Scent of Life

Along with the music the other thing that people are mentioning are scents.Which of course took me off in a journey done memory lane!

There are the more functional but evocative smells, like freshly baked bread, just brewed coffee. No accident then that the coffee pot was on yesterday when my first viewers for months came by to look at the house! Shoe polish is one I love, takes me back to being given sixpence by my Daddy for cleaning his shoes ready for work. And him spending hours polishing his army boots and his Sam Brown (leather army belt)ready for him to do his TA duties.

The smell of loose face powder, my mother wasn't very tidy, and her make up drawer in her dressing table when open always billowed out clouds of the stuff. She wasn't a great one for perfume, but she had a signature scent, Joy by Jean Patou, which today remains one of my favourites.

I had a very glamorous Aunty Cynthia who adored perfume, when she died I got all of her collection. She introduced me to Guerlain, a company that specialises in heady and opulent smells,Shalimar is my all time fav from this company.

Then there are the sleeping baby smells that every mother knows. That freshly talced clean sleepy smell. The one where however bad the day has been with a crying baby the mother just lets it all go, as she wants to keep her sleeping baby safe for ever,even if she has wanted to strangle her darling the rest of the day.

What about the smells of love, Eau Savage by Dior worn by my first love. I even bought my own bottle after we broke up! When I was a teenager all young men seemed to smell of Brut by Faberge. Such an evocative smell of those first cheek to cheek dances and tentative kisses.

Clinique's Elixir is the scent worn for ever by my best friend Eve in Philadelphia. It permeates her house. And it's a smell that I now love because of her, but outside of her don't like at all.

I personally adore perfume. I go through bottles of the stuff, nowadays they tend to be from companies that work with more natural ingredients. I do not like a lot of the synthetic (nasty smelling to me ) scents around. I don't particularly have a signature scent,except I'm now into my fifth bottle of Honeysuckle and Jasmine by Jo Malone. It smells of warm sunny days with just a hint of suntan lotion on a hot body to me. Otherwise the smells I buy will be on my way somewhere. As many trips as possible have to include enough time to spend an hour in duty free finding that holidays smell.

And of course now in the Northern hemisphere the smells are increasing by the day, as the flowers start to bloom, and when the blossom comes out the world will be heady with divine perfume. Then the grass will be long enough to mow and I will just breath and breath in that smell, that goes all the way back to my childhood and will never stop being one of my and most other peoples favourite smells.

MEMORIES OF LONG AGO AND LIFE RIGHT NOW.

I was thinking the other day about how much I like perfume and flower scents.I'm really looking forward to the stocks being available, as I shall have a bunch a week for the season. Or getting white or yellow freesias, the purple and red don't smell. Even the humble daffodil has a wonderful delicate scent. I got a new bottle of perfume for my birthday, or rather I got a new bottle of one I've been wearing for a while.

And a bit like music having a soundtrack in my life, perfume has as well. There are smells I have adored and others I wouldn't give house room to, and in terms of flowers the ones I cannot stand are lilies, makes me nauseous.

I've had such fun remembering the various bottles that have had a particular impact on my life. Starting with the first bottle I brought in a duty free shop, when I was 15 and going to Minorca with my parents, it was called Ma Griffe, by Craven. I bought bottles of it over the next three years every time I went away, it held the promise of sun sea and and least the dreams of sex, and definitely holiday romance, with doe eyed Spanish lads.

The next bottle that came my way was brought for me, and I was much to young to enjoy it, it was Channel No 5, given to me by my first love. I wore it because he gave it to me, but I can't say liked it till I was much older. But I loved him very deeply, and this always made me feel close to him when we were apart. Which probably explains why I was a bit like Marilyn Monroe, as I too wore it in bed!!

The smell I associate with my Mother was Joy by Jean Patou, a smell I stole from her and she would then replenish my supply at Christmas. It reminds me of her dressing table with it's drawer of old lipsticks and messy powder compacts

There is the year that I drove to Calais to met my husband, he couldn't come back in to the country for three weeks for tax purposes, after six months away at sea. So we met up and drove slowly down to Venice. He had got me a bottle of Arperge by Lanvin, a perfume I came to to adore, and still love to this day.

By the time my eldest son came along and I was in my mid 30s, the perfume had got very heavy, Opium by YSL or Cinnibar by Estee Lauder, smells that if I encountered today would make me gag with their sickly cloying smells.

The next perfume I was bought by a man, was L'Eau D'Issey by Issey Mikake, by the man who would become by second husband when he went to Japan for work,and when we still liked each other. We stopped liking each other the day we got married, which probably goes someway to explain why we were only together for five weeks!!!

The smells of the last few years have been heavily influenced by Jo Malone, who makes perfume of one or two notes, and my favourite of these, and one I'm into my fourth bottle of is, Honeysuckle and Jasmine. Which to me smells like summer, with an ever so gentle reminder of suntan lotion of long ago time in my life.

There are others that stand out because they take me back to where I smelt them, I cannot smell Clinique Elixier without in my imagination being with my friend in Philadelphia as it has always been her signature scent.

Or the few years I spent going to stay in France in the summer with my friends, who now live in Devon. Those holidays passed by in clouds of Helmut Lang. Or once on a trip out to Grasse and a visit to the Fragonard Perfume factory some of their perfume was purchased. I still have the last remaining drops of the wonderful precious scent obtained there. One smell of the bottle and I'm back sitting in the Veranda drinking local Rose and having long lunches of bread and cheese in the shade of the midday sun overlooking the Luberon.

Right now the two bottles I have on the go are the Jo Malone and L'instant Magic by Guerlain. This second one is the one I had for my birthday from my sons. The first bottle I got in December, and wore all round New York. So evocative memories of a wonderful holiday. I love the headieness of it, it's reminiscent of another of Guerlain's perfumes I used to wear, Shalimar, that I've now outgrown but have fond memories of from a lifetime ago.

And I have handed on this enjoyment of smells to my youngest son who has the finest collection of aftershaves known to man. And each represent a memory, usually of a girl to him....

So do you have a scentrack of your life?