I was cramming socks into my too-small sock drawer when I noticed a box. I must have known it was there but I'd forgotten about it.
My mother gave me this soap for Christmas 1970, just before she had a stroke and died the following February. She apologised because she couldn't afford the perfume for me. I've kept it in an underwear drawer ever since. It was something we did in those days: like keeping empty perfume bottles there to make our pants smell nice!
I took it from the drawer this morning with the intention of using the soap and throwing away the box to make room for my socks. The smell has long gone but I expect it still works as soap. And I thought I'd check my blog to see whether I'd talked about it before.
I have. At least three times but all ten years ago or longer so I feel justified in mentioning it again and reposting another piece I wrote about perfume generally. Here it is.
When I was young, a teenager, I loved Elizabeth Arden's Blue Grass and Nina Ricci's L'Air du Temps. I still do love them: they're light and flowery and make me think of summer, but they don't have any staying power. Not on me anyway.
When in my older teens and early twenties I babysat for a woman who was beautiful, slim, glamorous, and who wore Estee Lauder's Youth Dew. Hoping some of her glamour would rub off on me I began using it too. Was there ever such a perfume/wearer mismatch?! Once smelled, never forgotten.
Then came children and for a while I smelled of baby sick and playdough. As they grew and left that stage behind I moved on to White Musk, a warming and affordable fragrance from the Body Shop.
A few years ago, Daughter heard the inventor of a new perfume talk about it on the radio, describing it as a cereal and milk sort of smell. She straightaway thought of me and bought me some, and I wore Simply, by Clinique, until they stopped making it. I guess women preferred the smell of Poison to corn flakes.
At airports, once I've done the bookstalls and been banned from buying any more books as I 'have a caseload already!' I head for the perfume. I board the plane smelling like a tart's boudoir. Not that I know what a tart's boudoir smells like. But none of them ever grabs me. Not enough to make me say, 'Yes, I must spend £30 on this.'
So now I'm a Chanel No. 5 woman, and I splash it on every day wherever I'm going, even though I can't smell it on me except when I do the dishes. Sometimes of an evening I'll use Chanel's Allure, which is stronger but not asphyxiating. I don't want my perfume to be overpowering but I do want it to be present.
Now, what's your signature scent?
Update: £30 for a bottle of perfume? Phew, you'd be lucky to get a bar of fancy soap in an airport for that these days. And I'm not sure if Elizabeth Arden makes Blue Grass any more. And my bottle of Allure ran out long ago.
I managed to squeeze the box of soap back into my drawer. Not ready yet.
9 comments:
My sister used to love Blue Grass. As a student I liked Chypre, very citrusy, but after I married, my husband kept me supplied with Joy (!!)
You shouldn't wear enough perfume to smell it on yourself or you'll asphyxiate people around you. I used to work with a woman who kept reapplying it because she couldn't smell it. We all ended up smelling of it!
I remember putting scented soaps in my underwear drawer too. Haven't done that for years because I tell people not to buy me scented soap anymore. My go-to perfume for many years was Chanel No 5 as well, but only occasionally and sparingly. Now I basically never wear perfume anymore.
Chantilly for spring and summer. Opium for fall / winter . I too have a Chanel 5 soap in my PJ drawer from my Mom.
barb
I stopped wearing perfume a couple of decades ago when it started making me wheezy.
Shortly after we moved here in 05, we switched from bar soap to liquid. I did hang onto the final bar for 17 years before giving myself permission to toss it.
A few years ago a blogger mentioned Yardley Bluebell and Sweet Pea body mist so I bought that and still like it. So thank you unknown blogger for the idea.
I have never thought of putting soap in a drawer to make things smell good. Of course these days I tend to stay away from perfume scents.
So many places (our senior center, for one) ask us to refrain from using fragrances and I spend so much time at home that I rarely apply anything, but my current favorites are Chanel No. 5 (favored since Hunky Husband gifted me with a tiny bottle back in the early 1960s) and Givenchy's Very Irresistible (another favorite since "discovery" at a perfume counter 10-15 years ago). For years, I kept the last gift from my mother, a fancy, hexagonal bar of Ombre soap. She knew I would not splurge to buy scented soap for myself. (Mom died in 1993 at age 79.)
And now I know that I am not alone in keeping soap in dresser (and shirt) drawers, so thank for mentioning the Chanel soap bar. I also have several bottles of lovely parfum which is worn sparingly when used. I cannot abide an overpowering fragrance and smiled when I read of you visiting the airport perfume counters and the aftermath.
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