I have a long and, if we are to draw any conclusions from Paul’s glazed-eyes reaction to even the brief summary, rather boring story to tell!
I recently bought myself several Demeter Fragrance Library samplers on sale. I have been trying them. Yesterday I tried a scent called Fuzzy Sweater, which reminds me of some of the perfumes I wore in high school. The one that came floating to mind was Chantilly, though I don’t remember what it smelled like so I can’t really say if it DOES smell like Fuzzy Sweater; the name Chantilly was just stored in the same part of my brain that categorized Fuzzy Sweater as a High School Perfume.
That led to a feeling of nostalgia for Chantilly, and also curiosity to remember/know what it DOES smell like. I remember it being inexpensive (anything I wore in high school was inexpensive), so I looked it up, thinking I’d buy a bottle for $10-20ish and have the fun of trying it again.
Well. WELL. It turns out, the whole topic of Chantilly is fraught. FRAUGHT! You can find message boards online where people are discussing their STRONG and VARIED opinions, as well as confusion in the face of other people’s opinions! Some people RHAPSODIZE about [one particular scent note] while others claim to be unable to perceive anything except [other particular scent note], and then there is further discussion about whether those particular scent notes are GOOD or BAD; there is also an entire sub-topic about whether it is An Old Lady Perfume, and what does that mean anyway (and I mean ACTUAL ANALYSIS of what it might mean, in terms of the various elements of fragrances—not just huffiness).
And gradually I became aware of another issue, which is that people might be talking about DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF CHANTILLY. If I am following the saga, the maker changed at Some Point. I wearied of research before being able to discover WHEN this happened, but interestingly, the bottle shape I remember is right in the overlap between makers. That is, there are bottles made EARLIER by Houbigant that look very different from the bottles made LATER by Dana, but in the middle there is a particular bottle shape that (1) was used by both, and (2) is the bottle I remember. It looked like this:
(image from Amazon.com)
So! WHICH KIND DID I USE, HOUBIGANT OR DANA?? Furthermore, in the same part of my brain where I store the memory of Chantilly, I store a vague feeling of disappointment. Such as: I’d tried the sample bottle many times in the store, then finally bought a bottle, and felt it wasn’t as good as the sample. And/or: I bought a small bottle to start, loved it, finished it, bought a new bottle, and it wasn’t as good. That kind of feeling. And yet I DID wear Chantilly for years, so it wasn’t THAT disappointing. But still: maybe the sample/first bottle was Houbigant, and the bottle I bought / second bottle I bought was Dana!! Depending on which of those memories, if either, is accurate!
I started poking around on EBay, which is a great place to buy old perfume and also a terrible place to buy old perfume. The prices vary wildly! Shipping varies wildly! With or without box! What percentage full! Etc.! And I am sure the site is just PACKED with fakes. Like, WOULD someone have a new-in-box bottle of Chantilly from decades ago? BUT MAYBE THEY WOULD! Sometimes people receive perfume as gifts and never use it! Or sometimes they buy ahead: I myself have a new-in-box bottle of Charlie that I bought YEARS ago on clearance for when my current bottle of Charlie is empty, but that day may never arrive! (Though I am wearing Charlie today, because now I am in the mood for perfume I wore in high school.) Plus I have several new-in-box bottles of various L’Artisan perfumes that were being discontinued, because I knew if I didn’t have another bottle waiting I’d hoard what remained of my current bottle. And there is the concept of Old New Stock, where apparently a bunch of stuff is found in an old warehouse! But also: I would expect fakes to be new in box, so perhaps I should stick to the partially-used bottles which seem more likely to be real. It’s not as if I am going to keep the box! (But on the other hand it’s so appealing to have it!) You can see how all this easily absorbed over an hour of time.
What I did was, I just kept putting candidates in my cart until I felt tired of browsing. Then I sorted them into two heaps, Houbigant and Dana. And I tried not to overthink it, but did overthink it a little anyway, but no matter, because I felt happy with the decision: I ended up ordering two used/partial bottles of matching sizes; one has the box and one does not; both had free shipping.
I am excited for them to get here! I hope they don’t smell exactly the same and also not good!
