Down memory lane...

Can you remember the first commercial perfume you ever consciously smelled?

What was it?
Where did you smell it?
How old were you?
Did you buy it, then or later?
Do you, would you, still like this perfume today?

I'll go first. The first perfume of which I was conscious of the brand and bottle was Helena Rubinstein's Heaven Sent. I was eight and I had coaxed my dad into bringing me to the drugstore specifically because I wanted to buy perfume for my mom. I must have smelled perfume before, at our home or someone's if I knew enough to say that's what I wanted to buy but I can't remember any particular brand prior to that, although I remember many perfumey smells in the environment. In the store I must have smelled a few but that's the one I picked and remember. It was (at the time) a rather sweet and heady floriental type of scent. Later when I started buying perfume for myself I had moved over to the floral aldehydics and eventually to a whole range of scent categories. Today I would probably not wear it but would prefer something a bit more understated.

So, what was the scent that marked your entry into the world of commercial perfumery? Where did it all begin?

Well, I guess the first commercial perfume I remember smelling was one of these three:

Coty Emeraude
Chanel No. 5
Worth Je Reviens

My mother wore them from the time I can remember, and I remember smelling them on her clothing, or in her hair, or even just taking furtive whiffs from their pretty bottles on her dresser.

I guess if I had to choose, it would be No. 5. That scent was always on the fur collar of her coat and I instantly associate that scent with my beautiful mother.

The first commercial perfume I remember smelling that I personally wore was probably one of the Avons or possibly Coty Sweet Earth.

My mother's Shalimar is the first one I remember. I especially remember using her body cream (absolutely marvellous by the way. Ooh, that glorious pink goo!) and getting scolded when she noticed I had almost used it up.

Then there was my sister's bottle (I'm almost sure it was Avon), that our grandmother gave her. It was shaped like a thistle and smelled a bit like Dior's Fahrenheit. I sort of used that bottle up as well. I was a naughty....no, curious child.

Going out and smelling bottles on my own I remember a summer in the sea-side town of Halmstad in Sweden. I must have been 12 or so. In an apartment store there were mirrored trays with tester bottles. I remember being immediately smitten by Habit Rouge, so sweet and soft and curious. And also Molyneux Captain in an odd-looking bottle. Can't remember what Captain smelled like, though.

I also remember a cruise to Helsinki. Mother was going to stock up on Shalimar, and I reached for a bottle of Nahema (which I remember was advertised as a new fragrance). I kept begging her to buy it because I loved it so much, but she didn't relent. I also wanted a bottle of Jovan Musk for men for myself, but she didn't think it was appropriate for a nine-year old.

I could go on and on...

Habit Rouge I ended up buying, albeit a few years later. I still wear it occasionly.

Edit: Those first experiences, don't you think they are the most important? when I wrote the above, I really could see myself. It was like being there again. Powerful! Thanks for initiating the experience, fiveoaks!

Has to be Chanel No. 5 since it was all my mom could wear. And only on formal occasions
I did buy her a bottle for her birthday. I must have been under 10 because dad paid for it.
I haven't smelled it in a while, but I didn't dislike it and would probably still like it.

The first commercial perfume for me would have to have been Polo by Ralph Lauren. I bought a bottle in the early 80s when I was in my early 20s. I liked it then; don't like it now.

The bottle of Polo was stolen during a robbery a year or so after it was bought, and I never bothered to replace it.

Oh, it would have to be Jean Nate. I remember being as young as four or five, getting ready for Sunday Mass and my mother spritzing me with a little Jean Nate just before we headed out to church. My mother loved it and had the cologne spray and dusting powder. I still like it and use the body splash once in a while. Very nice and cooling after a shower, and doesn't clash with any other perfume I wear.

Have to be my mother's "going out" scent: vintage Nina Ricci L'AIR DU TEMPS... in its halcyon incarnation. In those days, she'd spray it on, and the lovely aldehydic/carnation/musk sillage would waft throughout the whole house. Today, Mom still has her stash of L'AdT juice and ancillaries... but dare never wear them, as they cause her allergies and migraines.

My paternal grandmother's STRADIVARI by Matchabelli. I recall it as being like a sweeter version of TABU, perhaps? [This may be where I began my love of dense Orientals...] It's been said that the recent stock by VERMONT COUNTRY STORE (?) is not like the vintage at all... unworthy even to carry the name...?

