My sacred secret relationship.
Whenever I go to “order again” on my amazon app, I never think perhaps I should change up my signature scent, try something new, check out the best sellers. Nope, not a chance in h@#. I’ve read enough fashion magazines to smear the paper sample from the ad pages over my wrists thinking maybe this could be the one. But, I always regret it. I shop at enough department store beauty counters and get spritzed enough to know they will never compare!
There is one consistency in my life, my perfume, my longest relationship other than with my family. Actually, it isn’t even perfume, it’s “eau de toilette”. Which translates to “toilet water” in English but as a bilingual Canadian and a lover of Parisian culture, it actually means “grooming water”. The real difference is that “eau de toilette” is diluted with alcohol and usually lasts about 2 hours and costs less. Perfume is more potent, and it is supposed to “throw” it’s scent up to 24 hours.
You know how smells and scents remind you of something or someone? Like how my Babi’s (my Ukrainian grandmother) house either smelled of cinnamon buns or cabbage…yes she made the best, I mean the best cinnamon buns. They didn’t need frosting or butter or anything. They were divine. Purely perfect. She also made Holubtsi, which are cabbage rolls. Tightly rolled rice (sometimes with ground pork) in a leaf of cabbage and baked to perfection in either tomato sauce or bacon fat….now how did I get from perfume to bacon fat? Ok, I’m getting off topic but you get the point. By the way, gardenias remind me of Hawaii….ok now I’m done…back to toilet water, I mean grooming water…my longtime friends, past boyfriends, even colleagues in an elevator (you know who you are!) will know when I walk by…
My long-time sacred love scent is with Jean Paul Gaultier Classique. Now through the years the company has tried to improve upon it, but like my Babi’s cinnamon buns, nothing compares to the original. Gaultier’s Classique debuted in 1993. I was in college and remember seeing the packaging, a silver tin cylinder, a red imitation velvet insert holding this sexy glass figure containing the most glorious scent. I saved my tips as a waitress and bought it from a sweet sales lady with a peach sweater set at the Sears counter in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for the first time.
The sexy bottle altered throughout the decades. The bodice of a women sometimes etched with flowers or lace detail over the glass; even boudoir legs attached upside down however I never fell for the “upgrade”. The perfumery reinvented it with names like, Scandal, SO Scandal, La Belle, or Cabaret… I stayed with the original. Classique.
When I go through duty free at the airport I still buy a few to stock up on. I am panicked when I have ¼ left in my 3.4 ounce gorgeous bottle. It seems I will never tire of it and after 27 years Jean Paul Gaultier Classique will always have a customer. My secret it out.
