How does your body smell?

After reading Patrick Süskind's book, I got a bit obsessed of how me and people surrounding me smell like.

It turned out that my mum's skin smells like fresh apple with baby powdery notes when she is not wearing perfumes. One of my best friend in Grasse smells like aneth, even though she never eats it, her hair, her skin and her whole apartment smells of it!!!

To discover your own smell, I suggest to smell the area under the breasts, or your elbow pit after you have spent at least 2 days without using any fragranced products.

Getting to know your smell is a long process, you might not define it perfectly at first time. If you have difficulties, you can sniff your pajamas that you wore for a few nights to have something tangible to analyse.

When I first examined my body smell, I couldn't name exactly what I smell like, but I was directly in love with it!

Sometimes I am capable of smelling myself with an "objective nose", I am not really sure how it works, cause I only had it for a few times so far, but it clearly was a pretty schizophrenic experience! As if for the first time ever, I smelled myself with "somebody else's nose".

To my greatest surprise, I realized that I am being perceived like ozone with a touch of rice powder. ( Beforehand I liked to think of myself as somebody ambery or deep vanilla-ish... )

Apparently, your smell can change due to the change in your diet or if you travel to a different country/continent. Though I hardly believe that from flowery you change to basil, just because you travelled to egypt and ate a pizza, we all know that certain foods like garlic and asparagus have a great effect.

Defining how your body smells like, is part of getting to know yourself and it serves as a major advantage when chosing your signature perfume!

How to double your chances to find your perfect scent?

Today I am wearing Lolita Lempicka for men, and at least 5 person complimented me on my scent so far, and it 's only 6pm...

Men perfumes are not only for men. Same with ones tagged "for her". If you think certain fragrances are masculin or feminin, be sure that it is not because of your taste, but because your nose was educated to feel this way, mostly based on your culture or very simply due to gendre specific marketing and advertising.

Since a perfume gets only full with the actual accord of your skin, think of the scented products targeted to the opposite sex as unfinished creations awaiting to be completedwith your body's smell! Why would you restrain yourself to only half of what is on the market?!

It all started for me when my brother got Brut by Fabergé when he turned 14 years old. I was only 12, but I knew I will have to handle the stress of secretly stealing a few splash from every day. He, of course, caught me red handed (or red wristed rather....) and finally I got my own bottle of Brut for next Christmas. Brut smelled absolutely fabulous on my skin, like honey just harvested mixed with melted ylang ylang and lavendar juice. My brother stopped wearing it long before I got bored of it.

My boyfriend at the time wore Boss Bottles by Hugo Boss. I actually got in love with his scent more than with himself... I broke up with him just about the time I got my own bottle of the perfume. This is my signature scent. It's not only how it smells - cooked apple with fine musks and cardamom on me - but how it makes me feel. I am strong and full of energy when I have it on. Though I have a weird relationship with my signature scent. I treat this fragrance as Harry Potter does it with Felix Felicis magic potion; with caution and moderation, so that the magical effect won't looses its force :)

First time I went to Sephora in Champs Elysées to spray Gucci II pour homme on, an enthusiastic shop assistant came to inform me that I was mistaken, the products for women were just across the shop. Since I worked for nearly 3 years in the same building, I had enough time to convince her to give up her sexist ideas of perfumes. After a few months, she fell in love with Kenzo for men and still wears it to day. ( For me it was just a japanese soap, but on her it's becoming the most intoxicating scent ever!!! )

Not only there are adventurous women out there: My boyfriend smells amazing wearing Serge Luten's Fleur d'Oranger - which could be considered as an orange blossom headspace, quite unusual scent for a men, but it works perfectly on his skin.

I have heard recently from a fellow perfume blogger that it is "a la mode" in Paris for a young men to wear the female version of Amor Amor by Cacharel.

There are no men or women perfumes. Soon, more and more companies will realize that too. Mostly not for the sake of the beautiful philosophy behind my theory, but rather for doubling the number of possible buyers in a second... Hermes for years now is not addressing its products to nor women or men. They let the customers decide.

Or just have a look at Dolce and Gabbana's Tarot Fragrances; while they are suggesting with visuals who the target audience, they position them as unisex fragrances.

I really need vacation!

Yesterday I had that kind of dream with Jean Claude Ellena.

We were getting it on in his office, but than his 6 years old son entered into the room with a guitar ( what the heck?! ) and started crying and ran out from the room. JC swiftly stopped what he was doing between my legs, and rushed directly after his son. I knew our short but passionate love affair was over and all I could think of was how very sad that I didn't even had time to ask him for the formula of Hiris...

