The Sweet Smell of Success
by Sheila Grant
What is the sweet smell of success? Does it exist? It seems to me that our scent organs are tested to the limit on a daily, even hourly basis.
Not content with traditional perfumes manufacturers are adding scents to every day items.
It is no longer sufficient to wash your clothes in just any detergent. The washing powder must impart the scent of a spring morning, or perhaps an alpine forest. As if that was not enough to really make your wash fit for the most delicate skin, a rinse must be added to the final water. You can either go for a contrasting smell or stick with one that matches the powder. Forget hanging the clothes out for a good blow on a sunny day. Now it is possible to tumble them dry but not before adding a tissue, which will give them that certain scent reminiscent of drying in the sun! Of course when you put your clothes away it is understood that the airing cupboard will contain lavender sachets or camphor scented wood and that your wardrobes will be festooned with plastic novelties containing pot-pourri.
Houses are fumigated daily either by the burning of incense or scented candles. You can even choose which mood you would like to generate. Perhaps lavender for relaxation in the bedroom and Ylang Ylang for stimulation in the sitting room. Or should that be the other way round?
The toilet bowl will contain a tablet which with each flush permeates the air with an odour not unlike that of a toilet in a railway station, while there may be a tablet actually in the cistern turning the water a tasteful shade of blue. (Not advisable with a green suite).
The vacuum cleaner may contain a sachet, which makes no difference to the quantity of dust in the house, but it does give you sweet smelling dust.
Even bleach must no longer smell like bleach but ideally of an alpine spring.
But all that is trivial compared to the perfumes we use personally.
Women have traditionally been enthusiastic about smelly stuff on their bodies. Men have now decided it is not unmanly to be liberal with the smelly stuff. In a group of people it is probably the men`s after-shave that is the dominant scent. I blame Henry Cooper myself. He advocated `splash it all over` and some men do exactly that.
It would make your eyes water. I have been at parties where the various odours were fighting so hard for supremacy that the supper might as well have been sawdust what with all the contrasting odours fighting for supremacy.
We all like a pleasing perfume but please can we have some moderation. Just a provocative whiff would be nice rather than a full-scale assault on the nasal passages, which brings tears to the eyes.
I like the smell of the spring, the pavements on a wet morning, pine needles, roses and other flowers. But as nature intended, not condensed, bottled and regurgitated a hundred times stronger