© Another Day in the Country
I’m a finicky person when it comes to perfume. The smell, with my body chemistry, has to be just right — not too sweet. The price has to be right — not too expensive. The reaction of people I meet has to be correct — as in they don’t smell it until they get close and then they might say, “Oh, you smell so good.”
Sixty years ago I found a scent like that — Cody made it — called Platinum. To me — very young — the perfume was exotic. Inside the beautiful bottle tiny silver shavings floated, supposedly platinum — for all I know they were tin foil — and lovely to look at.
It didn’t take many years before Platinum was off the market. I’ve still got my last bottle of Platinum on a shelf, along with other relics from that past that are “no longer available.” I can’t throw them away.
The other day, my daughter said, “Mom, remember that perfume you used to wear that smelled like lemons? Jean Nate? I always liked that fragrance.”
“I’ve still got a bottle of it,” I countered. She had trouble taking all that in — this is a relic from her childhood we are talking about; but I liked it and just couldn’t throw it away. “It’s somewhere here under the sink,” I mumbled rummaging through a bag of half-used lipsticks and lotions of all shapes and sizes. “Ah, there it is!”
Now, this is an old fragrance and I wondered if it would still be “good.” I splashed some on when I got out of the shower later that day and I was immediately transported back to a summer day in the 70s.
Lagerfeld made a perfume for quite some time called KL — his initials, I believe; but eventually they discontinued the fragrance, I’m assuming for lack of sales. I love that fragrance and still have a bath powder that I use very sparingly, just on special occasions. Sometimes, I just lift the lid and sniff.
The company DonnaKaran came out with a “signature fragrance” back in the 90s and it seems to be on the road to extinction. I haven’t been able to find it any longer, so I went searching on the internet. The only thing I could find was a “remake” of the scent, supposedly in the original unique bottle; but when it came it was just a little tiny spray vial. I tried it, but it’s not the same. I’m sad. Of course, I have one of those old black bottles from the original perfume — just can’t throw it away.
On the weekend, I was visiting a friend, whiling away a lovely summer day and while she rested, I perused her stack of magazines. Inside one of those I found all kinds of relics from the past. There were types of candies, for instance, that long ago stopped gracing the shelves of the average store.
Remember Kits? I loved those silly little candies, as a kid. You could buy them then for a penny! That meant that with a dime you could come away with two hands full of delight, which — when the wrapper was removed — exposed four little flavored chews all wrapped in their own individual paper. The presentation was delightful — forty pieces of candy for one dime. It took patience to unwrap them but they were so good and they never got your fingers sticky.
In that same magazine, of course geared to the over-60 crowd, were all kinds of things that I thought had long ago been discontinued. You could get Evening in Paris perfume and original Tangee lipstick in “natural.” (My first experience with lipstick. In fact, I may have an old tube of it somewhere. Yep, just can’t throw it away.)
I’ve had my trip down memory lane, so, perhaps today is the day that I should clear out stuff under the bathroom sink — just get rid of all those half bottles of this and that in the box — not the Jean Nate, for sure because it has been elevated to the bathroom deck; but “outside” is calling with spring in the air. Throwing away old has-beens will have to wait for another day in the country.