My smelling salts!

  

Coco Chanel once said that "fragrance is the unseen, but unforgettable aspect of fashion." I might not have heard that quote as a child, but I definitely believed the sentiment behind it. For as long as I can remember, I've always loved perfume. When I was really little, I would spend lots of time admiring the beautiful bottles that sat on a mirror on my grandmother's dresser. Lining them up by height, smelling each one and carefully replacing the lid gave me much amusement. Before I knew anything about design, I understood that bottle looked different according to what was inside. At one point my mom wore Liz Claiborne and the bottle was a bright yellow triangle with the perfume in the center. 

My fragrance of choice, which  I pined over for months, was Elizabeth Arden Red Door. All my asking paid off at Christmas that year when I was given a tiny (seriously the size of an acorn) bottle of the golden liquid inside a ball of green tissue paper. My life was complete. I was eight. At the time it seemed perfectly normal to me to desire such a gift. Twenty years later, I think Elizabeth Arden perfume is sort of a bizarre present for a little kid to want, but I was an old soul. My loyalty to Elizabeth Arden stayed true. When she released a new fragrance, I had to have it too. I was a devoted wearer of Sunflowers, then True Love. This was around the same time as the unisex perfume movement (Calvin Klein’s CK1) and I never got on that bandwagon. Why wear something ‘youthful’ when I could be classic?

Since then, my perfume collection has grown. I don’t have a signature scent, just lots of fragrances that I like and wear depending on my mood. There’s Gucci Rush (a spicy scent that reminds of a trip to Chicago), Marc Jacobs (the bottle design won me over, but it smells good), Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle (a treasured gift from a beloved friend), and on and on. But the other day I was scouring the clearance bins in the Cosmetics department at Target and ran across this cute little box. Elizabeth Arden Mediterranean. I’d never even heard of it. It made me smile because my 8 year-old self would have wanted it too. So I bought it, scent un-smelled. It was on clearance after all.  I couldn’t wait to add that blue bottle to my collection. It’s nice to have Elizabeth back in the mix…I mean, we have been friends for 20 years. 

Do you have a signature scent or a new favorite fragrance? Maybe it is yummy-smelling soap that you prefer. Or even a great lotion. Please share!