Thursday, May 3, 2012

Fragrance

This morning on our walk we talked about perfume and how certain scents will evoke such strong, visceral memories.  Whenever I smell YSL Rive Gauche, I think of the six months I lived in London on a semester abroad because that's what I wore.  If I were to catch a whiff of Wellaflex Balsam hair conditioner, I would remember how all the girls my age smelled in high school.  And if I were to smell Elsha I would think of how every guy my age put out clouds of it on prom night.

Such cute goofy boys!

What perfumes trigger your memories?

8 comments:

Louise Plummer said...

Oh Elsha! I wither and melt under your spell. Elsha takes me right back to l960. I loved a boy who breathed it.

wjmom said...

There's a scent with which the room fresheners at work are sometimes filled. I hate that smell so badly! I am immediately a 5-year-old child at Wymount Terrace, throwing up on the concrete floored bathroom.

Is that what you were looking for? :)

James said...

The scent of musk reminds me of crashing BYU summer youth camp dances with my big brother, his friend, and a muscle car with mag wheels.

candace said...

lemon-lime LipSmackers chap stick = jr. high drama...as in friends crying on grassy fields...not friends acting on a stage! Although I suppose there's a reason we call it drama.

Lisa B. said...

Any lemon-based perfume reminds me of Love's Fresh Lemon, which I *adored* and would have bathed in if I could.

I still have small bottles of fragrances I wore at different parts of my life. Some of them I find unwearable now, even though they were to me the height of elegance and mystery when I wore them back then.

I highly recommend that you find a way to smell the Incense line by Comme des Garcons--it will make you feel ineffable.

Unknown said...

White Shoulders. My mom. She doesn't wear it any more (she's 95) but when I catch it in the air, the immediate memory is snuggling against her mink stole and drowsing through a concert in a big hall.

Unknown said...

I also wear the same scent frequently - Vivienne Westwood's Boudoir and my grandchildren say, "Oh, it's you!" when they notice it.

Jeanna said...

My sister's tea rose perfume, which I thought smelled so terrible that I could certainly make and sell a perfume better than that. I was about ten, and for the next several months I tried making rose perfume and pine perfume in my backyard.