…Sigh. While proofreading, I took one more stab at finding out when the switch from Houbigant to Dana took place, and found there is also apparently ANOTHER switch to New Dana. Which is unfortunate, because I see the Dana bottle I bought is actually New Dana, but feel too worn out to find out if that matters or not—and yet, certainly the kind I used was NOT New Dana—but very likely New Dana is a name change ONLY, and there was no change to the formula. (Although…”New”…maybe that specifically means the fragrances were updated.) I tried to get myself interested in starting the whole process over again and buying a Dana bottle, but then noticed that I’ve been neglecting to take into account whether the bottles were eau de toilette or eau de cologne or eau de parfum, and I don’t remember which one I had in high school ANYWAY. Since I remember it being cheap, it was probably eau de toilette—but maybe THAT’S the solution to the Memory of Disappointment mystery: maybe I tried a sample of eau de parfum, then bought the eau de toilette.
…Okay, I forced myself to persist, and I now have a THIRD bottle of Chantilly on its way to me, a Dana-not-New-Dana one. For heaven’s sake. If they all smell the same and/or I don’t even like the smell anymore, we will have to do a giveaway!
While I absolutely share your skepticism about anything found on eBay, I do remember in early 2000s helping my husband’s elderly grandmother (at 89 years old, if I recall) clear out her “storage” bedroom. We found numerous items brand new in the box. She had received many as gifts and bought some in 2-for-1 deals. I kid you not that some of the items were 40 years old according to the dates on the inserts. There was a curling iron with a manufacture date of 1967. We trashed much of it because it was just outdated, but I can imagine someone less lazy could have tried selling it as nostalgia.
Decades ago I wore Victoria perfume from Victoria’s Secret. The agony when they discontinued it was real. It was the perfume of my early 20’s, it was my identifier, it was ME and I didn’t exist anymore. I bought various bottles on ebay until I figured out there were differences. Watered down, mixed, faked, whatever.I gave up Victoria long ago and have come to realize my incarnations of self are designed to last only one bottle and then it is time to reinvent. I am on my second bottle of Marc Jacobs Daisy, however, so maybe life is in a rut?
Oh! Victoria! What a great scent. I remember it fondly- I had the little cone-shaped bottle with the royal blue and gold top. It was delectable.
I wore Victoria too! Eau de Cologne, the wide/short bottle with ridged glass and the blue cap. Ahhhh I felt so womanly!
I feel deeply invested in this now and am looking forward to learning which of the three is the one you remember!
My middle school/high school “scents” were Tribe and Exclamation and it would fun to smell them again. I would also enjoy smelling the Gap fresh cut grass scent, which my childhood best friend wore. We didn’t have a Gap anywhere in my state at the time, which made it extra rare and special.
Make a statement without saying a word.
LOL! Google Exclamtion Video.
Oh, I forgot about Chantilly! I wore it too, but always liked it better in theory than when I actually used it. I also loved Sand & Sable and I recently found some of it new at Walmart.
Companies really should bring back retired scents, all of us Gen Xers would snap them up.
Have you read The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro? It’s a novel but very interesting about perfume.
I LOVED Sand & Sable!! That was my college perfume, along with a Pear scent from The Body Shop, and vanilla extract! (Not at the same time. Just, some days Sand & Sable, some days Pear, some days vanilla.)
I have not read The Perfume Collector, but have added it to my list!
Do you remember the one from the Body Shop? Leap and Exotic (which was actually a home fragrance oil!) were my “signature” scents. I routinely check eBay for Leap, but haven’t ordered any yet. I love revisiting these scents from my past.
I loved The Perfume Collector.
This post brings me back to the days when I’d spend probably hours at my grandmother’s dresser, looking at and spritzing her perfumes, which definitely included Chantilly and also, EMERAUDE, which was green! And I haven’t thought about the word/brand Houbigant for decades! So, thank you for this. Other boring perfume stories:
I remember buying, in junior high, a huge bottle of body spray called Beret, which was supposed to evoke French chicness, and I wore waaay too much of it. I have no memory of the actual scent.
When I was little, I got a “Barbie Perfume Maker” as a gift; it came with these little porous scented sticks that you would add water to, and then operate some kind of spinning/mixing mechanism, then pour the perfumed water into a bottle. I could not tell you now what any of the scents were called or what they smelled like, but every once in a while, I’ll catch the scent of something that smells EXACTLY like one of those “perfumes.”
