Weddingbee Blog

No, it’s not a typo, I know it’s actually “sense and sensibility”, but that makes absolutely no sense in the context of scents, now does it? Confused yet?

Well, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m talking about perfume—the nectar of loooove. Or allergic reactions, or stank, depending on the perfume . But we’ll stick to the lovely kind.

Anywho, I have a total weakness for perfume. I love it. I would bathe in it, but I don’t want to be one of those people. You know, those people you pass in the mall and their scent trails them for… oh… 3 miles? As much as I love perfume, I’d like to think I have a little more restraint than they do.

Before I get ahead of myself, I want to take a minute (just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air… sorry.) to tell you about my favorite scent memories (smemories?).

source

My first memory of “smell back” (yes, I just made that up) was a few months after we moved to Alabama from Washington State. If you didn’t know, Washington = Wet, Alabama = Dry. Anyway, it was some ridiculously hot spring day, I was playing outside with some friends, and the sky just opened up and started to pour. We all bolted to our respective houses, but the smell of the rain on the hot asphalt is one that still brings me back to Washington. It’s one of my favorite smells ever.

The first time I really discovered the power of perfume was a when I was around 14. It was short time after I had lost my maternal grandmother, at the all-too-young age of 61. My grandma and I were really close, and needless to say, losing her at such a young age was immensely difficult for me.

Fashion Fair: Zahra source

About a year later, I was spending the summer with my mom in Florida. She always has perfumes and lotions on her dresser, and I would use a squirt of lotion here, or a spritz of perfume there without really thinking about it. One day I used a bottle of scented lotion called Zahra and it was like an instant blast from the past. It was my grandma’s lotion, and it smelled exactly like she did.

Victoria’s Secret: Rapture source

It’s long been discontinued, but one day I was wandering around Victoria’s Secret and saw a bottle that looked oddly like Zahra, so I took a quick whiff and the scent of my Grandma came flooding back to me. I’m almost positive that Victoria’s Secret bought (or ripped off, IDK) the formula and repackaged it as their current “Rapture” perfume, as they look way too similar and smell so much alike. Now every time I go into VS I make it a point to stop and smell that perfume. It’s almost like saying hi to my Grandma.

Next up: My very own scent story

What smells that bring you back to your childhood? Is there a particular scent that you relate to a family member?