About 10 or so years ago used to work with a woman, every Saturday it was just me and her in this one section. You get to know your work partner well. Jojo was in her early fifties at the time. She was one of those women whose weight didn't change, she was the same weight from her late teens onward. It seems these non-gaining weight women must have a trunk full of clothes from back in the day, because they'll pull out outfits from a different era and wear it from time to time. We had two of them at work. For example, Jojo would come in wearing acid washed baggy-but tapered at the ankle-jeans from the 90's, and maybe a day-glo top from the 80's along with it.
I think she kept perfume in the trunk, too, because she would wear something that would drive me up the wall! Our other retro dresser wears Opium and she uses a light hand and it's fantastic on her. Whatever Jojo wore, it had an old fashioned smell to it. I wish I would remember what it was! But the smell would get to me so much so that I recalled us having a perfume conversation before and her saying she liked "Vanilla Fields" so I brought her in a bottle, I had extras at home I had grown tired of. I thought at least it was from the same decade somewhat. From then on Jojo reeked of Vanilla Fields and that also drove me crazy. The seating arrangement changed before I picked out another perfume for her, so she continued on with Vanilla Fields.
Maybe it was our perfume competing that drove me crazy, or her heavy handed use of fragrance, I don't know. Why did I think her first perfume was old? Obviously this was before I became a perfumista, otherwise I'd have answers as to why. I think whatever it was smelled "Dated" to me. What makes something dated? Having been exposed to it during a certain period of time, just like a song or style of clothes would seem dated. So whatever Jojo was wearing was something I had smelled long ago. But even back then I'd smell my old, not-used-in-long-time bottles and the scent would bring me back in time, happy memories. Jovan Musk Oil. Coty's Muguent, Emerude. Heaven Scent. Jontue. Charlie. Enjoli. (Yeah, all the drugstore fragrances).
Sometimes when I smell some vintage perfumes they transport me back 30 years ago, to the bathroom of ** Mount Pleasant Street in Somerville, which was my Grandmother's house. She kept about 3 of those old metal cabinets you use when you don't have a closet or shelf space. I have 2 of the cabinets here, storing my photography stuff, plus her 1950's kitchen table and chairs. But those metal cabinets were loaded with perfumes, lotions, old medicines, those floral scented bath pearls and squares and dusting powders. My grandmother said you needed to dust powder before getting into a girdle, it made it easier to get on. What did she have for perfumes? Oh, a lot of Avon and the usual drugstore offerings, I don't recall anything exotic like Shalimar or any old Guerlains or Carons. The last time I was in there was 1989 when me, my mother, aunt, uncle and a cousin or two cleaned out the place, they were selling the house. My grandmother passed in 1980, but my uncle continued to live in her apartment, my cousin downstairs and once my uncle passed and cousin moved out the kids had to sell. But her bathroom was just as she left it back in 1980. I got an unopened Avon Timeless dusting powder set, it was in an amber faceted plastic container. For some reason Timeless appealed to me at the time, and I wasn't one to wear a girdle. I can vaguely recall it's scent now, I remember it being amber-y.
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