Eau d’Adventure

By: EmilEE P hilliPs

They say smells are the strongest links to memory. A whiff of something can transport you instantly through the years. Perfumes are like people, each complex and unique. One may sing a melancholy song but you can’t help but love her voice. Another might wrap you up in a big hug and hold you there no matter how long it’s been. A third can pull you into a hallway you haven’t dared walk down in years.

A new year is a chance to try on new versions of yourself as simply as changing your scent. You can have a signature perfume, or you can have the world at your door with the touch of an atomizer. I could smell like a girl who spends her days arranging flowers, drinking afternoon tea and wearing a pearl necklace. Or I could have a sultry scent and create mystery in the air as if, just walking past, it is possible to imagine being inside a luxurious yacht.

And I adore fragrance bottles. While many may be ornate, uniquely shaped vessels with ridiculous names on their labels, they’re my prized little possessions.

I have a round glass bottle of Chanel I got my senior year of high school. I use it sparingly, mostly on special occasions. Every pink spritz takes me back to seeing the world as an adult for the first time. Back to prom, my cap and gown, and first dates.

I have a bottle that’s yellow and cylindrical and reminds me of a trip I took to Ohio one winter, my white boots in the snow and my cousin, Maddy. We walked all around Cleveland, shivering with coffees in hand, finding unique storefronts and taking dramatic photos we dubbed “album covers.” A whiff brings us back together again.

People associate red roses with Valentine’s Day, as do I, though I prefer the look of peonies or carnations. Still, I opt for rose-scented spray on the 14th. Once, on my way out for dinner, I sprayed so much of it my coat held onto the scent deep into spring. My date rolled the car windows down, terrified, I suppose, that no automobile air freshener could ever put it right.

I secretly love walking through department stores with beauty bars and fragrance counters. The haze that hangs between the door and the shoe department is a fog bank I welcome. Even though most perfumes are overpriced and overly pungent, I enjoy over-sampling them all, sniffing test papers until my nose can no longer distinguish patchouli from pine.

I even keep a small gold metal bottle my mother bought in Paris back in the ’80s. It’s never been opened. She wanted to save it for a special occasion. Maybe one day I’ll test it out and cross my fingers that it doesn’t smell terrible. Maybe we’ll even wear it out together to create an aromatic memory all our own. PS