Scent Packing

Why I’ve been nosey all my life

Once, when I'd been dumped by a boyfriend, I was so distraught, I kept his remains in a plastic sack. To be clear, the remains in question were a scarf and dressing gown he’d left behind in his bid to make a fast getaway. The reason I bagged them like some forlorn forensic scientist was because after I’d been doing the crying/drinking/drinking/crying thing, I grabbed the scarf and buried my face in it. What I expected to feel was a familiar scratchy woolliness. What I experienced was a more startling sensory jolt.

It smelled. Not of the fragrance he wore. Not of the hymn-bookyness of his slightly damp basement flat that would form a little lost cloud whenever I unzipped my weekend bag. It was pure eau de him. His skin. His hair. A smell I hadn’t really noticed when we were together. But as soon as he turned ghost lover, I felt compelled to hang onto it. A sort of sad version of Eternity not by Calvin Klein.

I knew at some point I’d have to crumple the items into the washing machine and end it all with a single shot of Surf. But I figured that while they remained unwashed, I could untwirl the bag, breathe in and bring him back to life. Not as bonkers as it sounds because after many years of writing about perfume, I’ve learned our sense of smell carries an awful lot of emotional baggage.

The scents of experiences twist and turn and trail throughout our lives. In fact, I’m currently writing a piece for The Scented Letter about one of my favourite smells from childhood – the hardware shop - in particular, the local store that was a beacon of reliability and warmth in a row of 1970s shops that my father frequented. Sometimes, he’d be in there buying a ball of string or a tea strainer. Sometimes, he’d simply want a chat with the owner, a dependable chap in a neatly pressed, parcel-brown overall. And occasionally, he’d pop in to borrow a fiver (I never understood how my dad, beloved by just about everyone in the neighbourhood, could enter an emporium, purchase nothing at all and exit with cash).

The shop offered every widget known – and mostly unknown - to man. It greased the wheels of domesticity and helped make life in the ‘70s tick. Its odour profile was a mix of polishes, paints and paraffin resting on a woody base of scuffed, unvarnished floor. In comparison, today’s Robert Dyas is odoriferously neutral.

I always liked the smell of polish. Lavender. Beeswax. Pledge. However, when mingled with disinfectant, it took an olfactory turn for the worse because this was the smell of the dreaded dentist. While it doesn't bother me at all now, I was traumatised by the concept of dental surgery as a child. I couldn't understand how a perfectly normal looking detached house on a perfectly normal looking street, with a perfectly normal looking front door, could open straight into the bright jaws of hell. I can smell that surgery still. A squeaky sterility that swirled around the sounds of the whizzing drill and the scratchy intercom that beckoned the next patient to descend from the upstairs waiting room to the scariness below.

‘The oddly sweet smell of trolls’ hair’

What of nicer scents I recall? The dust on my ballet shoes that infiltrated every cranny of the red vanity case in which I used to transport my dance paraphernalia. The geraniums and tomatoes in the greenhouse that gave off that breath-shortening, fuzzy greenness. The oddly sweet smell of trolls’ hair. The oiliness of plasticine in my fingernails after I’d been shaping it into miniature manifestations of fruit. Play-Doh that you could (rather lazily in my opinion) squish through a press – its distinctive candy smell has since been trademarked by Hasbro.

I also remember the cheap but exciting, melamine-tinged interior of our holiday caravan - the hotter the weather, the more tinged it became. It was my first memory of travel. Naturally, my scents of adventure have become more sophisticated: the early morning vanilla air of Venice, wafting from cafés and bakeries; incense coiling ever upwards in Vietnamese temples; fiery spices in Old Delhi’s markets; and the steely clarity of Antarctica – funny how a lack of smell can become a smell of its own, rather like silence can seem almost deafening.

As for that bag with the scarf and dressing gown, I rapidly reached closure, so opened the bin liner and slammed the contents into the machine. An hour later, I was sniffing the items like a 1950s’ housewife. And yes, I was happy with my wash. In fact, the detergent manufacturers could add it to their claims. Erases grass stains, red wine, BO and OB (old boyfriends).