‘The sickly sweet smell of a can full of Princess Perfume which my (then) 5 year old, kept spraying “to be like Mummy” on the way back from Euro Disney, the memory still makes me smile!”
‘The smell of Yardleys lipstick when my mother kissed me goodbye when she was off to a ladies evening (in a glamorous dress!)’
My scent memory is Davidoff Cool Water. It was worn by my partner when we first met, years ago at University. The specific memory is this mixed with freshly brushed teeth, but the underlying smell of beer… we were at uni!
My scent memory is the polish Mr Sheen, whenever I spray it, I instantly go back to a child in my Nan’s house helping her clean.
The scent of bergamot reminds me of a quiet evening at home with family during winter with a cup of hot tea with bergamot.
I have memories as a young girl of playing outside my father’s family home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the air heavy with the smell of jasmine on the tree-lined street. Also watching my aunts wearing their abayas, stepping over bakhour (scented wood burned in traditional incense burners), to envelope themselves in its intense aroma. Such a beautiful ritual!
I’ve always felt so intimately connected to Chanel No19 that I swear you could cut me open and find it running through my veins. But a memory that still lingers with me proved that scent can touch you on an almost-metaphysical level. On a warm evening many summers ago, at a lovely outdoor party, an elegant older lady walked past me and in doing so left behind a gentle trail of No19. My perfume. And in that brief moment,I had this extraordinary out-of-body experience of having somehow just walked past myself. The thought that it could be her scent – or anyone else’s – felt as unfeasible to me as having someone else’s fingerprints – or the same signature. If I ever get my DNA tested, I expect to see Henri Robert’s formula for No19 as very much part of my genetic makeup.
I have a number of scent memories but the one below is the first significant one and formative in my relationship with perfume and scent.
This scent memory is of my first ‘grown up’ perfume given to me by my gorgeous God Father when I was about 13. It was a bottle of Guerlain Chamade and I just fell in love with it. I loved that it was so luxurious and special, that the rich opulent fragrance stayed with me all day ( maybe I used a little too much – I was 13 after all…..….) that I felt so incredibly glamorous when I wore it , and last but not least that Terry my God Father clearly thought I was old enough and sophisticated enough to have it in the first place. That gift formed my desire for and love of fragrance and the transformative effect that it can have on your whole demeanour and wellbeing.
As a result I wear fragrance every day, whether I am taking the dog for a walk or going to gym ( I know it seems mad but it gives me a buzz) or going to work or out for dinner – it is like getting dressed, and if I forget to put some on for any reason I feel ‘naked’ all day……….!
The first scent I can remember is probably my mother’s, and it was made in 1927, the same year she was born. Lanvin’s Arpège is still one of the most heavenly scents ever invented, often referred to as “the fragrance of 1000 flowers”, which is entirely appropriate because my mother like myself is a passionate gardener.
Like all great scents, Arpège changes according to the skin of the person who wears it. When she first sprayed it on, it smelt awful – a bit like cat-pee (which as she loves cats too didn’t upset her) but after a short time it smelt more like the kind of soap you might find in paradise – a mixture of jasmine, lilies, sandalwood and spice. It was both intensely feminine, and elegant, and a bit mysterious, the kind of scent you’d expect to find wafting from the wings of a goddess or a beautiful queen.
It came in a round black bottle with a gold design that I gradually worked out was the figure of a woman bending over her child. I loved this, too, and although I didn’t know that the great perfumier Jeanne Lanvin had made it for her own daughter, it seemed to me to be a special message from my mother to me. As a working woman, she had to leave my little sister and myself in the care of a succession of nannies, most of whom made it clear that they hated children. I missed her dreadfully, and would creep into my parents’ bedroom to smell her silk scarves, kept in a tiny sandalwood chest of drawers, because they had her wonderful perfume on them.
To be enveloped in it was to breathe in the scent of love.
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