend. He used to almost use a whole can)
- Body Shop Dewberry (school)
- Goya Aqua Manda (being a teenager)
- Davidoff Cool Water (a friend of mine who always smells nice)
I don’t use perfume anymore but my favourite of all time is Antonia’s Flowers. My previous favourites were:
- Charlie (when I was a teenager)
- Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers/White Shoulders/Red Door (given to me in a set by a friend)
- Max Factor Le Jardin (I wore this travelling round the world alone and living in the US (1984 – 1988)
- YSL Paris (a very overpowering 80s scent which was a gift from someone I fancied)
- Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds (my first ‘grown up’ perfume and the first celebrity perfume)
- Naomi Campbell’s eponymous fragrance (when I moved to Sweden)
- Esteé Lauder Pleasures (I used this the longest)
My best friend and I used to go to the local pharmacy and spray ourselves with testers every lunchtime. We must have reeked. The most deliberate fragrance I use now is Rexona deodorant.
I was in a charity store today when I spotted a giant bowl of miniature perfumes. All of them were full, so they were probably part of a collection – they had all the famous ones from Givenchy, Guerlain, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Estee Lauder, Cacharel but also Evening in Paris and Lanvin Arpège. I couldn’t resist buying these two for my memory shelf. They were so little! Even though they are so old, they still have their full original smell. If I had been a perfume nerd I would have bought the lot. The bottles on so many of them were adorable.
