A Pocket Full of Posies

Smell, the most evocative of our five senses and yet so often eclipsed by the other four: sight, sound, taste and touch. Smell can set the taste buds tingling, warn of potential danger making nostrils twitch with the smell of fire or rotting food. Pheremones too are detected by our olfactory systems and old familiar smells can even bring back long forgotten memories. .

I grew up in an area where beech trees were dominant. It's not a smell I can even describe or particularly notice until suddenly I am surrounded by it and time turns back the years and the memories flood in.

The other morning there was a strange whiff of something fruity in our hallway as though a piece of fruit had managed to roll its way in there and was rotting nicely. In the end and using our noses, we traced it to a pair of cycling shoes belonging to Mister E.

Thinking about the idea of perfume arouses in me a feeling of  bliss and excitement. For many years, probably in the days when Duty Free Shops really were worth spending money in, I used to treat myself to a new fragrance every time I took a trip. Hence in those hidden memories, unlocked by a deep inhalation of Eau de Parfum, I have occasions where: Coco Mademoiselle can take me back to Greece; J'Adore to a particular skiing trip; Chanel No. 19 to a camel trek in Tunisia; Amor Amor to a family holiday on Mallorca; Coco Noir to my last 2 years at work.

I used to love that line from Anthony and Cleopatra: "Purple the sails and so perfumed that the winds were lovesick with them." Even now I  read it, stop and then try to imagine what kind of scent floated down the Nile with the barge carrying the Egyptian Queen. I doubt if it was Harris Tweed, that scent of older ladies of a certain generation and much loved by my grandmother or Chanel No. 5, the iconic perfume that leaves a scophisticated air behind its wearer. 

It is said that posies of herbs were carried during the plagues that used to beset Europe, to ward off both the smell of disease and in hope of providing some protection. In fact until the 1600's it was assumed, so I've read, that infectious diseases were actually caused by bad smells. Whilst we now carry hand sanitiser, the wealthy in the seventeenth century had their own vials of essential oils to protect them from nasty afflictions. During the Black Death in the fourteenth century it's recorded that townships were accustomed to build bonfires with scented wood to try to cleanse the air. I even remember the first time I visited Morocco, more than 40 years ago now, when I was advised to carry a bunch of mint to sniff and hide the smell of the open sewers that pervaded through the maze of streets in the souks at Fes and Marrakech.

Has the intertwining of fumigation and perfume become as instinctive in the human psyche as the sense of smell itself?

 

For me there is a  scent that forever after is going to remind me of days in lockdown, exercising to YouTube videos and long days in the garden and no it is neither disinfectant nor bleach. "Serenity, Freshness, Replenish" it says on the bottle. A mixture of basil, iris, cedarwood and sarsaparilla essential oils and designed to wear in the sunshine. A far call from my favoured Chanel perfumes, it is Eau Ressourçante by Clarins.

I'm not even sure why I chose it, perhaps the name suggested resourcefulness rather than its translation of rejuvenation. Maybe the blue glass felt appropriate to add to the depressing imagery of our times or could the rotund shape of the bottle be serving as a warning of what will happen if I continue to reward myself with the contents of the biscuit barrel for hardwork wielding a spade? It even comes from Clarins' rebalancing range and let's face it at present we are all potentially having moments when we feel totally imbalanced. However, and as a matter of course, I may forget to comb my hair and given up on the make up but I certainly never overlook a generous showering from the bottle on my dressing table every time I pass by. It's even reached the point where it actually feels comforting to perceive the scent on my wrists.  

Sadly I have an awful premonition that in future years I am going to catch a faint whiff of this scent and think Eau de Covid. Just as in the days of yore, the stinking smell of disease  countered by the sweet scent of aromatic perfume.