Saturday Question

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Saturday Question: Perfume or Fragrance?

The first week back to work (even though not “back in the office”) happened to be more taxing than I expected, and because of that I haven’t finished my statistics post in time to publish it mid-week. But since I don’t want to postpone it for much longer, today’s question is a “lighter” one, and I invite you to come back tomorrow for my Year 2020 Entertaining Statistics post.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #46:

Perfume or Fragrance?

Which of the two words do you use or use more often? Is there any distinction for you when each of the two is/should be used?

My Answer

Not being a native English speaker, in many cases I follow the flow, pick up words and phrases from things I read or hear, not thinking too much on why one or the other synonym is used – I just take it as given. And then sometimes I suddenly discover that some term, phrase or idiom that I knew was more specialized than I thought or was not as widely known as I assumed. Then I start doubting myself.

Of course, I’m familiar with both words, and came across both “perfume” and “fragrance” multiple times starting from the pre-perfumista times. But both in my writing and on other blogs, forums and FB groups I see the word “perfume” used much more often than “fragrance.”

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been watching … YouTube videos. Don’t start fainting yet: I was watching make-up reviews and tutorials. Having found myself in the situation where I had to figure out without going to stores a replacement for the discontinued tinted moisturizer that I used for many years, I turned to this channel of getting some type of a guidance. While doing that, I found several “content producers” whose videos I find useful, entertaining or both. But what I noticed while watching those videos was that on those rare occasion when the product in question was mentioned (usually mainstream or luxury lines), everybody always refers to it as “fragrance.” I was surprised but didn’t pay too much attention to that (and you don’t want to know what people who are not “into perfume” are telling others while describing those “fragrances”!). But then, following a link on Instagram, I came to the YouTube channel of “one of us.” And there, again, that guy kept calling what he was reviewing “fragrances.” After that I found several random YouTube perfume reviews just to confirm that it was a common practice. It seems so.

I decided to check. Google provided me these definitions that didn’t explain my observations:

Perfume and Fragrance Definitions

Then I decided to compare numbers (you know how I like doing that; I would have done charts if it weren’t for the statistics post that I was working on). Searches that I ran in Google produced strange results. Nobody knows Google’s algorithms, so I can’t even speculate how it happens that while there are more hits for the singular form “fragrance” (593 M) vs. “perfume” (555 M), hits for the plural form “perfumes” (644 M) beats both the singular and the plural form “fragrances” (488 M).

My next experiment was with a popular hashtag generator for Instagram. Results there were much further apart, with the form that I use being much more popular: #perfume (15.14 M), #perfumes (5.13 M), #fragrance (6.36 M), #fragrances (1.4 M).

YouTube doesn’t provide count for the searches, so I can’t check it there. But all that makes me wonder: have I just managed to come across of the example of an unrepresentative sample fallacy? Or do YouTubers actually prefer “fragrance” to “perfume”? And if yes, why? What do you think?

 

Perfume or Fragrance?

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Saturday Question: Do You Have Any Perfume-related New Year Resolutions?

So, it’s 2021. Hello New Year! Are you going to behave? ‘Coz we all saw your predecessor, and I gotta tell you: most of us wasn’t that enamored with it.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #45:

Do You Have Any Perfume-related New Year Resolutions?

It’s that time of the year when one time or the other we all got tempted to make some New Year resolutions aiming at changing our existing habits or targeting some desired result.

Was this New Year one of those times? Did you make any New Year Resolutions/Plans? (Yes/no would suffice but please share more details if you can/want – I’m always curious, and “saying it aloud” might help your motivation). If yes, were any of them perfume-related? What exactly do you hope to change or improve?

My Answer

I am making some resolutions this year. I’m painfully aware that, as many others, I would doubtfully stick to these, but if I do not try, I definitely won’t succeed. So, at least I can try. The one of the general resolutions that I’m willing to share is my intent to try to start reading something not work-related again. I remember loving to read for the first 20-25 years from when I learned how to read. It was such a joy! A good book could completely take my mind away from reality for hours. And I would have to force myself to put a book aside to get some sleep, otherwise I would be reading through the night. And then, gradually, it started going away… It wasn’t related to the language – I read many books in English after moving to the US. But somehow reading more serious books started burdening me, and reading something light didn’t seem all that virtuous or better than watching the same type of content but as TV shows or movies. But this year I will try again in a company with a couple of friends. I’ve never been in a book club, but the idea of a some type of virtual book club appeals to me. We’ll see how it goes.