I fell in love with Sephora’s Creme Caramel. It smelled delicious. Then they discontinued it, and it is not an important enough fragrance for people to be selling. The end.
(there is also the issue of how some fragrances age, too, which is weird. I mean, they are built to be especially stable, for a fragrant item, but still.)
(if they brought that scent back and I could verify it was the same I’d totally be buying a ton of it, though.)
My teen years one was Anais Anais. We never knew the correct pronunciation, still unsure.
My childhood one was Yardley April Violets. I tried and tried but can’t find anything similar. Those violet candies that taste terrible, they smell just like it.
Anais Anais was also my high school scent! I also have no idea how it is pronounced!
I have one anecdotal pronunciation to add to the possibilities: a friend of mine had Anais on her list for a girl baby, and she pronounced it onna-EESE. Onna- to rhyme with Donna, and -eese like geese.
I had a friend named Anais, and she pronounced it “Anne-eye-ees” for what it is worth.
Married to a Frenchman and this is the exact pronunciation :)
I go by that Jewel song that mentions Anais Nin – UH-Nye-iss. Middle part rhymes with pie. No idea if that’s right, but that’s my reference.
My mom wore Anais Anais and we always called it “a-neice a-neice” which is probably completely incorrect.
I’ve never worn perfume, but I remember a brown, spherical, blown-glass bottle of a perfume that was essentially just a rose scent that my hippie mother had in my childhood. I don’t remember her ever wearing it, but I loved opening it and sniffing it. This Christmas I got some British Rose shower gel from The Body Shop because of my fond memories of that perfume, and yes, it does evoke it, so that makes me happy every time I use it.
My Grandmother wore Shalimar, and I can never not immediately remember her whenever I smell it.
I was big into CK One in high school. Which makes sense because I graduated high school in 1996, and CK One was launched in 1994. I also branched out to Amarige by Givenchy. I worked at CVS, and at Christmas time, there would be tons of perfume gift sets left over. They’d be marked down by 75%, and we’d still get an employee discount on top of that, so I’d stock up for pennies on the dollar. I still wear Amarige.
My grandmother wore Shalimar, too!
And I ALSO wore CK One, in middle school in the late 90s. Then one of those cheap scents that the Gap put out- the popular one was Dream, I think the one I liked was Sun. I also liked the grapefruit scent from Bath and Body Works, I think? It was hard to find. A few years ago I got into jasmine, and then patchouli, which I LOVE from the depths of my dirty hippie heart, but like a commenter below, a lot of fragrances make me sneeze now. Sadness.
Swistle, I am so here for your shopping quests and hard-hitting investigative perfume journalism. Keep it coming!
You are so funny. I was not then and am not now really into perfume. I often sneeze a lot if someone near me wears a strong scent and I tend to steer clear. BUT at the end of high school and the beginning of college I had a bottle of Liz Claiborne. Maybe I’m dating myself. Hope you aren’t disappointed by your ebay purchases. I can easily get sucked into a ‘hunt’ for something like this.
My mom told me when I was a teen that I needed to find a perfume and stick with it for the rest of my life, so that people would always think of me when they smelled it. That was way too overwhelming of a task, so now I never wear perfume at all. I did wear Obsession in high school, because my boyfriend did and it reminded me of him.
My mom also told me this- she wore YSL Paris. Any time I smell it on someone I think of her. I don’t have one perfume – I currently have a collection I call Perfumes I Bought Because I liked the Sample In My Birchbox. Two of them I actually like and wear often- Lollia Dream and Tocca Stella. The others…..have bottles that look nice on my vanity.
I’ve only ever worn one perfume and worry that I’m boring! Your mom’s advice is is a relief LOL
I have a bottle of Chanel No 5 that a relative bought me in Paris. I thought it was very cool, but since having my kids, I can’t bring myself to wear almost any scent. We recently moved and I came across something wrapped in newspaper inside a ziploc, was very confused until I realized it was the perfume. I will keep it as a remembrance of the relative since she’s passed, but I don’t think I will wear the scent again!
Unrelated, I had a friend in HS whose mother was very into perfume. She always said, if you can smell it on yourself, it isn’t right for you. I have no idea why.
