Winner by a Nose

I own a large number of perfumes. One whole shelf in my bathroom is dedicated to my bottles of perfume. A few of them are gifts, but I chose most of them myself.

I would tell you how many bottles of perfume I own, but I just went to count the bottles and realized my daughters have been stealing my perfumes. I guess that means I have good taste, right? It's probably mostly Sophia who steals my perfumes, and, to be fair, she usually asks first. Elannah, on the other hand, has begun a love affair with Bath and Body Works, and every once in a while, she'll allow herself to walk into one of their stores and drop a wad of cash on her favorite body sprays and lotions, which means my perfume stash is a lot safer from her sticky fingers. I'm safe from Sian and Gabrielle, as well, as they don't live here anymore.

I don't wear perfume for anyone else but myself, and I don't wear perfume all that often, which is ironic, considering the number of perfumes I own (or, how many I would still own if my daughters didn't scarper off with them). What happens is that I'll crave a scent and then seek out the perfume that scratches that itch, much like one craves a taste or texture or color. (Right? I'm not the only one who has taste, color, scent, and texture cravings, am I?) Today, I needed to smell roses, so I'm wearing rose perfume, but I am also not planning on going anywhere, so the perfume is only for my benefit.

I tend to favor bright floral or citrusy scents, and I don't like sugary-sweet scents. If the scent reminds me of cotton candy, I think of Barbie dolls and tea parties, which is very little-girl. Obviously, choosing a favorite perfume is entirely subjective. Elannah and Sophia gravitate to the scents I consider too sweet, though that obviously doesn't stop them from stealing my perfumes, as well. I also tend to avoid scents with patchouli and a ton of sandalwood.

Here are very short lists of my favorites and least favorites. They are culled from my very limited exposure to the perfumes of the world, most of best of which I can't even afford to look at straight on, much less own.

Favorites

1. Halle by Halle Berry: I bought this when it first came out in 2009 and was available at Walgreens for about $20. Now I see it on Amazon for $145! Yikes! I've always loved the warm, bright vanilla notes in this, the best, of Halle Berry's perfumes, IMHO.

2. Eternity by Calvin Klein: This was my signature scent in college, and I hadn't worn it at all after my early 20s, so when someone gave me Eternity as a gift a couple years ago, I sprayed it on and was instantly transported back to those days. It was like being physically yanked back in time. I still like the perfume for its own sake, though, and not just the memories.

3. Rose perfumes: I don't have a specific designer's perfume here, but I love a well-made rose perfume. When I was in England for a year and a half, I bought a tea rose scent from Boots, the chemist. It wasn't expensive, but it was a good, true, long-lasting scent. I probably wore it every day I was in England and reminded everyone of their aged and wrinkly grandmothers, as it was the grandmothers' generation that tended to wear rose scents at that time.

I now own another rose perfume that always reminds me of England's beautiful green countryside (and their aged and wrinkly grandmothers), but it was a gift from my MIL and the bottle is not labeled, so I can't tell you what it is.

4. Cool Water by Davidoff: No specific memories attached to this perfume, but it's been a perennial favorite of mine for probably the last ten years.

5. revert eco by Rue 21: Some clothing retailers can put out very nice perfume lines without charging an arm and a leg, and I really like this one. It is what I think the color emerald green would smell like.

6. Embrace Green Tea and Pear Blossom by Vera Wang: Vera Wang came out with a trio of drugstore-priced perfumes, all titled Embrace. The other two are Rose Bud and Vanilla and Periwinkle and Iris, but the Green Tea and Pear Blossom is my favorite of the three. It reminds me of standing near honeysuckle trees as a child, deeply breathing in the heady scent of the flowers when they were blooming in the spring. I know the lily-of-the-valley note in this perfume is not the same as honeysuckle, but I'm still reminded of it.

What I Don't Like

1. Poison by Christian Dior: I distinctly remember one time when I was a young adult and I tried a Poison sample, which is a perfume with a lot of musky, amber notes. I knew it was a mistake right away, but it got worse and worse as the top notes dissipated  and the bass notes came to the fore. I nearly puked. After an hour, I had to go and wash it off the best I could just so I could calm my gag reflex. This is the only perfume that I've ever hated with a passion.

2. Obsession by Calvin Klein: Nope. Not my thing at all, and if I had to wear it for any length of time, it would make me feel ill, though probably not as ill as Poison.

3. It should go without saying, but I can't handle any perfume that is very cheaply made, with that astringent alcohol stink like a punch in the nose, an affront to every decent aroma in the world, and which burns into your very brain until you fear you will only ever smell that for eternity. Welcome to hell! Most Avon and Mary Kay perfumes fall lightly into this category for me, though I've taken the unfortunate snootful of some far worse concoctions.

When I was a young teenager, we had a family friend, a single mom of three, who bought a bottle of this awful, cheap perfume and then kept refreshing it every fifteen minutes as her nose became desensitized to it and she imagined she needed to re-odorize herself. I was fourteen, so I didn't know how to tell her to knock it off, that everyone within a one-mile radius was horribly aware of her presence, and that the only man who would come sniffing around (she was hunting) was one with no sense of smell or taste--which, in itself is not an indicator of personal worth, but in her case, always attracted the men who truly had no taste in general. She was a decent person, but she attracted trashy men. I can only think that the perfume chased off the decent men.


Thanks for coming along with me on my journey into happy schnozz country. I have now successfully procrastinated doing some online training I needed to do by writing this post. I'm still overwhelmed with my new job's learning curve, but I'm not the only one. The other new administrative assistant has confided in me that she is also feeling like she is drowning because we're only getting dribs and drabs of training, which makes the whole thing seem nearly insurmountable. It will work out in the end, though it will probably work out better for me if I stop procrastinating.