I've been quietly sitting still (inside my head, I don't ever actually sit still) all morrning thinking about my first love in the world of scent and I am just not sure I can pinpoint only one. I know that my first essential oil love was patchouli as you may have read in my blog post last year. As a kid I had lots of scented things that could be classified as my first love. I thought about twisting the story, and picking one thing, but I just can't. Twisting stories, taking out details is kind of akin to lying in my book. I try to edit, I try to be brief... I really truly do.... but loquaciousnous is in my nature.
I wanted to write this in the big wing back chair in my scent room at my newly build boutique, but the staff will be there, the scents in the space will be obscured by the yeast and toasty sugar smells form the bakery across the hall and so I've chosen to write in my fave local cafe. The smells here are divine, freshly local roasted coffee brewed to perfection, rain through the front door, spicy squash soup.... perfect on a cool, rainy spring day.
My first love.
I recall a hand carved wild boar that I know now must have been made from sandalwood, brought from some far away place by one of my parents well travelled friends. I think I remember that is actually belonged to my sister and I used to take it and rub it for the deep woody scent. There was a soap that the Steager family gave to me. I still have it somewhere(no, I don't use the soaps I truly adore the scent of. If I do, I keep the end of the bar so I never forget what it smelled like). It was peachy pink ball of soap, and an artificial floral of some sort. I am not fond of artificial florals, but this particular one is still a favourite.
Scent memory is such a funny thing. I vividly recall the way my little sister smelled when she came in from playing in the grass and dirt... everyone thought I was crazy but I HATED that smell. The smell of pork roasted with garlic... what an acrid nose scraping smell... I knew as soon as I opened the front door that that is what Mummy was cooking for dinner. It tasted good, but yuckarama did it smell awful. My talented and oversenstive nose has brought me a lot of things: The socially annoying habit of walking into a room knowing your carpet is slightly mouldy, the laundry in the basket sat in the washer an extra 24 hours and smells fusty, the cat litter needs to be changed, and that dinner was cooked with onions.... all in one sniff.
Funny looks from people when I ask "what's the smell?" and they say "what smell?"
The ability to create a perfume based on a salad I made earlier that day.
The joy that comes from making someone a blend to make their home smell exactly how they imagined.
So, I told you... my first scent love will be hard to pinpoint. Was it the original Anne Klein that I loved? The brown glass bottle of the Lauren (was it really Green Apple? or did I just call it that?) or the Giorgio Beverly Hills that my parents bought as a gift...? The tiny Halson sample that I got as a gift with purchase?
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Than try a perfume or two? ;)
Maybe my first love isn't important. Maybe it's my current love that is the key to my history with scent. I sit in my stunning scentarium(not now, still in the cafe) surrounded with an insane collection of interesting Natural ingredients (I'm sadly allergic to many synythetics, iuncluding the aformentioned daliances) essential oils and absolutes and extracts from obscure places... but when I first fell in love I never would have known the love that I share with scent now.
Oh Boronia, Oh Helichrysum, Oh Costus root.... How ,would I ever have known you without the journey through the lands of cheap floral soaps, Jean Naté gift packs, and boys covered in Polo and Original Speed Stick (ya really, we called it Eau de Ross, since Ross was the first boy I knew that smelled like that) ?
Really at the end of the day, my first love was Russell Winham and he moved away to the Maritimes in 2nd grade and I never saw him again. After that heartbreak my first love was destined to never be the same... *sigh*
Be sure to see some of the "First Love" blogs of my fellow guild members as we celebrate our 6th anniversary!
| Ambrosia Jones | ||||||
| Charna Ethier | ||||||
| Christi Meshell | ||||||
| Elise Pearlstine | ||||||
| Emily Pienaar | ||||||
| Isabelle Gellè | ||||||
| JoAnne Bassett | ||||||
| Liz Cook | ||||||
| Anya McCoy | ||||||
| Sophia Shuttleworth |
