I recently had perfume custom made for me. It sounds fancier than it is, because you basically go on this website[1], pick several scents, and fervently hope that they combine into something that does not make anyone within sniffing vicinity gasp and choke. Suggestions of complementary scents are available, but I scoffed at those and proceeded to trust my own senses. I was not disappointed!
I knew nothing about fine fragrances growing up—which is no surprise, considering my upbringing. My no-nonsense grandmother (she of https://oldladywriting.com/2021/08/30/just-boil-water/) did not bother with such frivolities. She was kind enough to buy me a bottle of children’s eau de cologne one summer in Estonia. The bottle was shaped like a clown, leaked to the point of extreme transience, and left no olfactory impression on me whatsoever. She also, in a fit of unprecedented and unrepeated generosity, bought me a tiny bottle of adult perfume, Vecrīga (Old Riga), which miraculously survived to present day and, considerably less miraculously, turned itself into vinegar in the intervening decades without me ever opening it. I had vague plans to wear it on my wedding day, but forgot and instead dumped half a bottle of Dali on my wrists. As the latter is currently fetching $800 on EBay while the former is not, I can only say that my marriage was—and is—worth it[2].
In college, the same friend who introduced me to Elton John’s music [https://oldladywriting.com/2019/06/23/rocketman/] also introduced me to quality scents. She mocked the drugstore-bought Lutece supplied by my mom, who still picks perfume based on the attractiveness of its receptacle, and gave me a bottle of Oscar De La Renta from her personal collection. Fun fact: today, a half-used bottle of former would set you back the same $90 as the retail-bought bottle of the latter, which just confirms the old adage that there is no accounting for taste, as well as there is no limit to the pull of nostalgia. But, once I started drenching myself in that designer fragrance, no fewer (and yet no more) than two young men followed the scent straight to my apartment. In the immortal words of Simon and Garfunkel, “It was a time of innocence”.
When I was in Greece, walking through the Club Med resort on the way to my job as an ouzo drinker [https://oldladywriting.com/2020/07/30/the-wrong-way-to-the-parthenon/ ], a fragrance wafting from some flowers instantly transported me to warm nights on the Black Sea. I did not expect to smell it again until I discovered Orange Blossoms at Lush. I do not think oranges grow in Crimea, where I spent the summers of my childhood. In fact, growing up I was violently allergic to what everyone assumed were oranges, but it was actually the poison with which they were injected to make them ripen or at least appear ripe during their long trek to my North Volga hometown. Logic tells us that this particular scent should not evoke any memories more pleasant than a trip to the children’s hospital—yet it does, and logic is a sword by which I do not want to die. I am happy to report that Orange Blossoms, after suffering a couple of setbacks, did not permanently join the list of my favorite discontinued things [https://oldladywriting.com/2022/01/29/murder-at-the-marsh/] but has instead become my signature scent. I also read somewhere that it is the signature scent of French women, so in this case, logic is firmly on my side.
As for the ones that did join the sad list, there is Yves St. Laurent’s In Love Again. Like Orange Blossoms, it came, went, came back—but then disappeared for good. My tenuous connection with YSL was thus severed, and Fragonard took his place as my French perfumer [https://oldladywriting.com/2019/06/09/when-did-the-arc-de-triomphe-start-leaning/]. I owe allegiance to Fragonard for (1) creating not just one but—count them—four scents I love (Belle de Nuit, Emilie, Etoile, and Fragonard itself), (2) not attempting to cancel any of them, and (3) supplying me with its version of Orange Blossoms during the dark period when Lush did not.
Some years ago, my erstwhile BFF asked what gift I wanted from the homeland; I had trouble coming up with something that I could not get here, and requested a bottle of Red Moscow perfume. Her cousin finally located it in a Soviet nostalgia shop in actual Moscow, and the two of them could not be dissuaded from the conclusion that this peculiar retro item was meant for my ancient grandmother. Rumor has it that it existed before the Revolution of 1917 as The Empress’ Favorite Bouquet, and was renamed like so many things during the Soviet era. I had no idea what it would smell like, and just thought it would be something weird at best, and most likely fetid. But you know what? I love it. It is a very strong floral chypre (there are those orange blossoms again, though I cannot detect them in it) that lasts from morning till night. There is something symbolic as well as ironic in the existence of a fragrance that survived two ages of empires—and hopefully will outlast a third.
And so what is this custom scent that I chose? Tulips and mimosa. Surprised? Tulips do have a smell, albeit a very subtle and delicate one. Mimosa—the flower, not the drink—overwhelms in this particular combination, but I am fine with that. In my childhood, mimosa was the earliest blooming flower of spring, omnipresent on March 8, International Women’s Day. The smell of this perfume conjures bouquets of those fuzzy yellow balls on the desks of all the girls in class. One of the big benefits of that egalitarian society was that no one was excluded, unlike the mortifying Valentine Day popularity contests in the U.S.[3] The homeroom teacher insured that all the boys participated, and all the girls got flowers, and sometimes even perfume, though I do not recall what kind (in any case, it would not have been Red Moscow). And now Queen’s Bouquet © (see what I did there?) recalls one of the most pure memories of my joyful childhood during these complicated times…[4]
[1] https://scentcrafters.com/
[2] I found a lovely write up which made me regret just slightly that I have never really sniffed Vecrīga myself. But, in my younger days, I would not have appreciated it, and now, I have enough, so all is well. And in any case, I still have never been to Riga. https://www.fragrantica.com/news/Spirit-of-the-City-Riga-in-Dzintars-fragrances-18365.html
[3] Do I even need to mention that the only carnations that I got in high school were from female friends?
[4] The many links to the previous blog posts are for my new subscriber(s) who might have missed them in the past. [insert smiley face]
Old Lady Writing 