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

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I like Jessica McClintock—Lily of the valley and Parfumes de Rosine Ecume de Rose, yum.

By Jeanne Magill on 06/27/2008 12:09 pm

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Clean is the best I can do. I am allergic to all scented personal products. I am fine with a bouquet of flowers. My sense of smell works overtime. I can smell a scent long after it left the room. If someone wearing a scent has used my phone, I have to wipe it down before making a call. I hate that I can’t wear or be around them.

By Vicki Butler on 06/27/2008 12:53 pm

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Vicki—I understand and think other women should be sensitive to that. Some women like to walk around in their scent cloud, which makes my eyes water—not in a good way. Especially in someone else’s home or the confines of an office, if you cannot tone down the perfume, please don’t use it at all. You never know how offensive it can be to someone else.

By kermie b on 06/27/2008 2:12 pm

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BART is so crowded these days that it seems almost rude to wear fragrance except perhaps that left over from washing one’s hair. They had to take out seats to accommodate those standing nose to nose with one another. I think someone with a scent cloud would be required to take their own limousine. Seriously, I had a number of clients with practically disabling environmental sensitivities. I had to learn in a hurry what soaps and fragrances were likely to bring out an epipen and which were safe. I love to fill my house with fresh flowers—the type that have a nice fragrance. [So many do not anymore.] Like home grown roses. That is plenty of fragrance for me. Maybe a little lavender body wash.

By Elizabeth Bennett on 06/27/2008 4:43 pm

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Vicki I am the same way. My sense of smell is heightened. It is hard, I smell things that others don’t. It would make us good vintners.

By Frannie Em on 06/28/2008 12:14 am

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Coriandre - a wonderful spring evening walk with my late husband and a wonderful dachshund we had way back then; I still wear it as a summer fragrance

By Lenore Pellani on 06/27/2008 1:00 pm

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When I was a little girl I had a collection of exotic perfume bottles that friends of my mother’s would give me. Their scents still lingered and I would delight in sniffing. I have had so many different perfumes/colognes through the years, and the smell of some of these still brings back a distinct time in my life. For years now, I have worn Chanel No22–I love it’s freshness and its many layered warm scents––a good perfume changes as it merges with your body’s warmth. There are many women who I think must douse themselves –––sometimes it’s so overpowering I cannot stand to be next to them. A friend of mine that is a cracker jack realtor used to wear perfume unsparingly until she lost a prospective client who also happened to be a close friend of mine because this friend said she couldn’t stand her perfume. It would have been a huge sale and although I urged the client to say something, she begged off and asked me to do it which I did. I don’t see the realtor friend often but when I do she don’t smell like nothin!

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 06/27/2008 1:01 pm

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I like Tiffany’s classic perfume for everything I associate with it and the bottle styling too. But lately am switching to organics, or at least products low on the cancer causing agents list and check everything I buy first on sites that rate cosmetics and other products.

By Get Sporty on 06/27/2008 1:17 pm

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Get Sporty: Serge Lutens and Annick Goutal use only the most natural ingredients, I trust them. I can’t believe I have fallen in love with a single-flower fragrance, but Serge Lutens’ SA MAJESTE LA ROSE is like comfort food for me - instant and consummate happiness. But for the greatest perfume (concentrate) of all time, for me it’s Chanel’s BOIS DES ILES. Hard to find, but simply deeply madly magical.

By Tinka Parker on 06/27/2008 1:21 pm

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Tinka: Could you describe the scent of Bois Des Iles?

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 06/27/2008 11:47 pm

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Phyllis: Here’s from the blog nowsmellthis.com: “The heart is flowers, indistinct and lightly spiced, the base is sandalwood perfection: dry, smooth and creamy, with a velvety finish that isn’t quite powdered. The fabled gingerbread accord starts to come into its own after around an hour; it is very soft, but lingers for the duration and adds a gentle warmth to the woods.” To me, it has the warm density of Chanel No. 5 but is less sweet, with the undercurrent of wood giving it that enigmatic, beckoning quality. So perfectly blended it is a miracle.

By Tinka Parker on 06/28/2008 2:37 pm

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I love fragrances that are distinct, bold and set apart from the millions out there. Timeless classics like opium, strong deep oriental sensual notes. Oscar, clean fresh and so light. Shalimar,sweet clean and tingly.Angel, deep sweet and woodsy.And anything Gardenia! My current favorite(last 10 years) Casmir by Chopard, sweet woodsy vanilla. I would say this is my ultimate signature fragrance. I never fail to have men and women alike stop me and ask me “What are you wearing” It’s gorgeous, I love it.! I tell them and they all vow to go out and purchase it. I’m a Flight attendant so I’ll see many of our buisness travelers on a regular basis and it’s so nice to have had several of them say “I got that fragrance of yours for my wife and she adores it’! Now I only wish I had stock in it. Ha-Ha. I know that many places are discontinuing it, but through out my world travels I am still lucky enough to find it. My absolute favorite man fragrance was a cologne called DeJa Vu, …..Years ago as a make-up artist for I magnin in Palm springs california. A georgeous man came in and smelled of heaven. Needless to say, I discretely followed him untill I could no longer contain myself and asked him the name of his fragrance.Unfortunately, I have not been able to find it anywhere. My georgeous husband is also fond of fragrance and I’ve always wanted to get it for him.So thank you so much NP, I’ll definately check out the fragrance foundation website.

By HA BIBI on 06/27/2008 1:38 pm

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Hi Elaine, I’ll have to smell Casmir. I’m not familiar with it. I love Shalimar, too. And gardenia. Do you like tuberose as well? Have you smelled Carnal Flower by Frederic Malle? It’s drop-dead gorgeous, and has tuberose in it. And maybe gardenia. Bye,

By N P on 06/28/2008 5:35 pm

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Hi NP, You’ll love Casmir, it to is drop-dead gorgeous as well. I am still able to get it here and there at Nordstroms and have occassionaly found it at Perfumania but thats been a real hit and miss. You know…… in all honesty, I’m not sure about tuberose but you sure have my curiosity up about Frederic Malle’s carnal flower. I’ll check that out. Where do you get it?

By HA BIBI on 06/28/2008 9:02 pm

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Hi Elaine, I got my Frederic Malle perfume at the Barney’s of New York store in Beverly Hills. I think in the U.S., he sells exclusively through Barney’s of New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, and San Francisco. I just checked the Frederic Malle website, as I was curious. It says they have three shops in Paris. I am guessing that the three in Paris are Frederic Malle salons, and not Barneys. But I’m not sure. (I’ve never seen his perfumes at Nordstrom or Bloomingdales or Neiman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue or anywhere else.) If you look him up online, you will see a website under: Frederic Malle, and another under: Editions de Perfumes Frederic Malle. The Editions de Parfumes collection, you may know, is the collection where he allowed each of his “noses” the freedom to each create and get credit for a perfume. Carnal Flower is one of them. They give the descriptions of each of the 15 on the Editions de Perfumes Frederic Malle website. Also that is where they have a questionnaire to help those interested in “finding” their fragrance, etc. Those are always fun for me. Anyway, I read on some perfume blog that a woman sent an e-mail to one of the Paris stores, and they sent her samples for free. I did not have such luck when I called the Beverly Hills store. I wanted to send a couple of samples to a girlfriend of mine, who lives in Arizona. I never got them. Maybe I should try writing Paris myself! - - Can’t wait to smell Casmir!

By N P on 06/28/2008 10:06 pm