Scent Of A Woman
If I was ever asked "what's the one item I would take with me to a desert island" it would be my Chanel No5.. not particularly practical I realise.
‘A women who doesn't wear perfume has no future’ Coco Chanel!
Every woman finds her own particular fragrance that just suits her, the Al Pacino movie 'Scent of a Woman' springs to mind! Our sense of smell not only enhances our day-to-day lives but can also stir up hidden emotions/memories and every woman has her own particular perfume, her very own 'Scent of a Woman.'
There are four girls in my family including myself and my mother, yet we all have an individual perfume which defines us. I will walk into Selfridges and walk past the Issey Miyake counter and it will instantly remind me of my elder sister. I think our sense of smell is sometimes taken for granted when it is something we don’t necessarily think of, yet it is a main factor in what makes us humans. Just like the nostalgia of a particular song, a perfume can have the exact same effect of recreating a sudden feeling from years before.
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My mother gave me the love for Chanel No. 5, she is a Chanel No.5 lady and so was her mother. I remember for years she had this huge box in her room full of Chanel products. According to research ‘some women’s perfume has even remained in family traditions where daughters use the ones their mothers did.’
The 3 things my mother told me to remember…
1 Always Moisturise
2 Always wear matching lingerie
3 Always wear expensive perfume!!!!
Walk into any department store and the counters are filled with perfumes, every woman has one which fits like their fingerprint
My favourite Chanel No.5 was actually created for Coco Chanel by Ernest Beaux as Chanel believed “women should wear perfume wherever they hoped to be kissed”. Today Chanel No.5 sells a bottle every 30 seconds! An all-time famous quote was that of Marilyn Monroe, when asked what she wore in bed and she responded “why Chanel No.5 of course!” Yet perfume is also an ancient tradition originally deriving from the Latin ‘per fumus’, meaning ‘through smoke’. Perfumery, or the art of making perfumes, began in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt and was further refined by the Persians.
“The early Egyptians used perfumed balms as part of religious ceremonies and later as part of pre love making preparations.”
‘The world's first recorded chemist is considered to be a woman named Tapputi, a perfume maker who was mentioned in a cuneiform tablet from the second millennium BC in Mesopotamia.’ Of course would we expect anything less from a woman!
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At the age of 14 I was on a family holiday in Sorrento Italy. On a day trip we visited the Island of Capri, one of the most beautiful places I have ever laid my eyes on. We visited the ‘Carthusia Profumi De Capri’; where we were told the story of the Father Prior of the Carthusian Monastery in 1380, who made a flower arrangement when the Queen Giovanna D'Angiò visited Capri. The water was not changed for 3 days and when the flowers were thrown away the Prior noticed a fragrance in the water which he had not recognized before. He went to the Father Alchemist who traced the scent and that became the ‘first perfume of Capri’. In 1948 the Prior of the Monastery discovered the old formulas of the perfume and with the Pope’s permission took them to the Chemist of Torino who created the "Carthusia", the smallest laboratory in the world! I managed to take a little piece of the "Carthusia" back home with me to Manchester in the form of a soap!
Our own body is a temple of human scents known as pheromones. Pheromones attract the opposite sex and our signature perfume can enhance our pheromones. Perfume is an extremely personal item. We are attracted to various scents in a bottle which may repel others. Some have hints of rose and vanilla while others may contain more citrus fruits the most recent Thierry Muglar fragrance ‘Womanity’ contains figs and caviar. There have even been rumours you can buy a bottle of ‘pheromones’….whether these actually work or are a marketing ploy who knows, but one thing is for certain…Always make sure you wear that one scent that fits you and whatever happens in a day at least you’ll know you started it with your favourite signature!
Cherie Bebe
~xXx~
Photography by Blackberi Photography & Miss Kay Photography.