As to perfume-related resolutions, I do not have any plans for changing my perfume habits, but I have two things I want to try.

  1. One day a week, I’ll wear perfumes hajusuuri-style – 8 sprays. For so many years I felt conscious about wearing perfumes to the office. First, I was a “big boss,” and I didn’t want to subject people who depended on me to the difficult choice of either tolerate perfume they didn’t like or to tell their manager they didn’t like it (though, I suggested to them to let me know if even my light application of some of my perfumes bothered them, and on several occasions they did, and I took those perfumes off my office rotation). Later, in my next work place, I had a manager who probably didn’t like any perfumes but was very delicate and complained just a couple of times when I was overly enthusiastic with the application. But both experiences trained me to under-apply (2, maybe 3 light sprays of my more office-friendly perfumes), and even working from home where my perfumes usually do not disturb anybody, I am still doing the same couple-of-sprays-light-hand application. So, now I’m curious to see how it feels with the “real application.” Though, I think I’ll start with Jo Malone colognes and similar.
  2. Doing my December CaTendar (the countdown to Rusty’s 12-year birthday on Christmas Eve) on Instagram was hard, even though I have hundreds of pictures of Rusty. But at the same time it was fun. Pictures of Rusty will appear with the same regularity as before December (or maybe more often, but I’m not making any resolutions about that), but I decided to try and post photos of perfumes a little more often. There is no way I could do daily SOTD posts. But at least sometimes, when I have more time to put together a shot of a bottle of  perfume I wear, I’ll do an IG post, even if I do not publish a blog story about it. Like I did on January 1, 2021, for Frederic Malle‘s Portrait of a Lady that I rocked in my flannel PJs recuperating from the late-night New Year celebration.

Frederic Malle Portrait of a Lady perfume

How about you?

 

Do You Have Any Perfume-related New Year Resolutions?

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Saturday Question: What Perfume did You Wear on Christmas Eve?

It’s the last Saturday of 2020. Some of the winter celebrations are already behind us, but we still have some to look forward to, so let’s keep the spirit of the holidays high and talk about them a little more.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #44:

What Perfume did You Wear on Christmas Eve?

In fact, I’m curious not only what perfume you’ve chosen (for the celebration or just for that day, if it wasn’t your holiday), but I’d also want to know about the reasoning behind that choice.

Also, if you do not mind, share what you did this Christmas Eve. Did you eat anything especially great and worth mentioning? Did you get any gifts that made you happy (not necessarily perfumes, but please share if you got those as well).

My Answer

We celebrated Christmas with our “extended bubble,” even though none of us can “claim” this holiday as ours. But it’s a long-standing tradition for us, so we celebrate it every year. Since I tried my hardest to make this holidays season as great as possible despite everything that’s happening in the World, I chose to wear Ormonde Jayne Ta’if, my all-times love #2, for the holiday that I adopted after moving to the US, saving my #1, Lancome Climat, for the New Year celebration, since that perfume was with me through many new years, some of which were probably even harder for me personally than 2020 was.

When we were much younger, our traditional New Year celebration would start with a festive dinner… around 10 PM to be done by midnight, toast the New Year – and then spend the rest of the night celebrating. As we grew … up, first we stopped going through the whole night of celebration, cutting it short at 3-4 AM first and recently rarely making it to after 1:30-2 A.M. With that, our evening meals started getting lighter and lighter: the older we get, the harder it gets to eat a big dinner 3-4 hours before going to bed. At some point we figured out that Christmas Eve dinner was a much better time to eat all of our traditional New Year celebratory dishes – and that’s what we’ve been doing this year. A highlight of the dinner this year was a roasted duck that our friend cooked.

As a gift I got a funny t-short (see the picture below) that I plan to wear the next time I’m forced to participate in an early morning meeting. I bought a perfume gift for myself, but since it’s not here yet, I’ll tell you about it next year when it arrives.

Since the birthday boy refused to fully participate in my perfume photo shoot (despite my promises to reward him with treats), I made a picture of Ta’if with the Old World Christmas‘s Santa Kitty ornament, which we bought as one of the two yearly additions to our ornaments collection.

