i think what started this magical mystery tour was this: the other day a voice whispered in my ear, possibly after the realization i had had about the importance of scent to me, and what it whispered was strawberry musk. strawberry musk? i had had some strawberry musk perfume when i was a child because 70s, but i was never all that fond of it. i had had strawberry musk incense, also because 70s. i thought the perfume might have more clues because that covered more territory, so i started looking.
nobody makes strawberry musk anymore. i mean there are a few etsy sellers, but there would be no reason to expect it to be the same formulation. jovan made something called wild strawberry musk, but they stopped years ago. but somehow all that got me to thinking about perfumes that i did like.
the earliest perfume or really eau de toilette that i ever liked was something i found in a sampler of floris colognes that somebody let me play with when i was maybe four or so, it was called stephanotis. stephanotis isn't made anymore, but it was one of the earliest scents that floris made dating back to at least the 1800s. stephanotis is a type of jasmine. and i like jasmine, but i don't think that that was what i specifically liked about stephanotis. in addition to jasmine it had coriander, carnation, and civet. there were maybe eight to twelve little vials in that tin, and out of all of them i picked a pretty mature scent.
my grandmother liked midnight in paris mostly for the blue bottles, i think. my aunt joan liked jean nate. my aunt edith liked ylang ylang oil. i'm not sure if my mother knew what perfume was. i'm sure she did, but i have no idea what she, no, that's not true, i do know-- shalimar. strange, but i remember their cigarette brands too-- gran gran smoked merits, joan smoked vantage and my father smoked marlboro. my father used old spice, i think my paw paw did too, and bob used hai karate. deborah sold avon, or had co-workers that sold avon, or friends that sold avon, so there was a lot of avon. this introduced me to some other scents. i had had chantilly and white shoulders and they weren't really my thing, too powdery. then there were the little girl perfumes tinkerbell and heaven scent. they were kinda meh but they had cute packaging. the avon was all pretty meh too until i found charisma. i guess that was really my true first signature scent which i found at like seven, maybe. wanna know what it had in it? coriander, carnation, and civet, no joke. i found this out yesterday, or maybe today.
i have had a hard time finding carnation fragrances, i knew i liked that because i had just a straight up carnation perfume one time, but i'm not sure that i knew it was in those two fragrances specifically. apparently carnation is something that most people don't like to wear. they don't make either of those anymore. i looked up coriander and carnation in perfume, which was harder than it should have been somehow and i found coco which is made by chanel but isn't very popular, but what made me laugh out loud is the number of times i have tried that on and said, man i love that, but it smells kinda mature.
which is why i stopped wearing another perfume that has, you guessed it, coriander, carnation, and civet-- paloma picasso.
so, i thought, maybe they still make charisma, but, sadly, no they do not, as i have already stated. so i thought, well, when did they stop making it, maybe it is available somewhere. perhaps i should now mention, in case you didn't know, because why would you, civet is like a kind of musk. i looked on ebay and i did find some. there were several. but, right there, as though it had been waiting for me, was a small full bottle of perfume maybe half an ounce in a decanter that was a red strawberry-- i kid you not.
the universe is playing with me-- showing me the magic.
