Smell You Later: Scent of a Woman

Today’s Daily Prompt asks- Humans have very strong scent memory. Tell us about a smell that transports you.

I change perfumes every few years. Some of them are like chapters in a book that I can date my life, knowing what I was doing, how I was feeling when I wore that perfume. When that part of your life is over, you’re onto the next chapter, the next fragrance.

My earliest memories of wearing perfume was White Shoulders. It was my mother’s favorite although I can never remember her actually spraying it on. It represents my senior year of high school, innocence, wanting and waiting to become a woman. It is sweet and naive.

In college, there was a perfume, very strong called Chloe. You can still by it today but it reminds me of the 80’s clove cigarettes, big hair and trying desperately to find my sex appeal. I remember everyone else wearing Obsession or Eternity. I had a suite mate who would douse herself in heady, spicy Taboo after spraying smelly, Aqua net hairspray in billowing clouds.

Not going with the mass appeal perfume, I was subtle in the search for individuality.

That one along with a St. Ives shampoo. It was cheap, sold in large bottles, smelled clean and feminine. One bottle lasted me my entire freshman year. I recently learned they don’t make it anymore…. what a shame.

When I went back to school, I remember wearing “Beautiful” by Este Lauder. At the time, I had started dating a man who would later become my husband. I have a college textbook that still smells faintly of it as you turn the page.

After the marriage ceremony, I drifted around until discovering a fragrance that a sister-in-law wore and claimed it as my own. Alfred Tsung, I wore it for many years. My husband was starting to wander off, I think I had lost some of myself at that point. Who was I?

Post divorce, I started to play around with fragrance again and was rudely reminded how perfume plays an important role in many men’s lives too.

An old boyfriend popped back into my life. Actually, I think he was stalking me. I went over to his house one day and there on the bathroom counter was two or three bottle of women’s perfume. Asked him why did he have those perfumes? He said cause he liked them and thought if I wanted to spray some on, go ahead….trying to be the courteous gentleman.

I told him how creepy that was and got him to admit the perfumes reminded him of previous girlfriends. This was actually a plot to control me and turn him on through scent. Pretty psycho….I’m outta there!

Occasionally bouncing back to Alfred Tsung once in a while, but it no longer had any lure for me. Burberry Brit Sheer, L’eau d’Issey  and Bulgari’s Jasmine Noire are the top contenders right now….I like to keep my current boyfriend guessing.