CHANTILLY! I also wore Charlie and Vanilla Fields. I had an aunt who wore Poison and that seemed so glamourous to me!
I am 100% HERE for this conversation as I 1) bought myself a Demeter care package of samples for Christmas that included Fuzzy Sweater and 2) fell down a rabbit hole on fragrantica.com. Maybe more than one rabbit hole.
I am FASCINATED by perfume descriptions and fragrance notes, especially those on niche sites like Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab where the scents are crafted based on poetry, phases of the moon, literary characters, etc. All you need to know is they have a perfume oil named after THE DORMOUSE in Alice in Wonderland.
One of my lost/nostalgic scents is Red cologne by Giorgio Beverly Hills. My boyfriend wore it back in the early 90s and he smelled DELICIOUS. I bought a bottle of it a couple of years ago and found out it was reformulated by Coty (?) and it doesn’t smell the same. :( :( :( So much sadness.
Oh wow, one of my HS boyfriends wore Drakkar Noir and it has such a strong scent memory for me…I’m super dating myself, ha!
I can’t handle strong scents, and have never worn or bought perfume… and yet I read this entire post with great interest, along with every single comment :) I always WISH I liked/could tolerate perfume! It seems so fun and elegant!
You’re making me panic and think I should go buy a few bottles of my one and only favorite so that I never run out! I wear Heavenly by Victoria Secret. Luckily it’s pretty popular so hopefully it will not be unavailable.
In high school I wore CK One and anything vanilla scented from Bath and Body Works. Also Clinque’s Happy because everyone was wearing that then. Someone earlier mentioned Gap’s Fresh Grass scent and I forgot all about that! I think I maybe owned it but definitely smelled it in the store all the time because my friend worked at Gap and I would go visit her.
In college I bought a bottle of Dior Hypnotic Poison and wore that for a few years and then I suddenly became averse to anything scented at all so now I wear nothing. Not even scented lotion. When my husband accidentally buys regular detergent instead of unscented my son and I both gag every time we get dressed because the smell is that bad. I don’t mind the occasional passing whiff of someone’s perfume but I live in an apartment and some days being the in the elevator with someone wearing cologne makes me feel nauseous. I think men tend to be a little more heavy hand with them, though.
I used to wear Origins Ginger Essence (and the accompanying skin lotion), which I adored. But when I had a baby, the scent made me feel sick during pregnancy, and then during breastfeeding I thought it would be rude to sprinkle his lunch with perfume, and then after that I just was never interested in wearing scents again. But I really like the ones that smell like woodsmoke and grass and dirt and fir trees and old books.
I am also here for this conversation. Although I could not tolerate perfume due to asthma, I was ALL ABOUT Herbal Essence Rose Hips shampoo. (This bottle: https://herbalessences.com/en-us/our-products/smooth-rose-hips/smooth-rose-hips-shampoo/). I found it at the grocery store again years ago and I STILL feel high school-esque feelings when using this in my hair.
Olfactory memories are odd….
I used to wear lots of perfumes in HS (1987-1991, to totally date myself) but the one I remember the most is Curve by Liz Claiborne. I loved it SO MUCH. Also Poison by Dior. Oh high school!! Between the girls’ perfume and the boys’ aftershave we were a very fragrant bunch!
Drakkar Noir.
I didn’t really wear perfume but remember all the guys in middle and high school wearing Drakkar.
In HS my mum bought me a bottle of Tweed which I thought very old lady. I wore all the vanilla things from the body shop.
In 2001 I got married and wore pleasures, which is VERY floral and not really me (I think I thought it was bridal). I came across a bottle a couple of years ago, wore it for the nostalgia trip, and got caught as my kids buy it as a gift now when the bottle gets low. My daughter has commented a few times about knowing me by the smell of my perfume so combined with nice memories I think for better or worse it is now my scent :).
My MIL has an entire shelf of unopened perfume bottles still in box so I can believe that at least some of the eBay ones are legit estate sales.
