Human nature can explain a multitude of activity. And that is probably one reason why I love history so much. Human nature just doesn’t change, and I love the unified feeling with the past in trying to understand the motivations behind what has already happened. A lot of human nature is horrific I am sorry to say, and some of it is down right silly.
I have this theory that helps me cope with the craziness of my fellow humans: they really can’t see past their noses. And to extrapolate it further, they also cannot project into the future past that very second of their existence. None of that is an excuse of course, just an attempt at understanding human nature to try to understand why they (AND ME!!) do some of the things they do.
One of my fascinations in life has been fragrance. Call it perfume, cologne, toilet water, whatever….I’m a fan. I’m not sure why either. My Dad was against artificial fragrance of any kind. He couldn’t tolerate it. My Mom did like to smell good which was nice. Not the cheap stuff either. There was always some Lanvin, Chanel, or Guerlain bottle of something on her dresser. I don’t think she had a signature scent though. So neither were fragrance freaks by any stretch.
I think it might have been sheer consumerism on my part that got me into it. I loved the perfume advertising…the packaging…the whole mystique that Madison Avenue (or is that Rue de Madison?) churned out hooked me like a hungry trout. I think I also liked that most of that advertising took place at the end of the year to coincide with the Christmas season. Another pleasant connection for me.
Anyway, that kind of explains something.
I never thought there was anyone else out there like me. I didn’t feel freakish, I just thought me interest was another one of those esoteric fancies that night be mine alone.
Of course I was wrong. Thanks to the internet, I see the hundreds (maybe thousands) of people online devoting so much of their energies to discussing the whole world of fragrances. And as is human nature, everyone has an opinion!
If you spend any time at all reading the fragrance sites, you are sure to run into a favorite phrase of some of the reviewers: “it smells like an old lady” or “old man”. That may tell you nothing other than the reviewer is rather boorish and someone should by him/her a thesaurus. I used to think that of them.
But now that I can officially be called “an old man” (show me your AARP card and I’ll show you mine), I’m not as offended by that phrase as I used to be. Tastes change. Senses change. We simply can’t like the same things in the same way at the age of 20 that we do 20 years later. That is not always a bad thing. So at age 20 you smell a cologne and smell “old man” and decades later you smell the same thing and think it is heaven sent. No big whoop I guess. No need to disparage either party. They are in their moment. Let them be.
SO why the smelly epiphany? I have been exploring some fragrances that I have never bothered with. Why? Truth be told, I just hated the greasy, musty, unpleasant way they tended to smell. Decades later I have forgotten what they smelled like and wanted to give them a shot again. So I ordered up a bunch of samples and got to sniffing.
Surprise, surprise…most weren’t half bad. Certainly not the stinkers I remember. Except for one.
The Fat of Now 