Smell Nostalgia

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by: Sarah Maple
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Word Count: 523

I rarely wear perfume. I find a lot scents offensive, and often gag if I'm sitting next to someone who's wearing too much. I am also highly sceptical of the fact we go to such length to cover our own body smells. Yes, of course it's not nice to sit next to someone stinking of sweat, but at the same time, there's a lot to be said about accepting our own odours.

I wear deodorant, but was late to do so. It's a maternal thing. My mother didn't, and her mother didn't, so it was alien to me for a long time. My mother claims it blocks up your pores. Now I'm older, she openly admits this may not be true, and is just one of those family legends which has been past down through generations.

Having said this, I am also having a phase of wearing perfume at the moment. I've found a perfume which doesn't have the chemically smell a lot of them seem to have. It smells of flowers and a fresh summers day, which sounds like a bad advertisement, but is genuinely true.

I wore perfume for a while about ten years ago. I probably only wore it for about a year, and then the bottle sat unused on the shelf. However, my rescue dog then started defecating on my carpet, and I used the remaining perfume to disguise the scent. This seemed like a good idea, but a couple of years ago when I tried to buy the same brand, I found I couldn't wear it because the smell reminded me too much of dog shit.

However, there was another problem. The smell also reminded me of a certain time in my life, and whilst I enjoyed that part of my life, I don't want to go back there. Resurrecting the scent, seemed too much like resurrecting the past, and I wanted to move forward, go on a new journey.

It's one of the reasons why I always end up buying full price perfume from shops. I need to buy it when the mood takes me. I know I could probably get a better deal online, but there are few times in my life when I want perfume, and it is always an impulse purchase.

Having a scent that defines a particular time in your life is an important decision. If a smell is going to remind you of a time, you want it to be a good smell. However, this doesn't always work. My late teenage years are defined by the smell of a bad men's aftershave, which my boyfriend at the time liberally splashed over his face.

The same way different music reminds us of different periods of our lives, so do different smells. Maybe, if we talk about soundtracks to our lives, we should also talk about smell-tracks – and truly realise how important smell is to our memories and sense of nostalgia.

About the Author

Sarah Maple uses Shopping.com to compare perfume prices and find new and exciting products

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