Hmm – I would be very careful indeed about buying scents on eBay. Unless stored correctly (in the dark and at a non-fluctuating medium temperature; preferably in the unopened box) they can go off in a very unpleasant way. This is why that, whilst I understand that an array of bottles can look beautifully decorative, people really should stick to one, maybe two, open scents at a time (I also agree that it’s nice to have a signature scent, and this makes it easy to pare down) and keep them somewhere like a shelf in a wardrobe or an underwear drawer.
I used to be YSL Paris in the summer and Poison in the winter, now it’s been Elie Saab (original) for years and it’s been my most commented on ever. I can’t see me ever changing whilst it’s available.
What an excellent post! Perfume nostalgia! Tracking down rare bottles!
Here’s a list of my pre internet life in perfumes:
Tinkerbell
Muguet du Bois
Musk by Alyssa Ashley
Navy
Aspen
Vanilla Fields
Jessica McClintock
Pleasures
Victoria
White Musk from The Body Shop
Also admired Mom’s Wind Song, L’air du Temps, Sand and Sable.
Yesss! Muguet du Bois!
Thank you for reminding me.
This whole post is a beautiful memory.
My mom wears Chantilly. I used to get her the box sets at Christmas but they don’t seem to be making them anymore. Even finding single bottles has gotten difficult. So if you do have a give away of the Chantilly, I will definitely enter.
My favorite perfume, Chloe, seems to have been discontinued. Or, at least, the version that I liked. I wore that perfume for 30 years. I wish I had stocked up before it became impossible to find.
My boring perfume story — many years ago, the store where I usually bought Chloe (Sears, maybe) didn’t have any for a long time. So I checked the perfume counters at the fancier department stores. I found some at Macy’s and was so excited. But a bit perplexed about the change in the bottle shape. I should have checked to see if they had a sample bottle because when I got home I discovered that this wasn’t the original Chloe but Chloe (something) a variant on the original. And I did not like it at all. And it was so expensive. Fortunately I found the original Chloe at Kmart and bought it there for years until Kmart went bankrupt. I was getting the original Chloe from Amazon but I can’t find it there anymore. I don’t really want to do Ebay. So I’m now using a body spray from Aeropostale. It’s ok.
When I was a freshman in high school we had to dissect a lot of animals and I always had the same partner. She hated the smell of the formaldehyde (and dead animal) so she would spray our specimen daily with Gap Dream. TO THIS DAY if I smell that scent somewhere I can pick it out as the “dead animal” smell. Either someone has replicated it almost exactly or I run into a couple people a year who still wear Dream from the late 90s.
I seem to remember my mother having a perfume called Paloma but when I looked it up (Paloma Picasso) the bottle didn’t strike me as familiar. Anyways, her fave has always been Tresor and I love that scent. In my case I also immediately thought of CK one due to the craze in high school but don’t think I wore perfume then. For a time in university I wore a Shiseido fragrance, though the name escapes me, it was a green bottle. Nowadays I wear nothing and once when my husband bought me a perfume I didn’t like it and didn’t have the heart to tell him…
Wait, no one has mentioned Sunflower yet. That is the only perfume I actually remember from high school/early college (1994). Allergies prevented my wearing it, but it was so popular I had a bottle anyway. I feel like it was a gift, maybe? But, I remember using a dab to fragrance stationary when I was first away at college.
Whenever I try to discover my signature scent, I develop a headache from all the smells and have to leave the store. I have had the same bottle of Burberry Brit for so many years now it could start kindergarten. When I was pregnant, I just couldn’t stand smells beyond essential oils and sort of fell out of the habit. I wore something by Issey Miyake for a couple of years out of college. My 6 yo daughter raids the fridge and dabs vanilla extract on herself when she’s feeling fancy.
I would like to create a signature home scent, but can’t seem to convince my husband. He buys those over scented yankee candles (pretty much their entire inventory that doesn’t come in white) and burns them when I’m not home, because they gross me out. I would choose Voluspa’s French Cade and Lavender. Hhmmm. Maybe I should look for a perfume like that.
Uh oh, is vanilla extract supposed to be refrigerated? I keep it in my baking cupboard. Am I doing it wrong?
I am so invested in this story now! Please do an update post with the results of your scientific experiment!
Does anyone remember their grandmother wearing Youth Dew from Ester Lauder? My grandma treasured that bottle and had it tucked away from special occasions only.
Estée Lauder (damn you autocorrect)