My life in Perfume

Hi!

A while ago, I read this post over on The Gloss in which Jennifer listed some of the perfumes she'd worn at different times in her life. I've always been a perfume lover, so I thought it was a deadly idea to do my own version, going through ten perfumes that made an impact on me at one point or another.

All perfume bottle images from the epic holy grail perfume site that is fragrantica.com

Secondary School

Ah, good old ex'cla-ma'tion and so...? - much beloved by First Years who wanted to smell like grown-ups and favoured by Aunts who didn't have a clue what to buy you for Christmas. I'm almost 30, and I still have an Aunt who buys me bottles of So...? - not the original one, the sinful one. It's actually not too bad, a bit overpowering and tween-y, but not completely gross. I think every single girl I knew wore one or both of these circa 1995.

First Fancy Perfume

When I was in 4th year, I got a Friday evening/Saturday job in a local Supermarket. One of the first "proper" things I bought (as opposed to imported US teen magazines and Spectacular nail polish) was one of those crap gas hair stylers that used a whole gas cylinder to straighten my hair once, the other was a small 30ml bottle of Ralph Lauren Romance. I bought it on a total whim after smelling a tester in the chemist, and I adored it. It reminds me of Winter 1998 when the car broke down and I had to walk home from the crossroads wearing stupid high boots, a horrible too-big charity shop duffel coat, and a big scarf drenched in this.

Leaving Cert Perfume - AKA Teen Rebel

The least said about the year 2001, the better. I mainly bought Givenchy Oblique Play because my mother absolutely detested the smell, but I grew to adore it. I don't adore the memories it brings back - mainly of buying it in Dublin and drowning myself in it before meeting a pig of an ex (that same evening, the heel snapped right off my brand new sandal, should have taken that as an omen) the evening of the Westlife gig at The Point, but I do still have a fondness for that sickly sweet smell.

Off To College

Davidoff Cool Water is still one of my all-time favourite perfumes and I must pick up another bottle if the original is still available. I first bought this in mid 2001, and by the time I started college that September, I was already on my second bottle. It immediately brings to mind all the things I loved about college - the nights out, the wild weekends, the spur-of-the-moment day trips, the bike rallies, the friends - an amazing time.

The Grown-Up Perfume

The world and its mother wore this for a year or two after it was released - I bought my first bottle around 2002-2003, when I was doing a computer course. I hadn't yet met my future husband, I was earning good money in a part-time job, and generally spending like a mad woman - I think I went through three bottles of this stuff, I thought it was the most grown-up, seductive, sexy perfume I'd ever smelled - until it got to the point where every second woman you passed would reek of it. I think I overdosed, I can't stand the smell of it now.

Presents from A Boy

I met my now-husband in 2003, and over the course of 10 Birthdays, 10 Valentines and 10 Christmases, he has given me exactly three perfumes. Oh, how the romance dies quickly.........anyway. The first one he gave me was the DKNY for one of my Birthdays, and I know for a fact his older sister picked it because she wore it. Hence we all smelled the same any time we went out together. The smell of it reminds me of a trip to Stratford-on-Avon. Good times! The next one he bought me was Deep Night by Ghost (possibly for Christmas?), which reminds me of being pregnant with our first son. It's such an odd perfume to describe - it's sweet, but really dark at the same time.  The final one reminds me of another Christmas - he got me Dior Pure Poison as a Christmas gift and gave it to me IN the chemist. Then we went in to Tesco to get a CD (Tommy Fleming, puke) and our then infant son roared the place down and we had to walk out. I still love that Dior scent so much -  I haven't been able to justify the price since (my original bottle was bought in the boom, damn you Celtic Tiger) but I have been known, on occasion, to splash out on a bottle of the Pure Poison Shower Gel.

The Wedding/Honeymoon Perfume

I'd gotten a sample of Lancôme's La Vie Est Belle before the wedding and fell in love with it immediately, but couldn't justify another bottle of perfume so soon after buying a Cavalli one called Serpentine that I bought blind and ended up loathing on me. We didn't go on a traditional honeymoon abroad - we went off to Galway for a week and had a lovely time - eating, drinking, relaxing. The day before we came home, we went into Galway City and of course I had to hit every bookshop and chemist I could find. When I went into Boots, I found a little set on the Lancôme counter that had 30ml perfume, a mini juicy tube, mini mascara, mini body lotion and mini shower gel all for €48. I snapped it up, swore I wouldn't waste the perfume.........and used it all up before Christmas. GAH! It's definitely on my must-repurchase-immediately list. 

You know that line from Coyote Ugly - "I remember the first time my Mom played me 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'...I remember exactly what she was wearing, exactly how her hair smelled, and exactly how I felt. Every time I hear that song.....I remember exactly what she was wearing, exactly how her hair smelled, and exactly how I felt." - that's what perfume does for me. One whiff of a particular perfume can bring a memory flooding back with such force that it can floor me at times. It's amazing how certain smells will be forever associated with one particular memory - I can almost smell each and every perfume I've posted about, exactly when I got them, and exactly how I felt. 

Did you own any of my most memorable scents?