Perfume

A few unconnected ramblings about my relationship with perfume, maybe a love letter of sorts

I fell in love with perfume probably around the time I had my first real 'crush'. The debilitating school-girl send notes/leave roses in locker kind of crush. It was someone named * * * * and around the same time my grandmother gifted/gave this perfume to me by 'UDV' which I read as 'UDY' growing up (I did not discover it was UDV till much later and I don't know if I can be blamed for that), which was my crush's name with one less letter (now you know). It felt like a silly little sign from the universe to me. I don't know. I wore this perfume for the duration of this crush and began to associate this very straightforward fragrance with a very swoony syrupy time in my life.

While this probably isn't the first smell I fell in love with - scent has fascinated me for as long as I can remember - it spurred the realisation that I could use this invisible medium to immediately transport me to to another place, sometimes without my consent.

I can smell 'At The Beach' by Bath and Body Works and immediately be transported to my little first flat in Mumbai where I would obnoxiously spray this goop without any regard for anyone around me before I would leave for work. I smell 'Into The Night' by BBW and think of my friend Oishee and their little flat that was 5 minutes of an auto ride away from mine. I hold onto empty bottles with a little bit of juice in them simply because they're portals to intangible spaces and places, and particularly times, that are far behind me.

Growing up, I would use this for school as well - I would chew on and smell cinnamon while studying for exams and then take a little bark to the exam room with the hope that the scent and taste would amplify my memory by association. Worked, kind of.

I've also started to encounter 'ghost scents' - a random flash of a scent from another time and place, maybe triggered by something nearby, that overtakes me and doesn't leave me for a bit. This happened recently where I was taking a walk on Chorao Island in Goa alone after a week of spending a lot of time with someone, and I was immediately engulfed in their smell. I didn't even know how to describe it, but it was unmistakably them. It was mildly surprising and very sweet. I didn't know this could happen.

I treat the act of wearing perfume as a bit of a craft - when I'm at my best, I find immense pleasure at doing this well - layering scents to create complex fragrance notes. Scent has such a silent but powerful presence when you walk into a room, and I enjoy having control of what it's projecting.

On a good scent day, I moisturise first to have the scent cling on better. Either with a body oil or a basic moisturiser. I used to have this rose body oil that I would add a drop of peppermint essential oil to (maybe not recommended but it gives a nice cooling sensation), over which I would layer a madhumalti ittar, but in general any ittar works - I usually only wear floral scents, the muskier ones don't really speak to me - after which I layer a perfume and then wrap it all up with a light body spray. Finishing with spraying some on my hairbrush and running it through my hair. This is very peak self care for me and makes me feel like a princess getting ready for the day, emerging from her boudoir (?) for a day of reading, listening to music, gazing out into the distance in a garden, and playing with rabbits and doves.

I was known for being the well-scented person in office and enjoyed this role very much, taking it as a serious responsibility and walking in with something slightly different every day for everyone's smelling(?) pleasure.

I also love ittars simply because they're quite cheap, last a long time, and as an oil based fragrance have so much lasting power (especially when you find the right one for your skin), the scent lingers and lingers and lingers. They also bloom beautifully in hot and humid weathers. They're very collectable and I love being able to rummage through a collection to find the right scent for the right occassion - khus, jasmine, champa, madhumalti, rose, choco musk, green apple, whatever. You can find an ittar for almost any scent. There's one that's escaping me, it's always out of stock but it smells like straight Appy Fizz.

In the Mapusa Market in Goa there is a man who sits who will 'read your vibe' and make a personalized ittar for you with his potions all laid out in front of him. He did not read my vibe very well but in another life I would love to do this for people. Study fragrances and perfumes and build a life around that. I've experimented with making little body sprays and such at home with steam distillation techniques and such. It's such satisfying alchemical process. An intangible thing that brings me a lot of joy.

One of my favourite hobbies is reading fragrance reviews on Fragrantica. I will get around to archiving some gems in another post.

I love perfume very much.

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