I don’t like perfume as much as I used to. I don’t know why. But I was thinking the other day how much I like the smell of soap, any soap, and of spray starch.   

Ysatis by Givenchy was introduced to me by a friend of the designer himself. Elizabeth Taylor Peabody of the famous Peabodys of Massachusetts always smells so good. Now I do too.

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Flowerbomb by Viktor & Rolf

Jicky. I associate it with the day that the perfume expert at Colonial Drugs in Cambridge, MA, asked what I had been using, put some Jicky on my arm and, when I said I kind of liked it, told me to go out to lunch and then come back. Sure enough — during the course of lunch, I suddenly caught a whiff of my arm and could hardly wait to get rid of my luncheon companions to go tearing back to stock up.

I’ve worn for years fragrances from a nephew by marriage, Frederic Malle. But others surface to my memory screen: Opium, which I discovered in Hong Kong where they weren’t allowed to sell it for a time for obvious reasons. Thirty years ago Diane von Furstenberg created a scent called Tatiana that I thought was divine. Paris by St Laurent. Route du Thé at Barney’s. Ce Soir ou jamais by Annick Goutal. All from different points in time. Ooh. Almost 40 years ago … Bal a Versailles. Anyone old remember that one?

Amarige by Givenchy. Since I’ve worn it for so many years, I associate me with it.

I have never cared much for perfume but an old beau gave me Michael Kors’s perfume called Michael. I was at a party years ago and Princess Firyal of Jordan (who at the time I barely knew) effusively asked me what perfume I was wearing. Ever since, it has become a joke and she and I became friends around the perfume. "Let me smell you," says the Princess whenever we run into each other. Whoopi happened to witness our little ritual at Barbara Walters’s recent book party. It gave us all a big laugh.

I learned years ago that if I told women friends what my perfume was, they bought it for themselves and then they smelled like me. So I had to look for something new. I had to abandon Jicky, Dioressence , Apres L’Ondee and Jean Patou 1000.  I associate those scents only with identity theft.

I’ve worn Rive Gauche by Yves St Laurent for 30 years. I love it. I have friends who say they can tell when I’m in the area. Rive Gauche precedes me. I found out just recently YSL is discontinuing it. I’m lost. It’s like I’m losing a little piece of me.

I like perfume that doesn’t smell like perfume. There are a lot of good ones. Hermes has a couple, Ambre Narguile and Brin de Reglisse. The men in my life have preferred the smell of soap and wouldn’t sleep in sheets that had a fragrance left by a softener. That was and is fine with me because I like to smell like clean sea, or sand, or fir like Christmas, or just warm bath. Sweet smells feel old on me, not sexy.

Opium, I guess. I associate it with a red satin pillow in some exotic 1920s opium den and also with a dear friend who died. Calvin Klein’s Euphoria. I like the suggestion of the word.