Scents and Sensibility

I don’t remember the first perfume or cologne I ever smelled.  I do remember other odors like roast lamb with crisp bacon, our Christmas trees, diesel fuel from a boat, dried kelp on a beach, the oil from a tangerine when I peeled it, or the dampness of a California rain forest.   

But when it comes to scents that can be purchased, I’m a bit vague.  I do remember how Chanel No. 5 permeated my grandmother’s bathroom.  She had the entire array of No 5.   Products including the talcum powder that no one uses today.  (I once had to explain to a class what talcum powder was so they could understand a scene in a movie.)

There was the occasion when my father gave my mother a bottle of JOY by Jean Patou, probably purchased a Sav-On, and she was quite pleased.  She would adorn her neck and pulse points before she went to church or out to dinner.  But during my teen years she only wore Estee Lauder Youth Dew.  And that is the scent that will forever be linked to her in my memory.   At one of the schools where I worked, an employee also wore Youth Dew.  It was so strong that even ten minutes after she had left the room, it lingered.  I found it slightly off putting that someone else should smell like my mother.

When I entered high school, I started to develop an interest in the world of perfume.  I was intrigued that something should be called eau de toilette and be stronger than cologne.  It was during this time that I started wearing MISS DIOR.  It was also during this period that my olfactory sensations were awakened to the phenomenon of men’s after shaves.

One Christmas when I was shopping at The Broadway on Hollywood Boulevard, I spent far too long sampling the heady smells in the men’s section.  I settled on a bottle of ENGLISH LEATHER to put under the tree for my father. 

My first boyfriend used to douse himself in HIGH KARATE  (or it might have been JADE EAST!) and it wafted across to me during assemblies in the auditorium of John Marshall High School and when he would kiss me each time he dropped me off at my various classrooms. 

When I graduated from high school and started college, I switched from MISS DIOR to the cheaper and more popular scents by DANA.  One day, driving to school, I came off the ramp of the San Fernando Freeway too fast and hit the car in front of me. The driver got out of the car and looked for damage.  There wasn’t any.  All he said to me was  “Aren’t you wearing TABU?” and got back in his car.

Around this time my former Sunday school teacher, Mrs. E, gave me a bottle of FLEUR DE ROCAILLE.    I loved it.  Not only did the name sound French and foreign, it was NOT the kind of perfume you could buy just anywhere.  I finally found a small shop that specialized in European perfume at former The Farmer’s Market.   Recently, I bought a bottle at Duty Free, and, based on the advice of a Frenchwomen, keep it in my refrigerator.  It is the perfume made famous in the Al Pacino movie SCENT OF A WOMAN.

As my college years went on, I switched from MISS DIOR to DIORISSMO and wore it almost exclusively through the 1970’s.  It was my “daytime scent” and FLEUR de ROCAILLE was the “special” one.  My first college roommate introduced me to the name SHALIMAR but it was much better suited to her than to me.

Around this time a new scent was sweeping the vanity tables of America:  JEAN NATE.  A girl named Nora, who sat behind me in my Japanese film class, always wore it, and soon enough, my mother added it to her repertoire of fragrances.

A boyfriend came to visit around Christmas time and, so he would have a gift to open, my grandmother got him a bottle of British Sterling Imperial aftershave.  I haven’t smelled that since the mid 1970’s.  That’s just fine with me.

When I got married in 1979 I was rather relieved to be with a man who had forgone the whole BRUT fad.  In fact, he had forgone the entire aftershave movement.  A few months after our marriage we went to Paris.  We were to stay in the empty apartment of a friend of a friend and went to collect the key.  We were invited to have a glass of wine and I went to use the bathroom. Never have I been so overwhelmed, in a good way, by the fragrance that infused the little room.  I kept it tucked in my memory.   Then, one day years later, I was at Heathrow Airport and found something very similar: Roget & Gallet Vetiver.   Gone was DIORISSIMO and in was VETIVER.  It took a little longer to find the exact scent that I had experienced in that Parisienne restroom.  Almost twenty years.  It was Guerlain Vetiver and I have been wearing it ever since.

One of my last perfume encounters took place at Heathrow Airport.  A woman walked passed me on the concourse and I was immediately taken with the wafting aroma of her perfume.    As fate would have it, we were eventually seated next to each other on the airplane.  Before we took off, I asked her the name of her perfume.  She looked at me oddly, not sure whether I was hitting on her or just a rude American.  She told me:  PARIS by Yves St. Laurent.  I was quite grateful when the flight attendant moved my seat so I could be with my family.

More recently I thought I should kick it up a notch and try something new.  I read a novel where the character claimed that Jo Malone’s “Grapefruit” gave the olfactory impression of youth.  On a whim I bought it.   That evening my husband told me I smelled like his mother.  So much for Jo Malone.