Something Smells Good

It started with a Yves Rocher soap bar that Tracy (my PE tuition teacher) gave me. The scent was charming and lingered about The Husband when he kissed me goodbye in the mornings. It is nice to be woken up in the mornings by the smell of an orange grove in late summer.

So, I started exploring Yves Rocher fragrances when there was the one-for-one offer every International Woman's Day. I tried out the Lilac, Rose and Lily of the Valley eaux de toilette. In French, "toilette" means grooming and "eau" means water. The extra "x" in "eaux" simply denotes the plural form. Translated, "eau de toilette" means "water used for personal grooming."

The Yves Rocher Lily of the Valley was most unsatisfactory. The sillage was poor and the scent lasted barely 30 minutes after it was sprayed on. I found that Rose was just too cloyingly feminine for me. It made me feel like some disempowered princess waiting for a knight in shining armour. Sometimes, the Rose scent made me feel like a gluten free cake.

The nicest of the 3 Yves Rocher fragrances was the Lilac. This scent smelled the most natural and when I wore it, I felt like a woman, not a food. It could also last all night if I sprayed it on at bedtime.

But the Lily of the Valley has a special significance for me. There are certain memories that are etched into the mind's eye. The Lily of the Valley is one of those for me. 30 years ago, I was walking through the overgrown garden of an abandoned house outside Lyon when a delicate fragrance rose up around me. I had walked into a cluster of Lily of the Valley plants. The spring was wet. The sun was more intense that it had been in 4 months. There was the smell of freshly dug earth. The moist smells of spring mixed in the delicate fragrance of Lily of the Valley were heated gently by a sun slowly awakened from the slumber of winter.

It was one of the scent memories that I will never forget. In that moment, everything that I saw and felt etched itself into my mind.

I now live in a tropical country with sun all year. The sun here is so abundant that people consider it a nuisance. Back there, in Toulouse, after 3 months of winter where the sun barely made an appearance, the first rays of golden sunlight would entice me outdoors in search of a bench where I could feel the gentle kiss of the sun on my skin. There was a spot in a courtyard outside one of my university classrooms where the sun would drape itself onto a bench. I loved to sit on that bench and let the sunlight drape itself on me, instead. It made me feel like a chocolate croissant, with soft and melty insides. 

Now, whenever I smell Lily of the Valley, I think of the sensual caress of the French sun, the smell of freshly dug earth, the wetness of spring and inside, I feel all melty.

I was unhappy with the Yves Rocher Lily of the Valley. It evoked none of the same memories. So, The Husband bought me a bottle of Diorissimo (which really does smell like Lily of the Valley) and since we were already at the perfume counter, I also picked a bottle of j'adore to add to the bottle of Pleasures that I already have.