What Perfume did You Wear on Christmas Eve?

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Saturday Question: Are There Mere-exposure Effect Perfumes in Your Collection?

If you are not familiar with a psychological phenomenon called the mere-exposure effect or familiarity principle, you can read more about it in this Wikipedia article. I am using it rather jokingly, as a conversation starter for this week’s Saturday Question.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #43:

Are There Mere-exposure Effect Perfumes in Your Collection?

The idea behind that phenomenon was: “After repeated exposure, the observing organism will begin to react fondly to the once novel stimulus.”

Do you have any perfumes that you like more now then you liked them when you first bought them or got them as a gift? We’re not talking about the situation when you tested a sample or a small decant, didn’t like it, then tested more, liked and bought perfume. Or didn’t like perfume initially then tested years later and fell in love.

Can you think of any perfume that you liked but didn’t love … until you got used to it?

My Answer

I knew I would buy Annick Goutal Nuit Etoilee as soon as I saw an announcement about its launch: I liked the brand, I was very partial to their old-style colored bottles, and especially I liked that dark blue color. So, once I found it at a store, I bought it. It wasn’t a blind buy, I liked it, but at that time there were so many other great perfumes that Nuit Etoilee seemed somewhat simple and … not challenging (?). It wasn’t a statement perfume (I gravitate to those). And for a while I thought that it reminded me of Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles. I even solicited blind testing experiment from three fellow-parfumistas (if you weren’t around then and curious or want to read objective impressions of this perfume from reviewers who didn’t know what they were testing, take a look: Déjà vu, Episode 4: des pairs, dis-pair, Despair).

Rusty and Annick Goutal Nuit Etoilee

Starry Night? Where?!!

I wore Nuit Etoilee for a while, but then somehow forgot about it and didn’t wear it for at least 4 years. I didn’t change my mind about it. I didn’t dislike it. I just never chose to wear it.

A couple of months into the lockdown, I thought of wearing it – I don’t remember what prompted it. It was almost a shock: I liked it very much. It surprised me. What was that? Have my tastes changed? Does this perfume seem so much better now compared to endless modern concoctions? Or was it a true case of the mere-exposure effect?

[…] analysis found that the effect is strongest when unfamiliar stimuli are presented briefly. Mere exposure typically reaches its maximum effect within 10–20 presentations, and some studies even show that liking may decline after a longer series of exposures. For example, people generally like a song more after they have heard it a few times, but many repetitions can reduce this preference. A delay between exposure and the measurement of liking actually tends to increase the strength of the effect.

 

Are There Mere-exposure Effect Perfumes in Your Collection?

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Saturday Question: What Is Your Favorite Perfume Decade?

I don’t think any single year got as much of “bad publicity” as 2020, and deservedly so I must add. So, I doubt it will ever be remembered as anyone’s favorite year in any respect, including perfume releases (though, I hope we’ll see soon everyone’s “Best of 2020” lists). But one year is not much either in anyone’s life or in perfume lifespan, so let’s step back and from afar look at decades, including the one that is being concluded by this blighted year.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #42:

What Is Your Favorite Perfume Decade?

You can choose by any criterion, be that the most perfumes from that decade in your collection, decade from which your most favorite perfume comes, a decade you think was the best for perfume industry – or any other way you want to look at it. Just tell us your reasoning.

Decades start from XXX1 and end with XXX0, e.g., 1981 – 1990 (otherwise, in the first decade AD there would have been just 9 years, not that I expect too many votes for perfumes for those times).

My Answer

Having a luxury of my perfumes being recorded in a database, I was able to count how many perfumes from each decade I own (I included only bottles, both regular and travel sized). Would you guess, which decade produced the highest count? The current one. Did you guess?

But while it is completely understandable that I accumulated the most perfumes from the decade during which I’ve been blogging about perfumes and reading all the perfume blogs, I don’t consider this decade to be my favorite: if anything, it’s a decade when dear to my heart niche perfumery got flooded with uninspired and jump-on-the-bandwagon-type releases.

So, I decided to see what decade produced the most of perfumes from my “Never want to be without” list. And my answer is: 2001 – 2010. In general, that list is quite diverse, but eight perfumes that I love, including my second all-time perfume love and the reason I went down the rabbit hole leading into the Perfumeland – Ormonde Jayne Ta’if was release during that decade.

