The Smell of an Era

I turned the cold object over in my hand. The golden liquid inside caught the light, looking all the more expensive. The glass walls encasing that gold liquid were angled and cut prettily—so very unlike my perfume previously owned. There was a feel of opulence along those smooth glass sides.

The eras of a woman’s life can be explained by the bottle of perfume that sits on the counter just above her sink. And sometimes a change to that bottle is the most obvious sign of a transition.

I think the first era of perfume starts sometime in the late teens, carrying on into the early twenties. The bottle of choice is plastic, it generally falls under the category of “body spray,” and has a generic scent—something like “Caribbean Mist.” This is of course partly because that low paying first job isn’t exactly affording anything fancier, but her tastes aren’t exactly refined either.

The Body Spray Era is a lovely time, because pretty scents really are frivolous when the body is at its peak state of beauty.

My Body Spray Era blurs many years together. Old car seats cracked beneath thighs exposed in very short shorts—old seats, but excitingly new to me. A new job, new independence, new late hours away from home, a new boyfriend, and the lingering memory of the smell of him while smelling me.

But body spray leaves no scent behind about two minutes after spraying it. It disappears into the air. And the Body Spray Era does too. I’ve got no regrets. By the time it has come to an end it is high time to seek a scent with a little more staying power.

The Vague Glass Bottle Era beggis. The perfume isn’t really all that fancy, just something with a smooth glass bottle and a common name. The spraying mechanism frequently fails, but that’s alright, it gets the job done, and one can catch the scent at the collar bone now and then. It is a perfume of efficiency, like the mid-twenties to mid-thirties. It’s a hard-working era.

Business attire is more likely to occur in the closet. Babies may be born, with their soft cooing noises jumbled up in the memory along with homemade dinners and bedroom walls getting a new paint job. It is an era of responsibility, and the smell of practicality is sprayed onto the throat every morning.

But now I’ve been given this beautiful gold liquid in this ornate bottle.

It was a gift, which makes it all the more telling I think, because someone with an outside perspective felt it would suit me, and they were right. I love it. One spray and this talisman brings out the sophisticated side of me. The smell lingers on my clothes—a heavy scent but with depth. It smells mature.

So here we are, baby. At age thirty-four, I am finally mature. What should we call this era? I have no idea, and I suppose I won’t know until I hit the next one.

But I trust that the next era's perfume bottle will be really fancy.