The Fragrance Foundation UK

Eau Sauvage by Dior

Everyone is hustling and pushing as I board the tightly packed tube,
No one daring to look in to each other’s eyes.
Suddenly I have a whiff of Eau De Sauvage,
And I am held in the arm of the man I loved and lost 10 years ago.
The tears welled in my eyes as my love came briefly back.
So precious is that scent.

One of my earliest scent memories is full of almonds, violets, chestnuts and Madame Rochas. My mother was getting ready for a dinner party and had made her best pudding, led petits soufflés Elisbeth, so the kitchen was redolent of crushed ratafia biscuits, crystallised violets and macaron glacés that had been folded into cream. Pregnant with my brother, my mother was wearing a magnificent maternity top of black watered silk, decorated with a swirling ruby, emerald and gold dragon. It’s half a century ago, but the scents are as vivid in my memory as that glamorous swirling dragon and their magical soufflés.

The scents I associate with strong women are the most redolent for me, particularly the perfume of my late grandmothers. There was tobacco, peppermint, warm silk, and YSL Rive Gauche on one side; roses, Chanel powder and that leathery green smell of horses on the other. Quite the initiation for a firm fragrance lover!

For me the smells I associate with Christmas are probably the most evocative….the pine of the Christmas tree, a snuffed out candle, a freshly peeled tangerine. These smells have the power to transport me back to my childhood when Christmas was always such a magical time. I have tried to re-create this magic for my own children so candles, citrus fruits and a freshly cut Christmas tree are absolute essentials.