Not another shampoo review

Is it only me or Schwarzkopf's Gliss Liquid Silk Gloss really smells exactly like Stella by Stella McCartney?

A nose in a metro

Anybody who gets to know that I am a Nose, usually asks me how I survive public transportation with such strong capacity of smelling?

I usually tell them that bad smell for me has no meaning anymore. "Bad" became rather interesting, or let's say what average people call 'bad smell' just challenges my mind work together with my nose to understand more the particular odor's structure.

Moreover, I tend to hate some fragrances or scents that are considered normal or even pleasent for others. As I have mentioned it many times before, tarragon's essential oil makes me want to throw up.

It's weird green sweetness along with metallic cold and disharmonic overwhelming heavy stickiness is probably the worst thing my nose have ever encoutered -including my famous horse stable visit where I almost prefered to die than breathing.

That said, public transport is actually one of my favorite experimental field, where scent-trails are changing with each station, some sources of smells ( i.e. travellers ) changing position, some getting off, some new ones coming into my scentmap. Apart from humans, I find the real metro scent not very sexy. The heavy, oily smelling cold metal handrails are carrying a rather faint olfactive prints of recent attempt to disinfection.

A few days ago in Paris, I took the metro to go to see a great new show in a theatre. Jammed inside along with a hundred parisians, I closed my eyes and let the mixture of scents, odors and smells get me.

The first thing that hit me was the breath of a young man, talking to his girlsfriend. His mouth smelled lacerated by nicotine and tar, mixed with a cheap red wine. The girl was also a smoker but she probably didn't consume wine, I could not detect that.

She smelled of a tired menthol chewing gum, and a really expensive niche perfume dried off on her skin totally unmatching her own scent and personality.

Apart from the obvious surface scents, both of them were envelopped with heavy mud and fresh cut grass - olfactively speaking of course, perhaps they were coming from a park. ( ....Or they both wore Thierry Mugler's 'fig-mud' smelling Womanity?! :)

On the other side, a lady in her 40s smelled like the latest flanker of Dior's Hypnotic Poison but her nice scent-harmony was distorted by a cheap, J'adore-trickle-down fabric softner that infected her clothes - hence her aura as well.

A dude sitting near to me, smelled so intensly familiar and comforting to me as if I was around my family. Weirdly, it made me remind of night too. I instantly saw myself in my shared bedroom in our cottage, and than it still took me few minutes to realize that the fragrance is simply very similar to a certain insect killer product called VAPE that my family keenly uses during summertime in our cottage...

A guy entered, and I got hit by his hair's smell ( and probably his feromones too... ) from a few meters far and I felt weak in the knees instantly. He smelled like a forest after rain. I tried to get closer to him with each station passed. When he was only a meter away, I had to close my eyes and control facial expressions, while olfactive orgasm was ramping in my brain.

He got off just two stations too early to fill my appetite. Before the doors closed behind him, I hesitated to become his stalker for 'another round', but I really had to hurry up for the theatre. It was only a 'One station stand'.

I got off at the Sentier. ( I would love that but the word "sentier" has nothing to do with scent, it means trail or pathway in French. )

Olfactive Flashback IV.

I just bought lamb leather insoles. The boots I have fallen in love with in Cannes was only available in one size bigger than my actual size.

Hardly opened the packaging, when still from far, it hit me right on the nose.

The lamb leather insoles smells like concentrated hot milk in aluminium vessel. I was back to 5 (I think so far this is the earliest olfactive flashback I have ever had! Smells like a Guinness record!:). In the small village outside the map where my mum was born, we used to go to take milk from the producing factory near my grandmother's house. My mum's grandmother, who used to work there, always smelled like hot creamy milk, and I just realized why when I entered the production site in mind. Vapor of boiling milk everywhere, the steam was hot and suffocatingly intense. The lactic aromas in the air mixed with the sterilizing products used to clean the aluminium / tin vessels for the clients, before filling it with freshly pasteurized milk.

Get back in time took less than 1 second, but I spent the whole day on trying to recreate the hot milky scent in my head.

Olfactive Flashback III.

I have just arrived to home on this unusally cold ( to Grasse ) evening, and in the hall of the building, I felt at my Grandmother's larder again. Although these olfactive flashbacks happen to me more and more, it really amazes me, how can I travel back in time ca. 15 years in just 15 milliseconds?!