Ormonde Jayne Ta'if Parfum

What Is Your Favorite Perfume Decade?

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Saturday Question: What Perfume Is Really Noir?

Have you ever heard anyone complaining that perfume called [Something] Light or [Something] Fraiche wasn’t light or fresh enough? I haven’t. But with rare exceptions, most of the reviews for [Something] Noir ends up mentioning that perfume in question does not live up to the proud “Noir” part of its moniker. So, I got curious: What perfumes in your collection or out of those that you have tried don’t cause cognitive dissonance?

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #41:

What Perfume Is Really Noir?

My Answer

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was … Noirvember.

After playing on this month’s name a couple of times in the past (Perfume Diary: NovAmber and I did it again: NovAmber 2018), I thought of using this new variation to wear in November perfumes with the “Noir” as a part of the name.

I started with the list of such perfumes that I have. My database showed that I either have or at least used to have at some point enough perfumes with that name to sustain me for longer than a month. Unfortunately, most of them were samples that I tried at some point and didn’t like much, so even if I could dig them out from wherever that final destination for such samples that I call “Library” is, I wouldn’t have enjoyed wearing them – and with enough negative things going on in our day-to-day life I decided against making that sacrifice “in the name of science” (besides, who would have patience to read through 30 even one-paragraph descriptions for random perfumes?).

But since I liked the idea (well, mostly I liked the Word), I collected only those perfumes that I either liked or wanted to try again. And while wearing them and writing down my impressions, I realized that out of eight perfumes that I went through for this mini-project, just two or maybe three didn’t feel like a misnomer – Tom Ford Noir Pour Femme (I previously wrote about it in Mr. & Mrs. Tom Ford Noir), SixScents Parfums Nappa Noir (my story here) and maybe Ormonde Jayne Orris Noir.

I’m not sure what makes these three “noir” (and we all understand that when talking about perfumes, we do not think of a literal translation of this French word), but they somehow fit into the image in my head, most likely created by the Film noir genre, definition of which itself is still being debated.

 

Rusty and Sixth Scents Nappa Noir

 

What Perfume Is Really Noir?

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Saturday Question: Have You Bought Anything This Black Friday?

I wouldn’t have even asked that if it weren’t for the fact that I saw numerous European brands and sites offering Black Friday discounts. It means that this “plague” keeps spreading.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #40:

Have You Bought Anything This Black Friday?

Of course, first of all we’re curious about any perfume-related treasures. But fess up anything else interesting you bought during this bizarre year’s Black Friday Sale event or still plan to buy (a Cyber Monday is still ahead of us).

My Answer

I don’t think I’ve ever went to a B&M store on Friday after Thanksgiving: I just could never think of anything I wanted (not even needed) bad enough to participate in this American pastime. But this year since all the sales came to me, and I could browse through them leisurely from the comfort of my office chair, I was tempted. Speaking of office chairs: I really need a new one. But I can’t imagine how to buy chairs online… Has anyone had that experience? How did it work out?

But I digress. Black Friday Sales. I don’t have a long “to buy” list of perfumes. So, I checked all the “usual suspects” places that carry those few that I want to buy – and either there are no sales there at all (I hoped Olfactive Studio would have either some % off or at least some attractive samples offer. And since they didn’t, I wasn’t in a hurry to buy those “shots” yet), or had an offer that wasn’t for the size I wanted (so, I’ll keep thinking about Dusita’s Splenderis), or…

I recently realized that I liked and wanted to get Tom Ford’s Rose Prick. While I consider this perfume name still juvenile, but I have to admit that I liked perfume a lot, and after going through a sample, I realized that I’d like to wear it. And I even see it on sale. But that ugly pink bottle… And when I was almost ready to click on “Check out,” I came across a slightly better looking and a more reasonably sized travel bottle of it. A “not in stock” travel bottle that is. But now I know that it exists, so I’ve stopped… And now I’m not sure whether I want to spend money on 50 ml of perfume in that “it’s a girl!” colored bottle…

 

Tom Ford Rose Prick

Have You Bought Anything This Black Friday?

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Saturday Question: Do You Instagram?