My father owned a LE product put out briefly by ARAMIS in the late-1960's: it was called FRAGRANCES OF THE WORLD. Four bottles in the shape of a laboratory beaker, with brushed steel screw-on toppers. Four different colors of juice. Four titles: BRAZIL (red juice), FRANCE (light blue juice), ITALY (amber juice), SWEDEN (clear juice). In retrospect, I realize that they were a Tobacco-Pepper-Oriental, a sophisticated dry Fougere, a pungent Citrus/Chypre and an evergreen spruce-y Woody, respectively. Funny how the nose can remember such things! My mother and I both were fondest of the BRAZIL. When Aramis HAVANA for men came out in the 1990's, it reminded me a good deal of how BRAZIL once smelled. I have yet to find any modern Perfumista who remembers this LE product...

Dad also owned the juice and powder to Avon SPICY! Which I remember disliking...

My teenaged uncles wore--- gasp!--- HA'I KARATE.

My sister had a whole range of LIDDLE KIDDLES dolls, who hair smelled of violets and plastic.

I have never heard of those Aramis limited ones, Ra-ra. Interesting.

Isn't it typical that the Sweden one was clear? Clear, nondescript, servile and boring.

A young Swedish popstar was recently asked in an interview in an American magazine what her typical Swedish characteristics were. She answered "I hate myself and I want to die". So funny.

To make this post valid, my father used nothing. There was a bottle of something really cheap called Aqua Vera, but he never used it. At least he never smelled of it.

Did we grow up in the same house? I remember pretty much a similar routine , including Sunday Mass. Of all the things she loved that have disappeared this is the one she pines for the most.

While I have a strong recollection of Jean Nate at a very very early age , I also recall Emeraude , Bird of Paradise , Charisma and Sweet Honesty being in my mothers collection and I have vivid recall of my elder cousins who babysat me sprtizing me with Tigress.

most of these memories seem to go back to age five or so and of the lot the only one I went on to buy for myself was Tigress , though in my "tween" years I was gifted with the preferred Avons.

On my mother's dressing table was a cut glass set which included one of those boudoir type perfume atomisers with a rubber ball and tassle. When I was a little boy, I used to unscew the top and sniff inside the empty bottle and loved the smell. When I grew up, I realised that the smell in the bottle was Shalimar. I never got a chance to ask my mum what had been in the atomiser. She died when I was 2 years old.

As for men's scents, when I worked in pharmaceuticals as a teenager, one of the 'lads' in the warehouse always smelt fantastic and I didn't know what it was. It turned out that it was Brut. It suited him.

Barry

"Can you remember the first commercial perfume you ever consciously smelled?"

Woodhue, by Fabrege. It was my mother's daytime scent. I would've been seven or eight. We lived in Japan for a few years, and although my father wasn't in the military, we had base privileges, and in those days the BX sold fine perfumes. So she also had a big bottle of Arpege and another of Moment Supreme, both perfumes, for big events.

I believe Woodhue is discontinued. I see it sometimes on ebay and in that catalog -- Vermont Country Store.

I was kind of a geeky kid. I had a chemistry set, and one day tried mixing up some of the perfume with some Hawaiian Punch and some cinnamon and probably nail polish remover and some other stuff, and then boiling it on the stove. Luckily, the house didn't burn down. I guess it is a tribute to her skills as a parent that she didn't wring my neck.

Anyway, both my parents are gone now, but I still have the Arpege and the Moment Supreme, both about half full. Sometimes I wear the Arpege, which is still in decent shape, because it was boxed up all these years. (I'll blog about this one of these days.)

Gosh, this is a hard one! I had the glamorous aunt who was a career girl when not many were, and I can remember her having wonderful bottles on her dressing table which I am sure were Guerlains and Diors, but I can't identify them.

My mother wore Coty l'Aimant and Emeraude , Yardley Freesia and also Worth Je Reviens, then later I remember Elizabeth Arden Blue Grass and Revlon Aquamarine - oh, and Youth Dew and DanaTabu too. Hmm, wonder where I got the perfume gene from? None were expensive as there wasn't much money around, sadly. A well-off family friend used to be generous with her own collection and dish out Vent Vert, Jolie Madame and others. Actually, the more I type, the more I remember.