In the corridor, where there is nothing but a relatively dirty blue carpet, white walls and the scent of winter coming, I smelled new-laid eggs in the spun wooden basket. I smelled the 100 years old fridge leaking some suspicious brown liquid onto the bordeaux colored floor tile. I smelled the smoked ham hung over the already chilled bread carefully wrapped into a red-white dish towel. I smelled the amazing plum compote ( secret of my Grandma ) in the glass jar, left unopened by my brother.

If only she knew how much olfactive memory I kept unconsciously from around her...

I tried to say thank you to her in my way, last year for her birthday, I created her the most expensive perfume in the whole world. Literally. Half of the formula was pure Bulgarian Rose oil ( putting the price of my concentrate at minimum above 3000 EUR / kg ) and the rest 50% of strictly luxurious raw materials too.

I offered it to her in 30% solution in 96° alcohol, in a bordeaux colored silk organza pouch. That perfume cost more than what she was paid when she had sold her house, with the bordeaux tiled larder.

I would pay even more to have the larder's air bottled.

Smell and the city

Budapest, this time of the year, smells like the perfect combination of chestnut and anise.

Round, wet, earthy and smoky with cold sweetness.

Lost in Production

This is an article I wrote last year for a magazine that was supposed to be the "Arabic Cosmopolitan", but for some reason, the businessman from the United Arab Emirates who financed the printing decided to keep the initial 10000 copies in his apartment. Hence the lovely public from the middle east -grown up by smelling oud in every perfume and household products- were deprived from reading how the western world wants to smell oriental.

It was high time to share, hereby the uncensored version:

Orientalist perfumes

Western cultures have been always fascinated by the rich, colorful and mysterious cultures of the oriental word. Recently the perfume industry gets inspired by the 1001 night theme more than ever.

Giorgio Armani has created a trio of perfumes to honor the oriental world. One of the three fragrances is an ode to harems, another evokes geishas and the last one was inspired by the Kama Sutra. Lately, By Kilian presented Arabian Nights Pure Oud and Prada launched Eau Ambree.

The recent extreme fascination towards the oriental cultures also can be explained by a classical consumer trend called Escapism. The trend reveals itself in brands’ use of exotic ingredients and marketing concepts which involve the exploration of new lands, new cultures and sometimes even the search of mysticism. This is one of the ways for consumers to rid themselves of their fears and everyday life struggles, which might especially be demanded during the time of the recession. The current situation of the financial crisis has left people with the feeling of disappointment in western philosophy. In the quest for a better system, consumers are opening to Asian cultures such as Arabic, Indian or Japanese. This trend creates the strong emotion of dreaming and flying away to a better world. The fast pace of modern life wets our desire for roads untaken therefore consumers are continuously intrigued by the oriental theme related to any products.

Not only smell these perfumes oriental, but they look like that too. While some creating companies finances endless projects of chemical engineers working on decolorizing natural raw materials for the end product to be colorless, concerning oriental perfumes, the rich brown color imposes. The darker the better! Also the creative work of formulating an oriental perfume is highly fascinating, since it involves the use of a relatively increased amount of rich natural raw materials.

Packaging usually follows the theme of the perfumes, often the touch of orientalism manifests at lively colors linked with mysticism, e.g. green and purple ( Poison by Dior ) or an oriental accessory like fringe completes the bottle ( Onde Mystere by Armani ).

Some might think that it is just another trend of short life, but it is also about coming back to the roots, since we all know that perfumes originates from the Middle East, from Egypt, where in 3000 BC they were used first exclusively for religious rituals during mummification than later on served as toiletries too. One of the oldest raw materials in the perfumer´s palette is frankincense or olibanum, that Egyptians considered as the scent of God, but researchers found details of use of aromatic plants and spices such as anise, caraway, fennel, onion, garlic, thyme, etc dating from 1550 BC.

Perfume genealogy ( similar to a family tree of fragrances ) dedicates a class especially for oriental scents, called Oriental or Amber family with particularly warm, rich and sensual fragrances formulated with exotic woods, sweet balms, resins, spices and musks.

Hereafter, a collection of the most important oriental inspired occidental perfumes starting from the beginning of the 20^th century.

1925: Shalimar by Guerlain

This distinct balsamic, sweet leathery perfume represents the love of an Indian Emperor for his magnificent wife. Shalimar is named after "The Gardens of Shalimar," where the emperor’s love grew towards her. When his favorite wife died at young age, the Emperor commissioned the Taj Mahal in her honor.

