What do you smell like today?



My perfume is sunbathing beside an apple that once was.


Perfumes remind me of different stages of my life.

Exclamation! was the bridge between cheap deodorant to my first real bottle of Lulu that I could afford.

My best friend at school wore Obsession and I wished quietly for my very own, even though I didn't like it so much.

I felt like a real grown up lady during my Clinique phase and Kenzo Jungle told people I'd arrived in a room and left a little while ago.

For now I've settled on Caruthsia and really nothing else will do - except something made by Tesco that I loved and they discontinued. (sad face)

Out of the range, I was introduced to Ligea.  The scent carries a great story.  It's not mass produced or created by some famous person's people.

It's hand-made on the Isle of Capri.  They tell me it's the littlest perfume lab in the world and I believe them.

The ingredients are picked from a monastry garden.  I'm not a religious person, but I like the fact that the seeds of my scent have been nourished by the Italian sun and harmonious prayer.

They still use the same method the monks did hundreds of years ago. 

I warn you.  The first sprays are potent. 

I always cough out loud - which is gross and have to apologise in advance to people around me for the strength of the smell, the ooomph that hits the back of your throat and forces you to stop breathing.

Then it settles and one smells of gentle talcum powder.  Fresh, breezy, clean and distinctive.  It lasts forever.

The £50 for 50ml is a fair price to pay, but I always opt for £60 for 100ml - cause I always like a bargain.

It's the gentler version of  Guerlain's Shalimar  -  a delicious youthful smell  is revealed  only once the initial old musky tones fades away.

When I was 24, I had just moved to London and there was this very grand fashionable lady called Anna. She was an Account Director in ad agency I worked in.  I loved how she glided into a room - stong, beautiful and self assured.  She wore black against pale skin. Her bright designer jewelry wrapped round her kneck and wrists.  They sort of knocked your eyes out ever time you saw her. But it was her smell that I wanted to emulate. 

I thought when I'm older, when I can call myself a lady, I too will smell like you.  She told me her secret smell and I forgot it, then I remembered Shalimar. 

Now I've found my alternative it's always lovely to hear someone say I like your perfume and for some reason it's even lovelier to say it was made by monks.