My father was always immaculate and sweet-smelling too, so he wore (of course) Old Spice (which I'm sure he was given as Christmas presents). As I grew up and had money of my own I bought him the various men's fragrances that came out, starting with Aramis, through Paco Rabanne Pour Homme, Chanel Pour Monsieur, Geoffrey Beene Grey Flannel.......

It is lovely to read about other people's earliest scent memories! Very touching indeed.

My mother didn't wear perfume, but the first time I sprayed Ormonde Jayne Orris Noir I remembered her dusting powder. It smelled just like it.

I wish I knew what she used, I remember the eggshell colored box with the design of gold lines, but there was no writing on the container.

Chanel nos 5, 19 and 22 at the department store with my mother at my insistence, although where I picked up the bug I have no idea. The Chanels chosen by my mother so I wouldn't bug myself up with twenty incongruous non-classic testers while my she tried to catch me. We went through all three Chanels for the contrasts. I would have been 7 or 8. Certainly appreciate them as an adult, although 19 grabbed me the most then and I assume grabs me most of the three now; smelling 22 again has proven elusive. I have 19 only for the moment. It's also possible that the first was my grandfather's Old Spice. He was the only family member who wore a palpable scented product.

Love's Baby Soft.

Ha-ha, accolon... I think one of the stereotypes the world has about Sweden is not at all that it is boring or nondescript, but rather that the environment is pristine, clean and pure. The glacial waters in the fjords, and so forth. I'm sure that's what the "clear juice" motif was meant to reference...? And the smell of this cologne was "cold", like spruces in snow.

Astrologically, Sweden in general (and Stockholm in particular) are said to be ruled by the sign Aquarius, The Water Bearer. I've always thought, therefore, that I'd fit in very well in your land...

P.S. I know our European readers are familiar with the Boney M. hit pop song of 1977 called "Ra-Ra-Rasputin"... but I wonder if our American friends are?

I am quite certain the Canadian ones are , could not go anywhere without hearing Boney M in the seventies.

the lyrics "russia's greatest love machine" permanently imbedded into my head at a very young age , catchy tune though

My story was similar... Parents might expect their little daughters to take a burgeoning interest in fragrance.... but often they are mystified when their little boys do. I was exactly the same in this respect, accolon.

Shouldn't we be outside, playing ball??

And I thought I was the only one singing away to "Ra Ra Rasputeen, lover of the Russian Queen" every time I saw one of your posts!

My friend in Glasgow sings this over the phone to me whenever we speak... Just to take the mick...

It was one of my mother's body creams. She used Avon Skin Softeners in the jar. I remember Honeysuckle, Lilac and a black jar of Occur!. She used to have the solid perfume sticks too. She was a teacher and at Christmas she used to give me the minis of Avon lotion and scent she received from students. When I was 9, one of my older sisters gave me a bottle of Love's Baby Soft. I still buy it though it is much changed from the original.

Emma

What beautiful posts! It's amazing (but not surprising!) that so many here remember their first sniff of a commercial perfume so well and in so much detail. This is a read I could not enjoy more. Keep the memories coming!


Ra-ra, the two are not necessarily exclusive. Around the same tender young time I was clamoring for perfume I was an avid softball player. We were a group of kids from the neighbourhood who formed teams daily of whoever was available. During the school year we played every day from the ringing of the dismissal bell until suppertime and in the summertime we played for several hours every day. You wonder I had any time left to smell perfume!

The first fragrance that I recall from early childhood made a considerable impression. My sister, 19 years my elder, lived in a big city and dowsed herself exclusively with a musty powdery slightly anise fragrance. In a word--weird, well to a 6 year old anyway. She had purchased it in Paris in 1963, apparantly the favorite scent of the well groomed French and she wore it as her signature for at least a couple decades. When I smell this fragrance today, I am still transported to those winter and spring holidays in a big city, usually filled with dressy social events or garden tours, but all very white gloved. Yes, little girls wore white gloves in the 1960s just like Jackie Kennedy. It was a different world in many ways, and the perfume was of the same dreamy era, before vietnam, before gas lines, stagflation and a 70% maximum tax bracket. What was it, L'Heure Bleue edt. Created before WWI, it was a soft Edwardian fragrance of high sillage.

