YSL, depict a statue in real (ish) man form
Recently I conducted an experiment which was designed to
discover if inexpensive scents could be loved as much as their costly brethren.
You can click here to read the results.
Upon recruiting my scent lover testing panel, I asked each
person to name their favourite five scents (simply to enquire if they had breadth
in their tastes). What I wasn’t expecting to receive was a literary delight
written by my friend Clive. I invited him to take part because I admire his
taste greatly, particularly the fact that he appreciates scents for their value
to him, not for their current hype and bluster. What I didn’t know was that he
was superbly engaging writer. With his permission, I give you unedited access
to his correspondence. Thanks Clive.
"After a little contemplation and soul searching my top 5
fragrances (at this time) are....
Zelda - En Voyage Perfumes
(vintage) Kouros - YSL
Ambre 114 - Histoires de Parfums
Fleur de Matin - Miller Harris
Centrepiece - 4160 Tuesdays
That was such a painful process! I just keep thinking about all
the beauties that didn't make the list.
It's interesting to me that the selection I have made
really does speak strongly to memory. Not specific events but rather periods in
my life, realisations and developmental milestones. I'm going to describe how I
experience the scents rather than listing notes. For me a scent is alive and so
much more than it's component parts.
Zelda represents the
matriarchal and the love of mothers, grandmothers and aunts along with all the
women in my life I called aunt (even though they weren't my aunties.) Auntie
Win, Auntie Kitty, Auntie Brenda. All the women who worked together to raise
one another’s children and grandchildren. Visiting their homes and the first
time I understood that peoples houses all smelled different along with clothes,
furniture, handbags, bed linen and skin. Zelda represents that to me and is a
testament to family, longevity, difference, individuality, community and love.
Kouros is the period of
anarchy, finding my own path, experiencing liberation and fighting against the
status quo, the norm and the expected. It represents my own sexual awakening
and the beginning of a time when my own hedonism became uncontrolled.
Looking back to that period I could so easily have fallen and not got back up,
but I was somewhat lucky or blessed or just wise enough to pull back from some
precipice on the edge of a gaping chasm. Kouros represents that period. With
its overbearing grandiose statement of maleness it worked to give me courage to
explore darker aspects of my own psyche, and in doing I was able to expand into
life. Kouros is the scent of a time when I questioned nothing and jumped
in feet first. And yet it gave me a period after of reflection and with that
came wisdom and knowledge.
Ambre 114 is the
unconditional love of family. It is the warm cozy smell of intimacy in
childhood of stories and books, of archetypes made real through AA Milne,
Disney, Brothers Grimm. The magic of being thrilled and scared by the dark and
monsters under the bed. It is the oversized teddy bear I held in the dark as I
let my imagination run wild. Trolls under bridges, the wicked, the cruel. All
made real because love was the saviour. Ambre 114 is that love. A safe haven
and a constant in a wicked world of childhood.
Fleur de Matin is the summer
weekend mornings of childhood in our South London back garden. When as young
children we explored everything with our noses. We were small and everything
within reach was touched and sniffed. We got into everything, we hid under
bushes, we crawled under sheds, rooting around as the sun warmed the earth.
It's the sparkle of morning dew and the sound of Terry Wogan on the radio while
across the sky vapour trails melted into blue skies. It's ants, bees and
birdsong. It doesn't have great longevity, but the times we spent in the garden
was also limited, a morning garden becomes an afternoon garden and so time is
somehow a poignant aspect of perfumery, and for me this perfume in particular.
Centrepiece represents
appreciation, serenity, balance and a holding together of all the experiences
of the lived life. It's the scent of acceptance and gratitude, of coming full
circle, of the ouroboros and the recognition of the continuous and eternal.
Interconnectedness and spirituality. For me it is the scent of wisdom without
words, the benign overseer of the active mind and the intellect, the watcher of
the ego and it's desperate fight to justify it's existence. Centrepiece is
the antithesis of the selfish and the self absorbed. Expansive and
knowing.
And there we have it."
What thrilled me about Clive’s
revelation was his great ability to describe the evocative nature of scent,
i.e. the capability of a little bottle of smelly water to adorn a significant
moment in time, the reawakening of feelings and long lost adventures, beloved
people and places. Isn’t this ultimately what it’s all about?
