My first scent memory is of lemon. I remember my mum using a lemon cologne on our first trip to Spain. That is why I love citrus fragrances.
The smell of Chanel No19 always reminds me of my Uni days as one of the girls in my house wore it – it smelt wonderful on her and lingered. I saved to buy myself some, which sadly smelt totally different on me and only for about 10 minutes! Still, I love to catch a whiff of it as it makes me feel young again, even if I can’t wear it myself!
One of my most treasured special scent memories is the smell of mushrooms. As a kid, my dad, sister and I would go mushroom picking, we’d go foraging between September and late October before the first frost arrived. We’d get up at 5’oclock in the morning and we’d go walking for miles and miles in forests around London and the smell of those damp forest floors and the mushroom scent, it’s like this special prize smell and I will always remember it. I will always treasure those wonderful scent memories with my dad and my sister.
My scent memories include when I was a child going to parks and smelling roses, collecting the petals and putting them in a glass mixing sugar & water and loving the lovely smells. I thought I could mix a lovely fragrance.
Dior Poison – If I close my eyes I am transported back to being 16. In my friends house experimenting with makeup & Madonna playing in the background. One spray was more than enough!! Happy Day x
Angel-Mugler – reminds me of when I used to play football, before I left for a match on a Saturday morning I would sneak into my mams room and spray Angel. I felt like it was my good luck charm!
There is one scent memory that is forever connected to Christmas for me and it’s the scent of mandarin peel. My family has a tradition of serving mandarins after Christmas dinner. The sweet, fruity, very juicy notes are forever connected to the wintery Russian Christmas. And every time we celebrate Christmas, it brings me right back to where I grew up.
One scent that connects to me, and I would say almost 60% of my fragrances, are ouds. It takes me right back to when I was a student at university. I had a great job. I worked at Portobello at a leather market on a Sunday. We used to get there a six in the morning. All day we were knitting up these wonderfully, richly, tanned leathers, putting them on and off people, and that smell, that almost pungent, heady, sweet smell has always stayed with me. Every time I smell an oud I think back to that time.
One of my favourite scent memories is the smell of my Mum and Dad’s wisteria that hangs over their front door. It’s over the house that I grew up in and they still have it! Dad has looked after this wisteria so well, he took a cutting from my Grandads wisteria from his place in France so it’s very precious to all of us. The smell of it when you walk underneath is steamy, sweet, hypnotic, and so deep and rich that it takes your breath away. It’s so fleeting because the flowers only come for a few days and then they will go grey and papery and they disappear in the air. You wait for the whole year to smell it and it’s so worth it.
The Fragrance Foundation UK 
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