Question of the Day | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

What is your favorite perfume? What do you associate with it?

Peggy Noonan | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

Peggy Noonan: I Like Clean

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.

10 Comments

Liz Smith | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

Liz Smith: One Degree of Givenchy

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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1 Comment

Sheila Nevins | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

It's Viktor and Rolf For Sheila Nevins

Flowerbomb by Viktor & Rolf

2 Comments

Judith Martin | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

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.

2 Comments

Candice Bergen | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

Candice Bergen's Scents of Memory

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?

13 Comments

Joan Ganz Cooney | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

Joan Ganz Cooney Smells Like ... Herself

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

3 Comments

Cynthia McFadden | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

Princess Firyal to Cynthia McFadden: 'Let Me Smell You'

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.

1 Comment

Joan Juliet Buck | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

Stolen From Joan Juliet Buck

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.

3 Comments

Marlo Thomas | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

Marlo Thomas Is Lost

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.

6 Comments

Mary Wells | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

Mary Wells: Sweet Is Not Sexy

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.

2 Comments

Jane Wagner | 06/27/2008 12:00 am

Jane Wagner and the Power of Suggestion

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.

2 Comments

202 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

I like your fragrance stories about your connections to your mom. And I wish you wouldn’t feel old because you’ve been with Chanel 5 for so long. It’s a gorgeous, classic fragrance. And you’re in awfully good company. Catherine Deneuve, Nicole Kidman, and let’s not forget Marilyn Monroe. How did that ad go? - - “What do I wear in bed? Why Chanel No. 5, of course.” Some women spend a long time trying new things, looking for their “signature” fragrance. So, you’re lucky. Sounds like you’ve got yours. Now you can have fun experimenting with some of the “newer” fragrances.

By N P on 06/27/2008 4:56 pm

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my favorite perfume is mania by armani. love the clean fresh scent.

By kbigelow@cmcgp.com bigelow on 06/27/2008 7:20 am

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Coco Chanel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTO4FHf8MBs&feature=related

By Ciao Bella on 06/27/2008 7:27 am

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Ciao Bella—-I love ‘Coco’ and ‘Chance’ too. Thanks for the vid….talk about production values.

By Get Sporty on 06/27/2008 1:06 pm

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I don’t care how corny it is, I love au Claire de Lune (the song in the commercial); every time I hear it I cry.

By kermie b on 06/27/2008 1:43 pm

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Ki: Clair de Lune is one of my favourites also—first heard it when I was about 11 and have been hooked on Debussy since. It was Leonard Pennario who played it in concert here. He just passed away—superb pianist—I’ve never forgotten that concert—it set me on a road in classical music that has been a saving grace for me for so many decades now. I shall miss him.

By Frank Peterson on 06/28/2008 12:54 pm

Clinique’s “Happy” does it for me - clean, light, citrusy - love it! Wore Prescriptives’ “Calyx” all through college - so that takes me back to campus days……

By Tina O. on 06/27/2008 7:31 am

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I wear only Carons Bellodgia and have worn only that for years. In my youth I liked Chanel #5 and still like it but don’t wear it. Every Christmas my husband gives me, among other things, a new bottle of Bellodgia. Bellodgia to me is a fresh floral scent that is NEVER overpowering..very sexy, very feminine.

By G T on 06/27/2008 8:06 am

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Addict by Christian Dior. Makes me feel sexy and anything that can do that at 56 is my best friend!

By Doc's girl Hopkins on 06/27/2008 8:12 am

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Obsession. I’ve been wearing it since it came out about 25 years ago. It has the most beautiful fragrance and it makes me feel beautiful, too.

By Babette dYveine on 06/27/2008 8:20 am

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I love parfum..it reminds me of so many things. The first one to spring to mind is YSL’s Rive Gauche because my mother wore it when I was young. She was the most fashionable woman I’d ever seen and that smell was how I imagined Paris felt. For myself, there is no other parfum more divine than Vivienne Westwood’s Boudoir. I discovered when I was in Paris several years ago and now I go through all means to get it — it’s actually not sold anywhere locally. It reminds me of leaving Paris for London and how strong I felt, how bold and fearless. It’s truly heaven. I also have a passion for Opium. It’s so exotic and refreshing.

By Kara Leinfelder on 06/27/2008 8:22 am

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http://www.perfumeoutlet.net/fragrances_product.asp?gender=w&fragrance=B… Kara Leinfelder. This is where I buy most of my parfum. I checked it out and they do carry the product you like. Try it out………saves lots of money. $79.95 for 1.7 oz Parfum Spray.

By Dona Howlett on 06/27/2008 5:51 pm

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Dona, thanks for the link. Since I only have a warm weather and cool weather set of fragances that never go on sale, it looks like a good spot to shop.

By C A Rose on 06/28/2008 12:45 am