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Saturday Question: Which of Your Current Favorites Was Released In Your Back-to-School Years?

In the US, some schools are “back in session” already, which still feels slightly surprising to me, whose school years always started on September 1st (unless it fell on Sunday). But hearing all the back-to-school ads and conversations inspired this SQ.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #177:

Which of Your Current Favorites Was Released In Your Back-to-School Years?

Hopefully, a decade (plus-minus a year) is enough disguise for those who don’t feel comfortable disclosing their exact age.

Do you currently have a favorite perfume in your collection that was released between when you started the second grade and when you went back to school for the last time? It doesn’t have to be a perfume that back then you liked (or even knew about its existence). But the bonus question is: when did you get it first?

Hint: You can use Fragrantica search to set the From/To year criterion if you can’t easily think of any specific perfume.

My Answer

Surprisingly, my collection has more than one favorite perfume from that era But let’s go with one – Chanel Coco. I didn’t know it when I was going to school. I think I knew of Chanel No 5 (though I haven’t tried it before much later – and I still don’t like it on my skin), but no other names of perfumes from that brand were even mentioned when I was growing up.

After I moved to the US, I tried many of Chanel’s mainstream perfumes (one of my relatives had them all), but I didn’t like any of them… until about 14 years ago when, thanks to a generous SA at Nordstrom, I got samples of several Chanel perfumes and fell in love with Coco and No 19. In 2010, Coco was my first full bottle purchase from Chanel ever. And this is one of those perfumes that still wows me every time I wear it.

Rusty and Chanel Coco

How about you?

 

Which of Your Current Favorites Was Released In Your Back-to-School Years?

33 thoughts on “Saturday Question: Which of Your Current Favorites Was Released In Your Back-to-School Years?”

  1. I am afraid I don’t know when second grade is, but if it is the start of secondary school, that would put me at age 11, if primary school, age 4. So the 1960s and 1970s. To be honest, I was so unaware of perfumes launched in my youth that I wouldn’t know all the possible contenders that I might own now – except one, Elizabeth Arden Blue Grass, of which I own a partial bottle from about ’75. And it is very evocative of my schooldays – my favourite teacher wore it, and I thought she was the bee’s knees. ;)

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    • Well, the limits I tried to express in this not the most straightforward way (judging by the fact that not everyone got it) were between the beginning of the second year of school (since we can’t say about our very first school year that we went back to school) and the beginning of the last school year (since that was when we went back to school for the last time).

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  3. I had to look up second grade. Between 7 & 16 there were numerous fabulous fragrances released.
    Back then perfume on children wasn’t a thing. Certainly my memory tells me that perfume for anyone was a special occasion luxury.
    I will choose Estée Lauder Azuree which only just squeaks into the timelines you set. Of course at the time I wasn’t aware of it but I discovered it in my mid teens & admit to using the tester on the counter frequently.
    Citrus & leather, Aramis’s younger sister. In today’s fragrance landscape they both read as unisex & stand up better than most of today’s niche offerings.
    Azuree is why I love the work of Bernard Chant

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    • I wonder what is the proper name for that second school year since it looks like I confused many people :)

      Perfumes were rare in my childhood as well (and not for children, definitely – and double-definitely not to wear to school! :) ). Estée Lauder was the brand I met for the first time in my late 20s.

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  4. Surprisingly, this period isn’t represented much in my collection. Some favourites are Parfum Sacre, Messe de Minuit, Shaal Nur, Guet Apens and La Chasse aux Papillons. At the time I had no idea such a thing existed. I think I wore Une Touche de Naf Naf and Vanilla Fields.

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  6. Sometime after my first-grade year, my parents took a trip and Mother brought back Shalimar and Diorissimo. I remember smelling the Diorissimo, and it seemed like everything in the world that smelled good was in that bottle! Several Avon scents also come to mind because teachers used to get gift sets. We lived in the South, and dusting powder was popular – probably Here’s My Heart and Topaz were ones I smelled regularly. I last went back to school in 1982, but perfume was totally off my radar then. However, I think my Mother wore Oscar de la Renta, and I remember liking it. Only after falling down the rabbit hole did I come to love OdlR. BTW, Coco was the first Chanel I ever bought brand new, for full retail, at a counter.

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    • Diorissimo! All girls I knew liked LotV scent, but only one of my friends got this perfume (I think it was one of the last two years in school), and I liked it on her but never even considered wearing it myself – until I moved to the US.

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  7. The only ones I can think of that date that far back are Estee Lauder Private Collection and Clinique Aromatics. I still have old bottles of both, and have not smelled how they are today.

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  9. Not that I had any awareness or access, but there were a number of Goutal perfumes released when I was in middle/high school. I wear Eau de Charlotte and Eau d’Hadrien quite often. At the time, the only two perfumes I remember having were 4711 (in mini bottles acquired on my youth orchestra’s European tour) and Anais Anais. I suppose I also tried some of the Estée Lauder and Clinique minis my mom would get as GWPs – White Linen, Aromatics Elixir – but i doubt I enjoyed either of them. High school for me was also the era of Poison and Giorgio, which I mostly just encountered at the mall.

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  11. Hey Undina and crew,
    This was fun to look up.
    I’m going with Jacomo Silences. It’s a huge favourite now but I didn’t know it then.
    What I did know though was Jacomo de Jacomo. When it was released Mum gave me a mini in my Xmas stocking, it must have come as a GWP with the Aramis she’d bought me (my very first bottle). Finished my bottle a while ago so can’t use it as my main frag. Thanks for the reminder though, I think I’ll repurchase.
    Portia xx

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  13. So I interpreted this as from 2nd Grade to last day of graduate school. 🤣

    Anyway, I’m sure there were many launched in this timeframe but I was a perfume desert. Sneak-wearing my sister’s perfumes nor having my own bottles didn’t make them my favorites.

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    • I know that I didn’t explain the time parameters well enough (see my detailed explanation in the reply to the first comment), but the rest you didn’t get either: a question was not about those perfumes that you wore back then, but those that you wear today with the first release date from back then.

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  14. Great question! Chanel No. 19, which I didn’t know or wear back then ( my mother wore No. 5), is my top reply, followed closely by Cristalle. But that time of my life also coincides with several great, classic Estée Lauder fragrances that are now in my collection, like Beautiful.

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