The perfume was created literally by an accident. Jacques Guerlain received a sample of a new synthetic raw material evoking the scent of vanilla, ethyl vanillin, and one day playing around with it, he added the entire sample to another Guerlain’s best seller, Jicky, created by his oncle. Hence Shalimar was born, became one of the first “oriental” fragrances made by a European house in recent history and remains Guerlain's number one selling perfume of all time.

1953: Youth Dew by Estee Lauder

Youth Dew originally was created as bath oil and only years after its tremendous success was the perfume version launched. Josephine Catapano, the perfumer of Youth Dew has used very typical oriental notes, such as cinnamon, cassia, clove, tolu balsam, amber and frankincense. This was the first perfume created in the United States, and some say that it explains why it smells so extremely strong: the Americans had no educated noses for perfumes at that time.

1977: Opium by Yves Saint Laurent

Few only know that the original name of this perfume was Black Orchid. If Yves Saint Laurent sticks to his first idea, he could have avoided accusation to condone drug use, among others... But such controversies rather helped the perfume to be well-publicized, which soon became a best-selling scent with its main accords of mandarin, clove, pepper, cinnamon, cedarwood and myrrh.

1985: Poison by Christian Dior

Many perfume experts considers this creation of the famous French house as an answer to Opium. Poison is a fine mixture of spicies; such as anise, coriander, nutmeg; and flowers; like carnation, jasmine and tuberose softened with sandalwood, amber and musks. It’s specific “buttery coconut” heart is given by one of the main flower ingredient, tuberose absolute, which is an exotic night blooming plant could be found in Iran among others. Poison’s heavy tuberose scent initiated a trend of other tuberose smelling perfumes later on, to the point that by the mid 90’s the industry had to face a shortage of tuberose absolute.

1992: Feminite du Bois by Serge Lutens

As a child, Marocco born Serge Lutens fell in love with the distinct aroma of cedarwood from the Atlas Mountains and as an adult decided to immortalise this love by creating Feminite du Bois. Ginger and cinnamon refreshes the flowery heart notes of orange flower and violet which is embraced by an overdose of cedarwood atlas among other woods. This perfume opened the way to woody accords in women’s fragrances and hence it is considered as one of the most creative and innovative perfumes of the 1990’s.

2005: Jardin sur le Nil by Hermès

This perfume is one of the series of a trio called “Les Jardins” ( The Gardens ) of the French fashion house, Hermès. After the first Mediterranean inspired perfume, Un Jardin sur le Nil is a summary of perfumer Jean Claude Ellena’s memories of a journey along the Nile. The fragrance evokes green mango, fresh fig leaves completed with watery notes, incense and light woods.

2009: L’Eau Ambree by Prada

The latest lauch of the Italian fashion house might be the reinvention of the oriental notes for the occidental world, the fragrance is more of a fresh, airy-amber note, far from being heavy and opulent still being diffusive and remaining oriental with citrus notes, gardenia, oppoponax, vanilla and some modern ambery twists.

Although the Oriental trend shows no signs to fade away anytime soon, some lighter versions of oriental perfumes are to be released in the near future ( just as Guerlain released Eau de Shalimar in April 2008, the light version of the original icon perfume ).

In the meantime, this passionate interest is also leading to an even deeper affinity that will probably result in some even more authentic oriental perfumes. And authenticity is of key importance in consumer´s dream. The Middle East is home to many of the ingredients used to create these spice and resin-induced states of euphoria, and it would be wise for local raw material producers to capitalize on this growing interest. In addition to that, it would be well worth for perfumers of this region developing a few signature formulas, well tailored for a Western nose and marketed to the hilt on the basis of the fragrances' authentic origins.

I mean, who in the western world would not want to smell like God?

Eat. Smell. Love.

I recently have observed that my nose is becoming very trained for food's smells. I developed this new skill within just a week time. I keep on amazing myself with directly recognizing the ingredients by having only access to the smell of the given dish.

It started with me going to the printing house to get my new business card.

Suddenly, I have smelled something unusually familiar related to food. It overcame the blue smelling black ink, the Cool Water of the designer working with me and the menthol smelling breath of the secretary who had a bad cold.

Sometimes olfactory memories just swiftly greet my nose and run directly up to my brain, quickly finding their own datasheet among the thousands of organised smells in my mind. I usually know immediately which memory I recall by that particular scent.

Strangely enough, this time, it took me a few minutes to find out when was the last time I smelled this before.

I did find it weird when I realized that I smell grated (!) potato in the middle of a printing house. I actually messed up my business card's design, that much I was focused on the odor itself.

