Scents-ability
February 23rd 2011 22:54
As I wandered around the duty free shopping in Sydney’s international airport today trying to pick out a new scent for myself, I realised that choosing a new fragrance isn’t actually all that easy. I’m one of those people that strongly relates smell to memories - certain people, times in my life, feelings, the list goes on. And that means that finding a new smell for me is a harder task than it would appear on the surface. It’s only when I start to sniffer-hound my way around a perfume display that I realise how many scents are already allocated to people or memories in my life.
Although the coffee beans supplied by JR Duty Free were greatly appreciated, wandering through the perfume displays was like wandering through a maze of my past and potential fragrance future. Could I be the Naughty Alice envisaged by Vivienne Westwood? Could I revert to my past life as a JPG girl? Not only was trying to find a new smell a veritable smorgasboard of shopping, it was also a fairly confronting jolt back to my past and conjured up a collage of memories and people, some I was happy to remember, some not so much.
I lingered around the JPG fragrances for longer than I should have. His Classique took me right back to my old desk where I sat in an old job in a different city. I hesitated over his summer version, which being the devoted JPG fragrance lover, I wore through warmer days of my Classique years. It took me right back to my old desk, in an old job in a different city, but on a summer day. As much as the memories were fun and the smell still amazing, I realised that it’s a time in my life that I have moved so far from, that wearing the scent that reminded me of it was equally as far from being a possibility.
So as much as trying to revisit a past scent was proven an impossible task, trying to determine a new smell seems equally challenging. I was starting to get very confused, and started to ask myself am I ready to tear myself away from what is now considered my signature scent? It takes a while to get that scent status, and I like that my friends tell me whenever they smell someone who wears the same fragrance as me, they think of me. I like having a signature smell. Funnily enough my current scent of choice was purchased for me by a friend, a tricky purchase indeed, and one I have never been game enough to try myself for a female loved one. Still, her risk paid off and I’ve become quite enamoured with my signature scent, even though it has seen me through some of the most traumatic times in my life recently. It could be that I’m not quite ready to give up on things as they stand in my existence, so trying to find a new smell that will take me away from that made me ask a whole host of questions.
As I stood there fanning numerous tester strips at a rapid pace, I suspected I was beginning to give off the appearance (and scent) of an overwhelmed perfume peacock, but a flurry of questions darted through my mind.
Why do I want to smell different? Can I pull off another smell? Can I juggle two signature scents? And then I ask, why am I asking myself so many questions about this? Is it really such a big deal? Why can’t I just buy a new smell and be done with it and head over to the vodka display?
With no brilliant answers to any of these, I continued to sniff and squirt and fan and question my way through the shop, discovering along the way that in addition to my plethora of fragrance issues, there are also of course those scents that just basically stink. Could be my phermones, could be that there are just some awful fragrances out there. Designers spend big bucks promoting their fragrances, naming them, positioning them as able to offer a new lifestyle, and I smell many a person as I go about my day-to-day business who have clearly bought into this rather than paying attention to how they actually smell wearing the stuff.
So as I flailed about smelling coffee beans and becoming increasingly overwhelmed amongst the seemingly endless aisles of perfume choices, even as I found what I believe is destined to be my new scent, I still hesitated in making the transaction. Am I really ready to put my current smell, and what that means, behind me? Am I ready to take on a new identity? Because to me, that’s what I’m effectively doing. I think I am, and so I think the fitting timing for the purchase is as I head back into Sydney, and back to a new smelling me.
Although the coffee beans supplied by JR Duty Free were greatly appreciated, wandering through the perfume displays was like wandering through a maze of my past and potential fragrance future. Could I be the Naughty Alice envisaged by Vivienne Westwood? Could I revert to my past life as a JPG girl? Not only was trying to find a new smell a veritable smorgasboard of shopping, it was also a fairly confronting jolt back to my past and conjured up a collage of memories and people, some I was happy to remember, some not so much.
I lingered around the JPG fragrances for longer than I should have. His Classique took me right back to my old desk where I sat in an old job in a different city. I hesitated over his summer version, which being the devoted JPG fragrance lover, I wore through warmer days of my Classique years. It took me right back to my old desk, in an old job in a different city, but on a summer day. As much as the memories were fun and the smell still amazing, I realised that it’s a time in my life that I have moved so far from, that wearing the scent that reminded me of it was equally as far from being a possibility.
So as much as trying to revisit a past scent was proven an impossible task, trying to determine a new smell seems equally challenging. I was starting to get very confused, and started to ask myself am I ready to tear myself away from what is now considered my signature scent? It takes a while to get that scent status, and I like that my friends tell me whenever they smell someone who wears the same fragrance as me, they think of me. I like having a signature smell. Funnily enough my current scent of choice was purchased for me by a friend, a tricky purchase indeed, and one I have never been game enough to try myself for a female loved one. Still, her risk paid off and I’ve become quite enamoured with my signature scent, even though it has seen me through some of the most traumatic times in my life recently. It could be that I’m not quite ready to give up on things as they stand in my existence, so trying to find a new smell that will take me away from that made me ask a whole host of questions.
As I stood there fanning numerous tester strips at a rapid pace, I suspected I was beginning to give off the appearance (and scent) of an overwhelmed perfume peacock, but a flurry of questions darted through my mind.
Why do I want to smell different? Can I pull off another smell? Can I juggle two signature scents? And then I ask, why am I asking myself so many questions about this? Is it really such a big deal? Why can’t I just buy a new smell and be done with it and head over to the vodka display?
With no brilliant answers to any of these, I continued to sniff and squirt and fan and question my way through the shop, discovering along the way that in addition to my plethora of fragrance issues, there are also of course those scents that just basically stink. Could be my phermones, could be that there are just some awful fragrances out there. Designers spend big bucks promoting their fragrances, naming them, positioning them as able to offer a new lifestyle, and I smell many a person as I go about my day-to-day business who have clearly bought into this rather than paying attention to how they actually smell wearing the stuff.
So as I flailed about smelling coffee beans and becoming increasingly overwhelmed amongst the seemingly endless aisles of perfume choices, even as I found what I believe is destined to be my new scent, I still hesitated in making the transaction. Am I really ready to put my current smell, and what that means, behind me? Am I ready to take on a new identity? Because to me, that’s what I’m effectively doing. I think I am, and so I think the fitting timing for the purchase is as I head back into Sydney, and back to a new smelling me.
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