I thought of this title as a joke. I was going to start by explaining that I realized there was no such verb. Sure, these days we all google something, at least hear about people tweeting fake news and periodically unfollow people who don’t amuse us any more on different platforms. But instagramming? So, I wrote the question in the title and then … googled to check. Yep. According to Merriam-Webster, Instagram is a verb.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #39:

Do You Instagram?

Do you have an account on Instagram? If no, why? (And you can skip the following questions.) Do you post pictures there? If yes, how often and do they have anything to do with perfume? How often do you visit Instagram? Who do you follow? Do you @tag people? Do you use #hashtags in your posts? If yes, why? If no, why? Do you actively seek new people to follow? Have you ever bought anything based on the advertising that you see there? If you finish your feed (if it ever happens, of course), do you look at their “suggested” content?

And, finally, unless your account is for private communications, what is your Instagram name? If you want, post a link to any of the pictures that you published there and wished more people would see it.

My Answer

I’m relatively new to Instagram: my account is just slightly over two years old. In these 2+ years I posted 57 pictures – less than a picture a  fortnight. For a long time I couldn’t get over a thought that a picture had to be of something extremely interesting, rare or exceptional in some way to warrant sharing it with others “as is,” for the picture’s sake and not as an illustration to some topic (read “many printed words”).

For my partial conversion, I “blame” mostly my very first guest writer, hajusuuri, who, in addition to being an avid Instagrammer (No, this one is not a real word. Yet.), would often link to her daily Insta posts from the NST’s SOTD thread. I would tap from there to see a picture, then would see pictures from others or recognize names in “likes” and realize that I “knew” those people. So, I’d follow them, and the next time I get to Instagram to see hajusuuri’s SOTD picture (sometimes with a cute toy cat or one of the dozen (?) of owls she must have accumulated by now), I would have more pictures to go through.

Later, I decided to use Instagram to publish pictures that would go with the current post: I often have more pictures I like than I need for the post, so the Insta post would serve a double purpose: to announce to people who go there more often than to their mailboxes that I’ve published another post (though, Instagram doesn’t make it easy to “link out”) and to get one more picture “in” (it’ll show on the side bar of the blog, next to the post).

Unless I happen across hajusuuri’s link on NST (if she posted it and if I had time to read the thread, none of which happens every day), I visit Instagram 2-3 times per week. I made a couple of purchases being reminded by an IG ad about products I already had an intention to buy (I’ll leave details to another post). Mostly, I follow perfume people – similar to what I used to do on Twitter 8-9 years ago or FB 5-6 years ago. I do not look for more people to follow, but add anyone who I know from other platforms. On principle, I stop when I reach the end of my feed: while I’m fine watching ads when I look through my friends’ pictures, I refuse to help IG make money on me browsing pictures they think might interest me.

I rarely tag anybody. And I do not think I’ve ever used a hashtag. Ever. On any of the platforms. I’m not sure whether people actually use those to find a content and people to follow, but since I’m not trying to grow my “audience” there, and I’m not sure that anyone who doesn’t “know” me would follow my “link in bio” to this blog – and blog readers are the only audience I’m interested in – I’m reluctant to “Germanaize” language even when posting pictures of the #cutestcatever (see the Instagram window on the right (web) or below (mobile)).

My IG name is undina_ba . How about you?

 

Instagram as a verb

 

Do You Instagram?

 

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Saturday Question: Do You Use Scented Hair Products?

It feels that we just discussed perfumes we associate with people we love – and here we are, the next Saturday. But since it’s a weekend, I won’t complain.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #38:

Do You Use Scented Hair Products?

We’re not talking shampoos, conditioners or styling products that have a scent while you’re using them but disappear within minutes after that. The question is rather about products that leave a scent trace for a noticeable period of time or are specifically designed for scenting hair.

My Answer

Until recently the only hair product with a distinct scent I used was Moroccanoil Hair Treatment, and, as I told in the Fantasy Vacation Scent post, I was using that product rather for its scent than functionally.

But then earlier this year, while searching for a bottle of Fresh Cream Warm Cashmere by Philosophy (I wrote about it in the post Got Milk?), I read in some reviews that the Fresh Cream dry shampoo smelled great and similar to perfume. Since I like perfume and use dry shampoo from time to time, I decided to try this one. I like it – both as a product and for how it smells, but when I use it, it’s extremely hard (if not impossible) to pair it with any perfume. But it is perfumed enough to wear it on its own, if you like the scent. And it stays on your hair for at least 8 hours.

