It’s getting to be that time of year. No, I’m not talking about the holidays, I’m talking about scent binge season. The madness always comes upon me in the depths of winter, and I can feel it building already. I’ve dabbed or sprayed on at least five different perfumes today. I’ve got scented candles burning and I just spritzed my bedroom with Bal a Versailles. I’ll probably dose the blankets with something else before I go to bed tonight. It’s not that I’m searching for just the right scent. I’m craving an olfactory smorgasbord. I want a little bit of everything, and then I want to go back for seconds. I’ll keep this up until I feel slightly queasy. Maybe I’ll scrub down and take a break for a few hours, or even a whole day. But restraint won’t last. Pretty soon I’ll be back to pawing through my collection like a fiend.
I would love to know something about the peculiar brain chemistry behind this weird behavior. I know I’m not the only perfume addict who goes on these benders, so I was surprised when a quick Internet search didn’t turn up much of anything. I checked Avery Gilbert’s blog (which is fantastic, btw), but came up empty. If anyone out there can direct me to information, I’d be grateful. Oh, and feel free to post a confession of your own perfume pigouts. It will make me feel better. Meanwhile, I need to get back to the juice. I’m thinking DSH Khyphi oil might be nice layered with a little Shalimar...
"A New Vice: Opium Dens in France", cover of Le Petit Journal, 5 July 1903.
7 comments:
Hey, this sounds familiar! I used to go through one of these periods every so often. You right, these benders usually occur in winter. What's behind it? If I had to guess, I'd say it has to do with a shorter daylight hours and colder weather. I notice that I get much more enjoyment out of scent at night,once it gets dark outside.
Speaking of perfume, I have mostly lost interest in it once I got back to painting. Now I find myself buying boxes of expensive handmade pastels like they are going out of style and staring at color swatches for hours on end as if in a trance. If someone could only tell me what causes this kind of behavior...
Me too!
And whatever I put on, I'm only happy with it for a minute, then I want something else. It's like binge-eating but (thankfully) without the calories.
It's been cold and gray here so probably is similar there, too, right? There's no pleasurable pick-me-up like fragrance, IMHO. I've been wearing four or five different scents to bed lately.
I'm in agreement with Nika, although the winter has it's charms there seems to be a lack of stimuli, everything is "sleeping". I think we layer our scents and colors so that we have the opportunity to "stumble" on something in passing, so we don't lose the pleasure of that moment when something wafts pass us, that joy of discovery, that rush of "What was that? Ohhh - ah, mmm."
Well, clearly we are all pleasure hounds, and it seems natural that we'd seek sensory stimulation in the dreariness of winter--but still, I do wonder why scent is our drug of choice, as opposed to something else. Nika has re-focused the impulse, which is also an interesting phenomenon. Makes me wonder how much of our obsession is innate tendency, versus a product of environment.
Thank you for the kind call out. Your post got me thinking and I ended up writing about it here.
Oh, YEAH.
We are HOOKED BAD.
It's like the damned squirrels with the nuts ;0...
Only we're rummaging through our scented hoards like Grant took Richmond.
Love you.
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