The second fragrance was Norell. My mother bought a one ounce pure parfum at great discount in Freeport Bahamas when I was nine. It was clean and green and set my style for life. Also, I do have a love of rich pure florals, and I always assumed it was just a random preference, until my sister told me that my mother's previous signature scent had been Joy parfum, since 1946 when Dad returned from WWII. So, that was the fragrance she wore in my earliest days. The smell of Joy parfum does bring me joy, instantly. Funny how early impressions transcend space and time.

The first one I recall is Coty Emeraude when I was quite young. One of my favorite aunts wore it forever. I loved going in her bedroom after she got dressed just so I could inhale the wonderful fragrance that filled the room and followed her where ever she went. I actually did wear it when I got older. Sadly, it doesn't smell the same anymore, or at least not the way I remember it. It was like sweet powder. Whenever I see it, which is rare, I ALWAYS think of her and it brings a smile to my heart.

Yes I remember my father wearing Old Spice, but he really loved another one by Shulton, called Burley. IT came in the same shaped bottle but it was smokey brown translucent glass and smelled divine. He also liked a cologne named West Indies Limes or something like that.

Charlie - My EVIL stepmother wore it and to this day, I still can't stand the scent. I was 7 years old.

Next would be Jovan Musk Oil - my mom wore it and it smelled so pretty on her. I was 9 years old. I have an old vintage bottle of this oil in my collection.

The first fragrance I remember was my mother's splash bottle of Lanvin Spanish Geranium on her dresser. I grew up in California and geranium plants grew like weeds everywhere. I have always loved the smell of geraniums, and remember being surprised at how much the fragrance smelled like the real thing. I was overjoyed when I won a bottle of this fragrance on Ebay several years ago because of the association with my mother who died in 1993. I still have the bottle and it's a treasured part of my collection!

It was my grandmother's Chanel No. 5. (Real perfumes, anyway. I'm not counting various toilette waters, soaps, and other scented products)

Teddius

My mother wore Private Collection so that is probably the first commercial perfume I remember smelling.

My favorite aunt wore Rive Gauche.

As a little kid, I remember Love's Baby Soft Lemon, Jean Nate and my mother had a little glass bottle with green top of something called Green Tea that I *think* was Elizabeth Arden.
I might wear Love's Baby Soft Lemon today.
I remember my first *real* perfume purchase at about 14 years old. It was Diva by Ungaro. Would I wear this today? No. It's too heavy.

White Shoulders on my mother.

I distinctly remember sniffing Emeraude in solid parfum while sitting in the back of our family car -- a VW beetle. It was my mother's, and I thought it was the most divine smell in the world. Would I wear it today? Maybe, in small doses. It was heady stuff. The new version smells nothing like it.

I remember my Grandma's red bottle of Avon Charisma in her bathroom. The smell of Charisma and Dove soap reminds me of her.

I'm not going to write here about my first perfume, because you are unfamiliar with them, but my first perfume in the west was gifted to me by my South African cousin, who came to visit me as soon as I came to Israel , it was in the early 70s,it was Diorissimo, and it was simply haven.

I remember sniffing my mother's Je Reviens, and L'air du Temps. The first perfume I bought was Casaque - I was 12 or so, and I remember visiting the big chemists that sold perfume, and sniffing my way through dozens before falling in love with it, and spending my precious paper-round money. I bought a bottle recently on eBay, and it was exactly as I remembered it.

Then I fell in love with Diorissimo and Vent Vert. Vent Vert was only available in Harrods as I recall - I used to go there with my schoolfriends after school and they would go and look at clothes and I would stay in the perfume department... Vent Vert unfortunately always gave me a raging headache although I loved it. Again, I bought a bottle of the vintage parfum on eBay a while ago, and it is still wonderful and still gives me a blinding headache - the only perfume that has ever done so! I also wore Eau Sauvage throughout my late teens.

Judith Miller's perfume (don't know if it's Bat Sheba or Shalom) and Shalimar. Both were my grandmother's and she let me have and play with the empty bottles.

Well it would either have been my Dad's Old Spice, my Mum's Tweed or my Aunt's
L'Aimant. The first scent I wore was Aqua Manda (by Goya I think). How I wish I
could smell that one again!!

Mine was my Mother's Apple Blossom by Helena Rubinstein, I recall it was in a pink plastic bottle. I remember taking sneaky sniffs from the bottle which lived on her dressing table - I must have been quite young, around 7 or 8 years old!

