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The Scent of a Woman

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So there I was, flipping absent-mindedly through yesterday’s Grazia (don’t judge – I need a regular fashion fix since cancelling my Red subscription in a fit of Goop-induced rage) when suddenly my senses were assailed by a scent so familiar I felt I’d been shoved on a sensory time machine and transported back to 1992.

The culprit was an advert for L’eau d’Issey, a perfume I wore for a good couple of years in my late teens/early twenties.

I started thinking about my perfume ‘history’. I’ve always been a scentophile and perfume has played a very important role in my life. My Grandma wore Yardley’s Lily of the Valley and the heady smell of Cacharel’s LouLou will forever remind me of my mum – important memories tied up with two very different fragrances, for two very different women.

And I am in full agreement Christian Dior, you really CAN tell a lot about a woman by the perfume she wears – the mood she’s in, her personality. I’ve always liked the idea of being one of those women with a ‘signature scent’ but in all honesty I like perfume too much to stick to one for the rest of my life.

So what does my perfume history say about me? Let’s take a trip down memory lane!

The Early Years

DEWBERRY EXCLAMATION

Ahhh the 80′s – perms, jelly shoes, rara skirts, Bros, Madonna and Insette. For me, this period of time will forever be associated with two fragrances –  The Body Shop Dewberry and Coty Exclamation. Although very different, both have a fruity top-note (apricot and peach for Exclamation, blackcurrant, grapefruit, red apple and pear for Dewberry) that I believe is responsible for setting me on a path of fruit-based fragrances. That said, a cautious whiff of either of these is about as much as I can take nowadays. Dewberry is definitely the less offensive of the two – a sickly sweet fruity punch on the nose that lasts about five minutes (hence the need for constant reapplication) but Exclamation is the stuff of nightmares. I can’t believe I used to drench myself in it! I do feel sorry for our high school teachers back then – the combined force of Exclamation and Fahrenheit must have been migraine inducing.

The Experimental Years

issey etc

My late teens/early twenties saw a flurry of chaotic experimentation that echoed the events in my life. I flicked fickly from oriental, to floral, to ozonic – Dior’s Dune, Lagerfeld’s Sun Moon Stars, Calvin Klein’s CkOne - and never seemed to buy any bottle of perfume more than once. Exceptions to this are the aforementioned L’eau d’Issey and its polar opposite, fragrance wise, the spicy oriental Yohji by Yohji Yamamoto.  I was delighted to read recently that Yohji Yamamoto has relaunched his long discontinued fragrance line and I can’t wait to see if I love his eponymous scent as much as I used to.

 

The Designer Years

designer

I moved back to London from San Francisco towards the end of 2000 to begin a bachelors degree at London College of Fashion, so it seems only fitting that my perfume choices from that period are dominated by designer names. The first year was all about Marc Jacobs, a step away from my fruity passion towards the distinctly more floral. I then switched  designer allegiance in 2002 when Lanvin Eclat D’Arpege was released, and wore it devotedly until falling in love with the decidedly un-floral, uber-musk Narciso Rodriguez For Her in 2004. I wore this, with Comme Des Garcons Sherbet Rhubarb as my ‘day’ perfume, pretty much constantly – brief flirtation with Chloe in 2008 and Byredo’s Pulp in 2010 notwithstanding – until I discovered Jo Malone.

 

The Jo Malone Years 

jo malone

I remember distinctly the first time I smelt Jo Malone’s Pomegranate Noir - it was on my friend Beth, at her birthday party, sometime in the late ‘noughties’ (sorry). I’d never fallen in love with a perfume so suddenly and intensely and have worn it ever since. I’m a huge fan of all Jo Malone fragrances and love that they can be worn together, as layers, creating your own unique scent.  Pomegranate Noir is a heavy fragrance so I tend to wear the lighter Nectarine Blossom & Honey during the day, although I have also been known to wear English Pear & Freesia (which I wore on my wedding day) and Blackberry & Bay.

Other perfumes I’ve had a ‘one bottle’ dalliance with include Clinique’s Happy, Creed’s Silver Mountain Water, Chanel’s Allure, Acqua di Parma’s Blu Mediterraneo Arancia di Capri and Salvador Dali Laguna (which I bought purely for the bottle design!).

So there you have it – a chequered history of mainly fruity fragrances with the odd floral and oriental flirtation!

Do any of you have a similarly long list of fragrances in your past? Or are you loyal to one particular scent?

KJL xx

 

 

The post The Scent of a Woman appeared first on Kerry Jean Lister.


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