The smell of home, the smell of the past. Proust’s Remembrance was triggered by a smell. I wish there was a smell that could do that same trigger for me. Music does hold some ‘nostalgia’ for me but so many of those memories have been written over by time. Some disco can take me back to my early coming out days but listening to the Stones or Hendrix doesn’t take me back to my formidable years. There a couple of songs that do that – The Supreme’s Baby Love & The Beach Boy’s California Girls.
polka dot fun
A few months ago, on a bit of a whim, I braved the cosmetics counter at Shoppers to ask the ‘expert’ if Evening In Paris was available. This was a perfume I used to buy in Sydney, N.S., at the local drug store, for my mother as a gift. I couldn’t recall the last time I smelled it.
As I expected it was not available. The clerk had never heard of it either. So she looked it up on her smart phone – some empty bottles were on sale on eBay. This told me that it was probably discontinued as well. My next step was to the ultimate expert: Google. Wiki filled me in somewhat – it had been discontinued in the early 80’s – the head notes were talcum powder & rose floral. But it had been reissued in 2010, or something like that.
fun in the woods
No online retailer in Canada carried it but there were a few in the USA. But it was out of stock at all of them except, you guessed it, Amazon. So from my local indie drugstore I’m faced with the corporate monster. Shipping to Canada doubled the price :-(. I didn’t need the scent of the past that badly.
parking fun
But I asked a friend of mine in the USA, who was coming to visit in October, if he could order it & bring it along. He did. It was in my hands by Thanksgiving. Not the bottle I remembered & but it was the scent I knew – very feminine, powdery & damask rose. (according to the web: ylang ylang, violet, cedar, turkish rose, vanilla, peach, musk and bergamot.) Memories resurrected? Some. I’ve put it on myself if I’m not going anywhere just to smell it on flesh. It’s very familiar, sort of comforting but no flash backs to good or bad events. Old Spice is another story 🙂
(2019: I’ll be taking the bottle with me when I visit in August so my sister can sample out & see what memories it might bring her.)
Evening in Paris
Evening in Paris
was it my mother’s favourite
as a boy
I used to buy it for her
for birthdays mothers day
from McVicar’s
the local drug store
couldn’t have been too expensive
in a cool-to-the-touch indigo bottle
some years she’d ask for bath cubes
drugstores in those days
didn’t depend on cosmetics for sales
the selection was very limited
a counter only
not half the drug store
positioned so you had to
wade through those many musky options
before you could get to the chocolate bars
then the prices had to be reasonable
it was just a local store
not a department store
money was limited
I remember there was also
tabu
white shoulders
for Dad old spice
and growing teenage boys
jade east
hi karate
Evening in Paris
had been discontinued
in fact perfume is going
the way of smoking and peanuts
smelling good
infringing on someone’s
right to breath free and easy
it’ll become something sinister
only done in private
by invitation only
attar of roses
