Shay's excellent
S-Spot blog, which I read fairly often and highly recommend, just put up an article about
The Sexiest Smells, or smells that turn you on. It's an interesting topic, and one that I haven't really dwelt on very much, but it plays such an important role in my memories of boys I've been with.
After all, I go crazy for perfume.
Crazy. I could wander around the Perfume department of Selfridges all day, and I can think of three scents I would happily bathe in. All of those three have an element of vanilla, which greatly appeals to me because it's slightly musky, and ever so slightly exotic while being comfortingly familiar at the same time. It's a versatile element in a perfume, too: for the perfume that I go really,
really mad for, the vanilla is mixed with smoky undertones and heady - but not heavy - floral notes. If I put it on, I feel utterly sexy.
My other favourite perfume is French, and smells of vanilla, pears and musk. I put it on if I feel like something sumptuous, a little touch of luxury to lift my mood. I'll wear it for a first date, or to meet friends. A special occasion. But enough about me - the boys now.
For the boys, it seems to be about smoke. My overriding memory of Boy #1 is of the second time we kissed. We were at a party, and people had been smoking spliffs; I remember how the smell of the smoke clung to his clean hair, and how I had loved the greenness of the smell, that peculiar lilt to it.
Boy #2 sometimes used Chanel's Allure Homme, but it was really when he wore Kenzo Homme that stirred me. I remembered it when we met each other after that two-year gap, and breathed him in again, Kenzo plus the smell of fresh smoke from his cigarettes. It suited him. Sometimes, if I'm shopping or if I'm in the duty-free section in an airport, I'll pick up a bottle and sniff it hopefully, as if it could bring us to life again.
As for Boy #3 - meh. I know all boys use Lynx, but he used it so often that it was virtually his calling card. And for the real 'special occasions', he'd spray on some sort of generic cologne that was synthetic and inoffensive - or rather, plain boring. I know that sounds snobbish, and I do realise that not ever boy can afford a personalised scent designed for him specially by Serge Lutens. Scents that don't bear a designer name are not automatically tacky and horrible - not at all. As a child, I used to use solid lotus perfume from Nepal, scraped from anonymous little copper jars. The smell of a particular Body Shop perfume is still the only scent that will stop me dead in the street, because that smell is of my mother. But I want a boy who wears something with texture, with a little more soul to it than something that's so blatantly mass-marketed.
TA smelt of hair conditioner - his hair usually had a tropical, holiday-y sort of scent that was unapologetically artificial. It was pleasant, though. And most of the time, I didn't get to pause and think about what sort of cologne he wore, since we were busy removing each other from our clothes.
I can't quite remember exactly how Will Turner smelt, but I know it made me hungry for him. I know I saw a bottle of Paco Rabanne somewhere in his living room, although it could have belonged to one of his housemates. I have a feeling that it was
him that I smelt - the essence of him, the faint and not-unpleasant smell of sweat, and then that night that he'd stood near a bonfire.
Back it goes to smoke, and it has all gone up in smoke now.