The news about collaboration between Byredo and Ouai came right when I was on my last drop of Mojave Ghost perfume sample. As I was considering the purchase of a bottle, and, as I said, I am using dry shampoo, with the price of it being the same as for Ouai’s regular dry shampoo ($24), the purchase of this one wasn’t even a question. I went to Sephora as soon as the store in our area opened and got a spray of the limited edition Ouai Super Dry Shampoo x Byredo Mojave Ghost. I love the scent, and I like the product. I pondered for a while whether I should get 1-2 more cans of it, or if I should rather add those dollars towards getting a bottle of perfume… When I went to buy another one, it was completely sold out everywhere. Of course, now Byredo sells Mojave Ghost Hair Perfume ($75 for 75 ml), but I could never explain to myself what would be a justification for buying hair perfume in addition to or instead of real perfume: how much perfume do you need to spray into your hair to do any real damage from the amount of alcohol that will get into contact with it?! Now I’m definitely saving that money for the future perfume purchase.

 

Dry Shampoos

 

Speaking of hair perfumes… Even though everything stated above is how I feel about that type of products, recently I caught myself being drawn to … not one but two such products! One is from Ormonde Jayne – Ta’if Hair Mist. I do not need it since I have this perfume in 4 different versions already (and a back-up bottle), but I want it just because I love that perfume, and it’s my number two all-time favorite. So, at least it’s more or less logical (and I’m still not sure I’ll end up buying it). But the second one is completely illogical: Chanel No 5 The Hair Mist. Why illogical? I do not like No 5 in any version. I’ve never liked it. But at least once a year I approach it again thinking that maybe this time… Have you seen that cutest 1.2 oz frosted glass bottle? I do not need it. I will not buy it. But I want it.

 

Do You Use Scented Hair Products?

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Saturday Question: What Perfumes Do You Associate with Your Loved Ones?

Only positive thinking today: we have enough negativity from all over the World, so let’s think of something nice and pleasant, even if slightly melancholic.

 

Saturday Question on Undina's Looking Glass

 

Saturday Question #37:

What Perfumes Do You Associate with Your Loved Ones?

Are there any perfumes that always remind you of one of your parents, grand-parents, siblings, close friends, etc.? We’re talking only about positive associations here, so please no evil stepmothers that killed the otherwise brilliant LBEV for you!

Name just one or all of them (well, unless your cool aunt was/is a perfumista) and tell us whether you like those perfumes. Do you own them? Do you wear them?

My Answer

I’m in a slight disadvantage here since it’s my perfume blog where I tell perfume-related stories, so in all the years I’ve already told most of the stories closely connected to people in my life (but not all yet – can you believe it?!). And many of you had previously read those stories and even commented on them. But I’ll link to the older posts for those who is newer to my blog or has missed my previous 10 linking back.

Those of you who read NST daily threads might have thought that this topic was brought by this week’s CP – Nostalgia Friday (“wear something that takes you back to a happy moment in your childhood”), but no. I’ve been so busy this week that the first time I read about the topic was only this morning. The CP just coincided with my Grandma’s “would-have-been-100” birthday on November 3rd. In her honor that day I wore my life-long perfume love – Lancome Climat, which she wore and to which she has introduced me when I was a child. I wrote about that connection four years ago in the post The Sillage of Rosa. I still love, own and wear this perfume.

 

Grandma and Climat

 

The second perfume I want to mention is Dior Diorella. While the story I published almost 10 years ago First Love: Love (the title was a logical continuation to the title of my very first post on the blog – First Love: Perfume dedicated to the above-mentioned Climat) was about my childhood crush, I associate Diorella with my mom, from whom I got that perfume without asking permission to scent the “love note” to my future first boyfriend. Last week, thinking philosophically about the blessing of childhood selfishness and self-centeredness, I remembered that episode and wore Diorella thinking of my late mother and trying to evaluate whether, as an adult, I sufficiently “paid back” for the childhood shenanigans. I hope I did… but of course I wish I could had done more. I never loved Diorella, but I like it and wear once or twice a year.

 

Mom and Diorella

 

What Perfumes Do You Associate with Your Loved Ones?