At about 8 I had my very first perfume, it was Pretty Peach by Avon.  Just imagining the smell now makes me feel all happy and content and immediately transports me back to that little girl.  I had all the different variations of the product, from the soap, to the bubble bath and of course the perfume.  I loved it.  And then of course came, Charlie.  If you were around in the 1970's there's no way that you could miss Charlie.  I took a sneaky sniff not so long ago, it didn't smell like I remembered it.

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 It's amazing, just writing this piece is already  taking me back to it all, the smells, the sounds of that time and going to the Perfume Department at Boots, those distinctive, overwhelming heady smells of all those perfumes; about 17, I was finding myself, becoming a devotee of Cosmopolitan, following fashion, trends and earning my own money (with the Saturday job I hated), in all places BHS. It was the mid 80's and the power of marketing perfume was beginning to have a real impact on women.  Calvin Klein launched Obsession; it was my very first real perfume and I was buying it, influenced by magazine advertising and even more sensual adverts on the TV.  It encouraged girls and women to buy into the product and send the marketing campaign into the stratosphere    Next on my wrists was Dior; most of my friends had Opium, too strong for me, I went for Christian Dior's Poison; still a very strong perfume,but not as sharp,  I wore it for about 3 years before it's strength over-powered me and I moved on, I wanted a more subtle perfume, one that defined me, not what I thought I should be wearing; so I headed to another Dior perfume, this time Diorissimo.  Influenced by Patsy Kensit, I started to buy, but it didn't last for long, it was too weak for me and aagin I I moved on. I succumbed to the marketing and changing trends;  I started buying Calvin Klein.  I was buying Eternity. Who hasn't worn that. It become an iconic brand, a young Kate Moss fronted the campaign.  I loved it. A very 90's perfume  I still have a bottle from the early 1990's to this day, a memento from a great period of my life, but life moves on and so did my choice of perfume -  Dior launched a new perfume that would become a huge part of my life; a  softer version of Poison, it was, Tendre Poison.  Housed in exactly the same bottle, but green, again  a perfume that I was to fall in love with.  Eventually I started looking for the next best thing; I didn't fall out of love Tendre Poison, but,  I'd needed a change; I needed to move on.  it was to be Chanel No.5, my next perfume.  Time with No.5 was short,  it wasn't for me and after a while I was looking to find some reassuring, soft and warm and of course I headed back to Tendre Poison. 

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Yet again, it wasn't long before I started to looking again, friends at work were raving about and wearing Coco Mademoiselle.  It was different, clean and fresh and I started wearing it; my relationship with this perfume, was little more than a passing fancy; our relationship lasted for about a year,  I woke one morning and couldn't stomach the smell.  Good bye, Mademoiselle.  I was on the hunt for a new perfume,  I found:

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Gucci Flora 

and to this day I'm wearing it.

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