MEMORIES are sneaky creatures. They creep up on you when you’re least expecting it.
You could be purchasing smalls in M&S or staring out the window of the bus at a wobbling cyclist and wham! – you’re dragged back to your first day at school or the time someone pulled a chair out from under you at Brownies.
The trigger could be almost anything – the light in a room that reminds you of a summer holiday, the sweet taste of hot chocolate that recalls a cafe stop in the middle of a thunderstorm, or a laugh of the exact timbre of a former friend’s.
But smells have to be the strongest lure from the past – memories waiting to be evoked long after the original scent has turned stale.
The lift in the car park next to my office often reminds me of Paris, not because its previous occupant was carrying a paper bag of croissants, but because the lemon-scented cleaning agent has the same citrus odour of one used in the apartment of my French penfriend.
Liverpool city centre sometimes has the same effect, but only if I’m walking past a coffee shop just as the rain has given way to sunshine.
This time, though, it’s a different time I am transported to – the stroll to the Metro for a summer job during university holidays, rather than a school exchange programme.
Such power smell has. No wonder that supermarkets pump air flavoured with the scent of freshly-baked bread at unsuspecting shoppers, and that chefs carefully sniff their ingredients before purchase.
Perfume manufacturers should have it made then – drawing customers in with a whiff of patchouli or a drop of sandalwood in their secret recipe.
Yet often they get it so wrong – and that’s not just down to a matter of personal taste.
To add to her relationship woes, Katie Price has just had her signature perfume named as the worst-selling celebrity scent on a major beauty website.
Stunning, presumably named for her looks, rather than for an ability to knock you unconscious at 30 paces, claimed just 0.37% of total celebrity perfume sales, compared to the best-selling Britney Spears range, at 34%.
As the former model has only just announced the break-up of her marriage to Peter Andre, such poor sales figures cannot be due to consumers associating Stunning’s smell with heartbreak and desperation.
What it is actually supposed to smell like is “feminine yet strong” and “floral with musky tones”, which is a remarkably retrained description for a woman who arrived at her wedding in a Disney Princess carriage.
Official descriptions of perfumes usually read like a cross between a musical scale and a gardeners’ almanac, and as if the marketing department sat down with a Thesaurus and looked up the word “lovely”.
Take this one for Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue: “A fruity-floral fragrance, Light Blue opens with fresh and mouth-watering notes of Granny Smith apple, Sicilian cedar and bluebells.
“The very feminine heart note is composed of jasmine, white rose and bamboo, followed with a woody and sweet end note of cedarwood, amber and musks. This fragrance spells out joie de vivre.”
Even better is this one for Vivienne Westwood’s Anglomania: “A bewitching fragrance for the contrasted, extrovert facet of a woman – spiritual, eclectic and modern.
“Enticing spicy top notes of cardamom and coriander mingle with vibrant green tea to conjure an initial impression of piquant sophistication.”
So, basically, what they’re saying is – they’re both really nice.
ENJOYED this column? Read more by Laura at www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/lauradavis
lauradavis