I had no idea why my nose is insisting on grated potato and not just peeled ones for example, but as usual, my nose was right. The scent came from outside, just next to the printing house a women prepared a dish with grated potato and I could see the end result when passing by her shop with my freshly printed cards.

The other time, I passed to the toilet in my apartment, when the combination of cooked cabbage with tomato sauce was tickling my whole nasal system from inside. It was certainly not me preparing any dish with those ingredients, and neither did I have them at all in my fridge. Just a few hours later, my 3rd (!) neighbor brought me some taster from his choux a la tomate... that he - according to his testimony - prepared next to closed doors.

Just yesterday, I was going up the stairs and smelled Fois gras aux pomme, and get confirmed that the restaurant nearby had it as today's special. I even smelled the color of the apple that they have used for this plate. I knew directly that it cannot be a green apple ( too harsh, too sour and very crackling ) or a red one ( which is of some sweetness, more clean and somewhat woody ) and that it is possibly a yellow apple, with the earthy, soft, very matt characteristics.

This last experience made me remember Jean Claude Ellena, who used to tell me how he was able to tell if a lavender oil has been distilled in a glass, copper or other metal container just by smell of it. I think I am on the right track...

and I think I am more into food than Jean Claude, too.

Peony and Rose

As usually, we were discussing perfume accords with my fellows during dinner. We talked about how Rose and Peony were two accords widely used in perfumery in 2009.

Rose accord is used mostly to replace the 5000 EUR/kg priced Bulgarian Rose oil, and Peony for me was really just a "fresher", more trendy way to call the rose accord. There is indeed an olfactory difference: Peony is more soft, more spicy and citrusy than rose and lacks the strong honey effect of it as well. Probably because of that, I always think of Peony as the little sister of Rose, who only arrives until the knee of its famous sibling.

What if Peony is not a baby, innocent version of Rose, but Peony is Rose when it gets out of bed after sex with all her hair messed up?!

Ashley's way of seeing Peony marked me and urged me to go home and rework my baby-rose accord to become a femme fatale Peony. I love having creative friends!

Olfactive Flashback II.

It was in NYC this summer. I went to buy a pair of dance shoes, and as I stepped out of the shop, the smell of my first kiss hit me right on the face. More precisely, on my nostrils.

I started sniff around like a well trained hunting dog to discover the source of the scent and I realized it is coming from a middle age stranger who wears the same cologne than my first love, Endre, some 18 years ago.

I followed him for a few blocks while memories were standing impatiently in line on my mind, waiting to get their turn. I remembered that I made a deal with God, I told him I am going to believe He exists if Endre kissed me. Truth is, Endre did kiss me, but I am still having doubts about God...

Because of that scent, evaporating from the skin of an unknown and moderately distasteful stranger in NYC, I lived the moment again, when Endre took delicately my chin, lifted it slowly and softly kissed my lips. I remember I was concentrating so much that I accidentally left my eyes open.

I found again the taste of his mouth, the smell of his neck, the touch of his beautiful full lips. I couldn't help feeling light, careless and in love with Endre.

I begged my current boyfriend's sorry silently and let myself to enjoy to the fullest the scented memories so well hidden in my head until just now.

Not another perfume review

Is it only me or the new Van Cleef and Arpels perfume, Midnight in Paris, does smell like a Russian sauna?!

Vintage

As a perfumer student, not only you have to be able to recreate Chanel number 5 - purely based on your olfactory analyses, but you also have to be aware of the main perfume trends of 2010.

One of the biggest trend of this year is inevitably the Retro feeling.

Some of the brands are going for the low budget solution and just over-advertising an already existing successful product, like D&G and Dior : I see more Light Blue ads nowadays than in its year of original launch, and Alain Delon looks more charming on Eau Sauvage billboards than back in the 60's.

On the other hand, we have Chanel No 5 Eau Premiere ( is that only me or it is really too much numbers in just one perfume's name?! ), the "new" Chloe In Love, and just recently Belle D'Opium from YSL.

Even Davidoff is hoping to reiterate the success of Cool Water - his best selling men's scent from 1988 -with Hot Water, a "red-hot oriental".

It seems that due to the economic recession, institutional perfume brands are playing it safe and reviving all their perfume blockbusters to capitalize on their success, by making a direct reference between them and the "new" products.

