Scent is such a weird thing. The way scents and memories are linked is so bizarre, but also pretty amazing. (Unless, of course, it’s a bad memory!) While we were in the Hamptons with C. Wonder, a bunch of the bloggers and I were talking about distinct scents of our pasts. The deodorants our high school crushes wore. The perfumes we chose for each school year. What our mothers and grandmothers smelled like. Food smells, location smells.
(Oddly enough, one of the most distinct “memory smells” I have is what my elementary school smelled like. Sometimes the smell will come back to me– something about being in the city I think– and I’m transported back to carpeted classrooms with massive chalkboards and sweaty, sweet eight-year-olds.)
We also got to talk to the Bvlgari fragrance team and they walked us through how Omnia Indian Garnet was made. There are people whose jobs are to create perfumes; they’re called “master perfumers.”The natural ability and knack for scents that they have is unreal. In this case Bvlgari shared their vision of the scent, explaining that they wanted it to capture the energy and pulse of India! With that the master perfumer Alberto Morillas went off to blend various scents to create the final product. We got to smell each layer (Mandarin and Saffron, Indian Tuberose and Osmanthus, Indian Woods and Amber– each smelled amazing on its own!) and then the final perfume. It was really cool to see how the different layers blended together and when we smelled the actual perfume, it was easier to pick out the different notes.
Now, I’m not a huge perfume wearer. I’m really picky and have to be careful because the wrong perfume can trigger a pretty unpleasant migraine! But I do have a few tried and true perfumes that I love.
Bath and Body Works Warm Vanilla Sugar // Nest Fragrances Midnight Fleur // Bvlgari Rose Essentielle // Lacoste Pour Femme
The perfume I use the most nowadays is the Midnight Fleur by Nest Fragrances. I have the rollerball version and keep it in my handbag at all times. I never remember to put on perfume while I’m getting ready, so I like having it in my bag to put on while I’m out and about. (I typically remember when I reach for my wallet to get coffee or digging around looking for a chapstick!)
From time to time, I’ll use some of my favorites from middle and high school. Seriously, there is really hardly anything better than a spritz of Bath and Body Works’ Warm Vanilla Sugar. I’s just such a fun product that I started using in middle school. The eighth graders started keeping little bottles of perfume in their gym lockers… and so the seventh graders followed suit after a weekend trip to the mall. The Lacoste perfume is the one I pretty much wore the most throughout high school and it brings me right back to yearbook class, chorus rehearsals, gossiping in the cafeteria. This might be my most favorite ever, just because of all the memories I have! And the Bvlgari perfume is a simple, sweet smell that I wore throughout college. I didn’t apply this one every day, so it definitely reminds me of college, but it’s not as strong of a connection as the Lacoste perfume.
Scents are weird, huh? In an amazing way of course!
What are your favorite perfumes? Are there certain ones that remind you of specific times?
xoxo
I find this to be so true! Whenever I smell chlorine from the pool I get taken back to summer camps as a kid:) It sounds like an awesome experience you got to see the creation of the perfume: how everything blends together/
Annie
A College Confession
I absolutely love Chance by Chanel. It was my first perfume purchase (in Paris, no less) and I am still a fan to this day!
Alyssa – Keep It Simple
Currently I have been wearing Dot by Marc Jacobs, but I used to have this collection of perfumes from Victoria's Secret I would wear in Junior High and they trigger so many memories; especially the little Pink perfumes that came in a gazillion different scents haha!
Hunter
Prep on a Budget
I'm a sucker for coconut scents in the summertime. Right now I love Michael Kors!
-Alex
http://www.monstermisa.blogspot.com
I love perfumes! I think scents are the strongest mediums to recall memories! I still have my teenager perfume because it reminds me of so much things, and of course I'm willing to buy 500 bottles if it goes discontinued (lucky me, it hasn't yet)
My favorite perfumes are La vie est belle from Lacôme and Omnia Crystalline from Bvlgari. I love them both!
There is also one from Zara that I love! I don't know the name, it's the oriental one (which is on sale! at least in Europe)
Much love,
Andy from savor each bite
I can definitely relate to this post! All it takes is one whiff of Bath and Body Work's Rainkissed Leaves and I am instantly transported back to my 7th grade self… While Juicy Couture's Viva la Juicy brings back a flood of freshman year memories 🙂 Reasons like this are why I am so excited to be a neuroscience major and learn about why these phenomenons occur!
Xx
thebouquineuse.blogspot.com
I completely agree! The way we naturally link scents with memories is quite amazing! I'm a real fan of the VS Noir Tease scent. It's very nice and refreshing.
xo, Courtney
http://www.CourtneyECarterMedia.blogspot.com
I love Dior's J'adore and Calvin Klein's Euphoria. My all time favorite perfume however is Abercrombie & Fitch's "Ezra Fitch". I know what you're thinking…that terrible smell from the stores? Nope! No that one. They don't make it anymore and it wasn't known very well when it was out in the market since everyone picked up that horrible A&F store smell instead.
xo, Jen
http://www.comfortably-chic.com
Dior "Miss Dior Cherie" is my personal favorite. Both an old Hollister perfume and Victoria's Secret "Heavenly" take me way back to sophomore year of high school and my first relationship hahaha
I absolutely love Elie Saab Eau de Parfum. Bond No. 9 Central Park South is also fabulous and one spritz lasts all day!
justmeginab.blogspot.com
You should read the perfume collector. It's a fun read!
Tia | http://www.bigcitytyro.com
Scents + memories have always fascinated me to no end. It's truly amazing what our brain can connect together in a whiff of a moment. My middle school scent was the typical Victoria's Secret Love Spell, and I also loved B&BW Cucumber Melon :). High school, I used Gap's Dream – I still go get that stuff all the time because it brings back some serious memories. Also, all of the Pink perfumes from VS raided my shelf. Now I'm partial to Down Town by Calvin Klein!
my favorite perfume recently is prada milano, but for a while i was obsessed with vanilla sugar scented anything. fun(?) fact: the parts of the brain that process memories and scent are super duper close to each other (in the brain's temporal lobe). okay, carry on… 😉
Toca by Bianca all day every day!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, I would say even if you have a large collection of perfume but you must use the perfume according the occasion and the your dressing….and you can go for Dior or Armani perfume as per your choice.
I think Lacoste perfume is great one. When I need a great combination of price and quality I simply use cologne for men. Try this link for getting latest ones-http://www.bestcologneformens.com/