The only thing I hate more than off-shore customer service (press #1 for some idiot who can’t answer your query and is reading this off a screen) is shopping for perfume.
Perfume, like jewellery and underwear is a deeply personal choice. Women purchase these items based on a) their economic power, or b) their prediction of the outcome of the evening…snogging, sex and a wedding ring! Men just purchase these items on the prediction they might a) get lucky or b) get away with it. They also buy perfume because they are in the airport and forgot your anniversary!
Either way, it’s important that the underwear matches, and that you smell good. After all, pheromones – those tiny chemicals that trigger a social response in members of the same species – are probably responsible for the advancement of the species. In scientific terms, they indicate the availability of the female for breeding, but that’s another story and another blog…
Pheromones aside, these days visiting a department store is guaranteed to bring me out in hives! Don’t get me wrong. I love perfume, I just detest the vaporous assistants who see it as their mission from the God of Bad Smells to spray you with the scent they happen to be promoting as you walk through the door…Ooh yes, I have always wanted to smell like trailer trash…gimme some of that freshly ground rat, a.k.a. Britney Spears!
Call me old fashioned, but I long for the days when perfume had numbers. As a solvent woman of independent means, I do not – and I mean not – want to smell like Cheryl Cole or Jodie Marsh. They might be on the top shelf in the newsagent, but I’m happy to be on the shelf. At least I smell better than they do…
Most of these new fangled, D-list celebrity scents pong like cat pee…Tonight I was privvy to an advert for Jimmy Choo perfume. As in J.Choo. Yes. Shoes. Feet. Really? We know these are good shoes, but honestly, do you want to smell like your feet do? I don’t think so!The obsequious sales people who promote it deserve to get shot by the fashion police – or at least sprayed with air freshener!
The best smells in life are the ones that evoke memory. And our sense of smell is closely allied to our limbic system – the part of our brain that is prehistoric. Sense of smell is inbuilt. As is the emotional response we feel when something good hits our nose. Cinnnamon. Cookies. The smell of clean laundry and lavender. Salt on skin. Basil, lavender and lemongrass – freshly mown lawn. Seaweed and spice. Tomatoes. The way our babies smell. Clean, Pure. Fresh.
I’m not sure there is a perfume that does all of that…but if I could smell half as good as this summer has been, I’d buy it…
Pier Point 