Ten perfumes of my life
I have quite a lot of perfume, though it has only really been in the last decade that I have put it on regularly. I do seem to have a very strong scent memory though. One whiff of something and I will be back in a previous era, with all the feels and thoughts that went with it. I've got more perfume than I'm every likely to use on my dressing table and really should pass some of it on, but ... maybe I will just wear more of it.
1. Tuscany Per Donna, Estee Lauder
My first boyfriend bought me a bottle of this for Christmas when I was all of 16. It was the first perfume I can remember really loving - this and Eau Dynamisante, which Mother Hand claimed smelled like a badger set. I used to go into Debenhams after school for a liberal spritz. Now, I'm astonished - it's such a grown up fragrance that I even feel a bit young for it now - the sort of thing that goes extremely well with leopard print. It came in a brown-toned tapestry-printed box - very of its time. I still have most of the bottle and wear it sometimes in the winter, like today.
2. Amor Amor, Cacharel
The perfume of becoming a teacher. I only bought a little bottle as a treat from Boots after my first term of teaching, but that scent memory is so strong. It's those cheap polyester trousers and zip-up cardigans I mentioned in my last post, mixed with seemingly endless driving my new car in the dark, eating toast in the staffroom when I should have been in assembly, spending hours on my displays and hanging out drinking with Sian and the other NQTs.
I never wear this anymore.
3. Something Wicked, Lush
I have quite a lot of Lush perfume hanging around and most of it never gets a look in, I don't especially want to smell like a bath product, but this is the exception. It's jasmine and ginger - I am not a big jasmine fan but there's something about this that is just delightful, it's sort of fizzy. I ration it strictly, because it was a limited edition, so it is the scent of Christmas parties at my old school, with all the dancing, boozing, taking a million pictures, waking up on the first day of the holidays in a slightly damp-smelling, overheated hotel bedroom, still a bit drunk...all the good memories of my 30s.
Other scents in this '30s memories' boat are Maybe Baby by Benefit - I am trying to use up my bottle of this as I think it might be on the turn - and Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs Spooky, which is like a soft, minty coconut. I still have far too much BPAL from back in the day but the bottles are so small, I kid myself that there's no need to declutter them, I don't need the space.
4. Chance Eau Vive, Chanel
Probably my most-worn perfume, I've been through bottles of this. I referred to it as my 'work perfume' as it was all I wore to work for a long time. We were in Sephora in Vegas and I was sniggering at Mr Z, who had been trapped by a sales assistant trying to sell him some aftershave, but I got too close and said sales assistant pounced on me instead. When I said I liked grapefruit, he steered me towards this scent. I don't really get grapefruit from it, though it has a sort of bitter fruity note, but I do like it a lot. Regrettably, though, the scent doesn't hang about on me past about breaktime. A small bottle lives on my desk at work for use before parents evenings.
5. Dot, Marc Jacobs
A perfume bought purely on the strength of how the bottle looked. Mr Z bought it for me a few years ago for Christmas - I couldn't let a bottle that looked like a ladybird get away. It smells OK, kind of like melons to me. I think it's for the summer. It looks very pretty on my dressing table.
6. Jo by Jo Loves
First among all grapefruit scents I own. Better than Jo Malone grapefruit. Better than Guerlain Pampelune - though that is a really sunny, warm, sweet grapefruit that is perfect for summer holidays. The Jo Loves version is crisp and cool and putting it on makes me feel like I am also crisp and cool. This is my ride or die, but I never wear it to school, so I can't accidentally associate a teaching memory with it.
It concerns me, now that I'm writing this down, how much thought I seem to have put into this.
7. Red Truffle 44, Jo Loves
A well-placed sample on the part of Jo Loves, when I was ordering something from their Pomelo range (love this scent too, but I only have it as a lotion). I was prepared to hate it but actually, it's the fig scent it seems I have been waiting for all my life. I bought a bottle in the summer and have been keeping it exclusively for wearing when I'm in Oxford, so that I get a proper scent memory from it in future years.
8. Chloe
Not for me - but this is Mother Hand's fragrance. I've been buying it for her for years because I know that, when she eventually shuffles off, I will be able to spritz it around and think of her. That sounds horribly ghoulish. I should add that it is her choice of perfume.
9. Lost Cherry, Tom Ford
Massive splurge. I got a decant of it, hoping it wouldn't wear well or would be too overpowering, but it's not. It's full-on cherries and almonds. One tiny squirt lasts for seemingly days. I bought a bottle in the duty free when I flew out to Vegas to see Father Hand for the last time and got an extra discount when they scanned my upper-class ticket so that was pleasing. Also now it's attached to the memory of that trip - driving around a cold and slightly sad Vegas on my own. Not to downer it sounds like.
10. Eleventh Hour, Byredo
This smells like every-so-slightly gone-over apples to me, but in a pleasant, boozy, party way. I got the scent in a hand cream from an advent calendar, then bought a mini, and finally this winter I finished the decant and went to buy a full bottle. Alas, the smaller size is out of stock - but happily Byredo do a discovery set of all their scents that includes a voucher for a 50ml perfume, so I have ordered that (arriving this week hopefully), can spend the voucher on the Eleventh Hour when it restocks and I get to try all the other fragrances for not very much more than I would have spent on the bottle.
The girl maths is girl mathsing with this one. If I can sell the discovery set on afterwards, I might even make money. Because, as I said, I don't really need more perfume.