Fine with me. I have to say I like the vintage trend! I totally understand that consumers need some cocooning in this ever changing environment, and it totally works with me too. I recently created a new perfume based on Chamomile, Rose and Tea accords, which directly took me back to my childhood. Even though it was 20 years ago, after just one sniff of the perfume I truly felt the joy of not having to go to school - even though I had just been diagnosed with chronic sinusitis. The scent of chamomile an tea (with serious overdose of honey and lemon) reminds me of my fluffy bed back to my parents house and my mum nursing me.

Some say that the key of the success of Angel /Thierry Mugler is based on the direct link of childhood memories, in this particular case : sweets. ( I have to add that in my humble opinion, the little Brut / Faberge accord hidden in Angel did certainly help too! )

Even though it became trendy to frown at gourmand style perfumes, Angel is still one of the best selling fragrances in the world and its sophisticated little sister Nina / Nina Ricci, in green, candied apple disguise ( from the same perfumer ) is claiming its share!

However, contrary to the 1990's, when vanilla usually served as the central accord, now it is associated with many other ingredients, and the once harsh gourmand note is softened down with floral, woody or spicy accords.

Vintage responds to consumers who would like to reach back to their roots, taking what was secure from the past in order to be ready for the future. The trend offers authenticity and refers to past memories and events, or connections to "real values".

Taken into consideration the current changes in the economic, industrial, environmental and social environment, no surprise that vintage is one of the prevailing consumer trends!

Really, there is nothing wrong with vintage trend, I just wish not only see Chanel No 5 reformulated, but I wish good old days were back too, when the perfume legislation didn't restrict creativity and the ratio of synthetics and natural raw materials in a perfume bottle were closer to 1:1.

Functional Perfumery

Most of the companies creating fragrances for alcoholic perfumes have usually to deal with functional perfumery as well. The main perfumed household products are shampoos, creams, candles, washing powders, liquid soaps, detergents and air refreshers.

The perfume creation for these products is quite different from fine fragrances. Starting with the average price of one kg of perfume concentrate for functional purposes, it is usually never more than 5-6 EUR. Also, the dosage is typically smaller, e.g. for shampoos and creams on average maximum 1%, in the case of candles, it goes up to 8%.

There are specific obstacles to overcome while perfuming functional products, depending on the carrier base we use. For instance, while making a candle, you have to avoid using a whole range of raw materials that are not in favor of burning, patchouli -among others - is known to disturb the homogeneous burning process.

On the other hand, most of the citruses and very light -hence too volatile - raw materials could already evaporate when mixing the hot wax with the concentrated perfume. Perfumers have to take specific classes of functional perfumery to be able create sophisticated and easily adaptable fragrances for household products.

However, the funniest moments of any perfumer's training is actually the preparation of testing air refreshers. To test their performance, we usually create some disagreeable scents typical of any household. The main players are rotten fish, garbage, used cooking oil, and wet dog, but sometimes we would just open an old sample of civet absolute in the testing room for the same purpose.

If an air refresher is able to neutralize those scents, it is ready to be launched!

The one and only perfect First

My "first times" are usually ending with moderate catastrophes in general.

I remember the first time I decided to wear my clothes alone in the morning. Until that day my mum used to come to my room around half past 6, and with eyes still half open she would help me to wear my tshirt, skirt etc etc. One fine day, summertime I decided that I am going to surprise my mum and by the time she came to my room I was already sitting on my bed fully clothed. But I screw it, cause instead of a swift applauding or why not a standing ovation, my mum told me I have to wear something else than my dirty clothes from yesterday.

I also remember the first time I went to do shopping alone. I think my mum sent me to take something unnecessary on purpose. I guess I was around 8 years old. I went inside, took a trolley, took the unnecessary thing, paid, and than... left the product at the cashiers desk, and like a zombie went outside the shop. With the trolley. I even remember forcing the trolley out of the shop's door.

I remember my first kiss. I was so suprised ( though I totally provoked it myself ) that I forgot to shut my eyes.

I remember first time having sex. I was 17 years old. The condom broke. We had to wait 30 mins to the nearest non stop pharmacist to wake up and beg him not to ask for a prescription for a morning-after pill.

And than the first time I created a perfume... It was just a month after we started school and I had no idea about the rules of perfume creation in general. I just added whatever I felt like, my that time favorite jasmin, some rose, osmanthus and my now favorite firewood. And thanks to a divine inspiration I made a beautiful all natural perfume that was miraculously without the brut side-scent so typical of other all natural perfumes.

It was the first time not only did I make something the first time AND right, but with perfumery I made an exceptional "first" still receiving plenty of compliments when wearing my first creation ever.