Friday, May 27, 2011

Part II: Trading One Juice For Another

Few years later I remember taking a liking to Elizabeth Arden's Sunflowers. I had a set with the lotion, perfume and shampoo, I loved the shampoo-it made my silky and the scent lasted for days. From Sunflowers I went to Coty's Vanilla Fields, then to Coty's Ici. This was back in the day when the drugstores/dept. stores actually had testers out, nowadays they're locked away or glued to the counter as in my local Target. I loved Ici, I enjoyed the sweet and richness of it, I got a lot of compliments on it and my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) loved it also. I still have a few bottles stashed away.

By that time I was in my thirties (oops, I'm really dating myself now) I had  already begun to amass several perfumes in my arsenal, my old favorite Gucci Rush,  Il Bacio and Gia Matiollo from Bourghese,  YSL's Baby Doll (what was I thinking at the time?) and from a discount department store I became acquainted with Nina Ricci's Deci Dela, Oscar De Larenta's So De Larenta. From a magazine I got a whiff of Guerlain's Mahora, another HAD to have perfume, and I had to look all over the downtown area to find a store that even carried Guerlain, most only stocked Shalimar. Needless to say I found it and still have a mini of it the SA gave to me at the time of purchase.

For a couple of years I shunned my perfumes and wore very gourmand scents, Compitor Sud Pacifique's scents, the vanillas, Coco Extreme, Almond Sunset. I also had a bottle of Pink Sugar. It was a confusing and extremely stressful  time for me (I was a full time caregiver to my ailing mother and it wasn't an easy, it was more like an emotional 24/7 roller coaster) perhaps I was comforting myself with all the vanilla, the comfort scents, the foody scents.

Fast forward to now....I got addicted to perfume. It just sort of happened, I was in a store, took a whiff off a tester and that was it. I spent the rest of the day sniffing my arm and planning on buying a bottle of that stuff. I also sprayed Estee Lauder's Bronze Goddess in my eye that day, it stung. I bought that on my next visit. Around the same time I gave up drinking. I wasn't an alcoholic,  but during my stressful period (see above) I had begun to drink to get away from the stress, the problems, to escape. I never physically needed to drink, I just enjoyed escaping. After my mother passed away, the urge to drink dwindled. I went from having a couple of beers almost every night (and more on the nights that I had the next day off from work-a binge) to only drinking when I had the next day off. After a spell I felt like I didn't want to be bothered with drinking on my nights off, the urge was gone, I found other things to do with my time. I got busy with work and other things and went for 8 months without a drink at all. Over the holidays I had a few which broke the 8 month thing, but it's not like before. Even now I occasionally kick back with a few, but those times are few and far between.

Because the time I gave up drinking coincided with when I became obsessed with perfume, I think to myself that I traded one juice for another. The bar closed and the perfume began to flow 2 months later. And it hasn't stopped!!

No comments:

Post a Comment