I have never owned any and I doubt you can get it now, but if it was available and smelled similar, I would certainly get some to add to my collection.

Terriffic thread! First I remember meddling in my mother's vanity and discovering a bottle of Tabu. Not thinking she could smell the evidence, I swore I had not been into her things! (I was 5 years old at the time!) Later it was her signature Arpege that had me enthralled. Remember being feverish and smelling her Arpege as she brushed my forehead. Next when in junior high an "older" girl wore Tussy's Midnight. I thought it was fabulous. My first olfactory smack for a men's scent was smelling Mem's classic English Leather on a friend at church. Never smelled as good on me.

Same here.

The first fragrance I ever remember smelling is 4711, which is what my mother wore...and what she bathed my feverish forehead in...and used on my hair when I came in from playing as a child, to get that "game-y" smell out of my hair.
And I also remember Florida Water, which was one of the few scented things my father ever wore...and Bandit, which was one of my grandmother's favorites. Yep, my petite grandmother who wore size 1 clothing, way back in the day, and her shoe size was a three...wore Bandit. She was a strong woman and she really liked scents which made a statement.

For me, it was when I was around 11 and it was a bunch of Chanels. It was in the mid 90s, I was in Montgomery Ward's with my parents, and there was a big jar filled with vial samples of Chanels (ah, those were the days). I took a handful, recognizing the name Chanel, newly arrived though I was to the US. Took them home, sniffed them, I remember not being impressed by No. 5, and hating Cristalle and No. 19 (til this day I still refuse to try either) and thinking geez, I thought these were supposed to smell good

When I was about eight, somebody gave me a Christmas present of a little trio of perfume bottles, labelled Morning, Noon, and Night. I was under the impression that I was meant to alternate three times a day, according to the labels, so I did. I must have been very well scented!

When I was about 11, a friend gave me a bottle of Yardley White Satin. I loved it and wore it often.

My mother wore Tweed on occasion, so I remember that one from childhood too, and my granny wore 4711 sometimes, or at least she had it on her dresser drawer.

Thanks again for sharing these wonderful stories!


HT, you mean you weren't supposed to alternate?! Wearing each perfume in its time seems logical to me! I think you did the right thing!

I notice a couple of people have mentioned Tweed. Loved that as a teenager and it was my signature perfume for a time. What's curious to me about Tweed is it's one of the few perfumes that when I think of it in my mind, I can smell it at the same time.

My first big fragrance memory was being in a peach colored, aldehydic tuberose Chloe bubble bath in the mid 1970s. I would wear Chloe again, if they came back with the powdered bubble bath, lotion, talc, etc...

Oh, how I loved reading this thread. The two that I remember are Old Spice and Charlie. Old Spice was worn by my beloved grandfather, and I adore the scent. Even now I well up when I catch a wiff of it. Charlie was worn by my mother when I was young. I absolutely despise the smell of it and I was ever so glad when she switched her loyalty to Jessica McClintock. I don't love that one either, but it's at least tolerable.

-Noelle

Does Tinkerbell cologne count? (It came in a set with peel-off nail polish!)

That and Petite Nate are my earliest scent memories.

Absolutely counts!

I am pretty sure it was Coty L'Aimant. I remember it was in a small black bottle with a pink satin ribbon at its neck. It is a long time ago. ....
I wore Tweed a bit now and then but I preferred pretty florals back then.
If anyone remembers the pretty little black bottle can you confirm it was Coty L'Aimant. ??

One early instance I remember was when my friend Jenny (we were all of 4 or 5 years old) offered me one of her box of "nips". I tentively took one of the slender glass vials from the "convenient and elegant purse size container" and followed her suit of breaking off the end. She told me they were for "perfume emergencies".
The 'fume was My Sin and I couldn't get my young head around a "perfume emergency".

Love the "perfume emergency" story!

In my house, it was Jean Nate, L'Air du Temps, Emeraude, Bal a Versailles and Secret de Venus. We also had various Avon scents around occasionally when we'd order from the catalog, mostly the solid perfume ones.

Of course, we bought Giorgio when it came out in the 80's! :-) But the first real scent I remember buying for myself was Poison, followed by Ysatis, Cabotine and Byzance.