I've probably mentioned the term "Rosebud" in this journal before, my appropriated term from "Citizen Kane" meaning anything from my past that I lost, forgot, abandoned or threw out, that I crave for and, with luck, find again. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. I've been rosebudding with scents and perfumes lately, and today I got part of my "Rosebud" collection that I never actually had.

Scent is the strongest sense when it comes to memory, as they say, so it would only be natural that something we crave from our past is a scent itself. It's the closest we can get to time traveling. Unfortunately, there are some scents that I'm afraid I will never smell again, that were too much a part of their era and wouldn't translate to the here and now in terms of product profitability. I remember two liquid perfumes I got when I was around 15, around the time of the bicentennial. Their packaging and graphics were hippie 1776--if you can imagine--with a round plastic ball on top and a plastic stick applicator. I'd used them up a long time ago, but somehow their empty yet still somewhat scented vessels found their way here, to Wisconsin. And stupidly, just a few years ago, I threw them out. I can still see one of them sitting on a small cabinet in the bedroom. WTF was I THINKING?!?

I won't dwell on that unhappiness. There's a bright side too. Around that same time, 1976, I also acquired some fragrances from Coty (brands meant nothing to me then) called "Sweet Earth." They came either individually or three to a compact, related scents in little rectangles. Coty released about 7 varieties of them, unfortunately, I only had 3 of them (THIS WOULD BE UNHEARD OF TODAY) and one single fragrance (hyacinth, I think). The ones I had back in the 70s were Woods (Sandalwood, "Amberwood" and Patchouli--which isn't a wood, but is often included with wood-related scents), Grasses (Clover, Gingergrass and Hay), and Colonial Garden Flowers (Peony, Lemon Verbena and Lavender). I can still remember how they smelled, all of them. I remember how the Grasses almost had a slightly grainy yet very soft quality to the wax, and how all Colonial Flowers smelled lemony, as all the Woods smelled woody, sometimes indistinguishable from each other. I loved them all. But I have no idea what happened to them.

In a newfound/renewed interest in fragrance lately, Google is definitely my greatest ally. I can't remember the exact search terms I used, but I managed to find a message board of like-minded 40-something women who were longing for the EXACT same thing! And on the message board was a link to a store, the purveyors of retrophenalia, Vermont Country Store.

My parents bought from their catalog before. They got me some nice soaps for the holidays once, and some English licorice candies (Licorice Allsorts) that I like a lot. But nothing in their catalog really hit me that much...old people clothing, outrageously expensive food that, according to my parents, disappointed them and was not to the quality of the item that they remember from the pre-technological era. But most of their items were geared toward the over-50 crowd, or even the over-70 crowd like M & P. Make that the over 100 crowd, over $100,000 year in income, that is. Some of the food they sell is OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. But they also seem to be cashing in on the under-50 crowd too, and their updated versions of three of Coty's Sweet Earth Fragrance sets hooked me in.

The other week I noticed that their "Rare Flowers" collection--Tuberose, Jasmine and Mimosa, became available, so i ordered it and received it today. I'm adding it to my other two I ordered last month, "Flowers'"--Hyacinth, Honeysuckle and Ylang Ylang, and the abovementioned "Woods." It's odd that I now have three fragrance sets, just like when I was a teen. But only one of them is a true Rosebud, the Woods, which also happened to be my favorite. The fragrances seem a bit different, perhaps not as strong as the original 70s versions, but still enjoyable. A reasonable facsimile.

I do hope Vermont Country Store decides to put out the four other sets, the "Grasses" and the "Colonial Garden Flowers'" that I used to have, as well as "Colonial Wild Flowers" and "Herbs" that I never had. I remember looking at the Herbs set when I was young, wanting to get it, but not having the cash. I missed my chance. I will stalk VCS often, just to see if they add a new scent to their repertoire. Some people want things they used to have, and then there's those of us who want things we never had.

I guess I could always get the essential oils and construct my own scents, but there's something about finding a Rosebud that can't be replicated.

Labels: Scents