Doesn't Smell Like Teen Spirit

The smell of your skin lingers on me now
You're probably on your flight back to your home town
I need some shelter of my own protection, baby
To be with myself and center
Clarity, peace, serenity

I am in search of a "signature scent".  A good scent.  Something that when people smell it, they think of me.  Something that is not like everything else out there.  Clean.  Fresh.  Totally me, though.

Over the years, I've had perfumes that I wore for a certain period of time and they became "my" perfume, my "signature scent", but right now, I'm currently without one.  I've been trying to find one, trying out different things.

Scent is special.  You can't just walk into a store and pick up something and take it home and be happy with it.  Each person's body chemistry is different.  So, I like to go into a store, try on something and then take it home and see how it smells an hour or two later.  Spraying it on those little strips of paper doesn't help.  The paper isn't skin.  It doesn't have hormonal or chemical changes that change the scent of perfume.

I was talking to a new hire a few weeks ago and he, the little romantic that he is, was telling me about how he could remember the exact scent his fiance was wearing when he met her and how it imprinted on him.  That's the scent he associates with her.  He said that most men are that way -  that they may not know the "notes" or the ingredients or name, but they will remember what a woman is wearing and that will stick with them.  I told him about my little pheromone experiment from the summer and he laughed and said that if I was trying to use it with men I already knew, it was probably worthless because they had already associated some sort of scent with me. Great! I hope it's a good one.  I'd hate to think that there's someone in my life that gets all mushy every time he smells the garlic I had in my lunch when we met.

When I was ten or so, I went into a GC Murphy's department store (did all of you have those where you grew up?) and sprayed myself with some cologne from head to toe, in an effort to smell more adult.  I went home and my mom gasped and said, "You smell like a French Whore.  Go wash that stuff off."  Now, I had no clue what a French Whore was but I figured it had to be a bad thing since my mom was making me wash.

Fast forward to Junior High - I was a Love's Baby Soft girl.  Sweet, soft, cloying.  I can't smell the stuff now without gagging.  It's too flowery and too sickeningly sweet.  But, I loved the pink color and the girliness of it. I like being a girly girl.  I may not always act it, but I can rock the ruffles and lace if need be.

I started college wearing Jovan's White Musk.  I wore that my Freshman and Sophomore years.  It was very subtle. 

In my junior year, I discovered the "expensive" stuff.  I wore Beautiful or Eternity for Women all through my junior year and senior year.  I remember sneaking into a guy's dorm room and spraying Beautiful on his pillow hoping it would remind him of me, but his roommate said I overdid it and it made him sick and he had to wash his bed linens to get rid of the scent.  Yeah, I'm sure I probably ruined the guy for that scent. For life.

After college, Eternity was pretty much my go-to for years.  Occasionally, I'd go back to Beautiful.  I worked in a motel and there was this regular named Danny who would come into the lobby and call out "Booooooteeeefullll" every time I worked.  I asked him how he knew the scent and he told me that his ex-wife used to wear it.  He and I went out on a date once and he kept telling me how much I smelled like his ex-wife.  I don't think this was a good memory.  He never asked me out again.

I experimented with some others -- Tresor, Red Door, White Diamonds, Happy by Clinique... but none of them really lasted very long.  My mood would change and out would go the perfume.

Mid 90s, I discovered "Freesia" by Victoria's Secret.  I loved loved loved that body spray.  Light and floral.  Not too clingy.  Didn't make my allergies flare up.  Inexpensive.  It became my "signature scent".  Friends commented on how much they liked it.  Then, it got discontinued.  Gone.  Poof.  Go figure.

I tried Bath and Body Works and sure enough, they had a Freesia.  It wasn't the same Freesia as Vickie's but it was close enough.  I wore that well into the middle of this decade.  Then, guess what?  They decided to stop selling it too.  I'm like a perfume jinx.  

Since then, I've been kind of "lost" in the scent department.  

I don't like overly floral scents.  I tend to prefer citrus or spice over floral.  I don't like heavy scents.  I like light and fresh. Clean. I like smelling feminine but I don't want to smell like a French Whore. Whatever that really smells like.  I'm thinking sex, cigarettes and baguettes.  Not exactly what I want to smell like.  I don't want to smell like food, candy or chocolate chip cookies.  I don't want to smell herbally and medicinal. I absolutely cannot stand that patchouli stuff.  I worked in a daycare with this woman who wore patchouli.  It made me sick.  She also didn't shave her legs or armpits and had greasy hair.  And heavy body odor.  Patchouli scented sweaty body odor.

A couple of months ago, I went to Bath and Body Works and walked around the store spritzing all different kinds of body sprays on me.  (My mom's voice kept ringing in my head. French Whore. French Whore. French Whore.)  I had something tropical on one arm.  Japanese Cherry Blossom on another.  Something citrusy on my neck.  I'm sure I tried at least 10 different scents.  They all combined into a mind numbing cloud of scent that made my allergies go crazy and my head hurt.  I had to take a shower as soon as I got home.

One day at work, a friend put some chocolate chip cookie scented antibacterial gel on me.  Ack.  That stuff made me want to gag too.  I had to take a shower as soon as I got home.  I kept smelling it for days afterwards and realized it was on the cuff of the hoodie I was wearing.  I had to wash it too.

Someone gave me some lotion called "Nighttime Tea" for Christmas (from B&BW) and I really like it.  Soft, light, feminine.  However, it only came in lotion or body wash form and was only sold at Christmas time.  I've been using it on a regular basis and have gotten some, "Oh, you smell nice" comments.  Sadly, my skin absorbs lotion like a sponge and by 10:00, the scent is totally gone.  I have a small bottle and reapply it, but I want a body spray, dang it.

I've been volleying back and forth for the past two years between three scents - white citrus (Bath and Body Works), Sea Island Cotton (Bath and Body Works) and Dream Angels Heavenly (Victoria Secret) - trying to find the one I like the most and which seems to be liked by others the most.  Every now and then, I'll change things up with some L'Occitane Cherry Blossom or lavendar-vanilla body spray by DOVE (yes, the deodorant people.)

I don't know why it's so important to me.  I guess I feel like I'm missing a piece of my identity.  Maybe I should create my own scent -  call it Butterfly.  It would have freesia, sandalwood, orange, cherry blossom...  hmmm... Yeah, I think that would probably smell bad together.  I guess I just want something that makes people think of me.  I know that I have scents that I associate with people.  I ask people all the time what they wear so that I can connect that scent with that person.  There have been times when I've been feeling a little lonely for a friend (or a memory) and have gone to the store and spritzed their cologne on my wrist just to be close to them.

A few weeks ago, I was in a store and the cashier said to me, "I really like your perfume!  What are you wearing?"  I had to think for a moment.  I hadn't put on any perfume.  What she was smelling was the fabric softener on my clothing.  I laughed and said, "Gain!"  She laughed, too, and said, "The commercials must be right then!"

Hmmm....   maybe I'll just dab some Gain behind my ears and see how that works out.   I did say I wanted a nice clean scent. 

Unrelated - my next blog will be #200.  Can you believe it?  Most of them written in the last 9 months!