SMKB

My almost exclusive (fragrance) companion from the beginning to the end of thirty. When I discovered him in 2011, I was today one would say shocked in love, he was something completely new for me, unbelievably good smelling and made for me. He completed me for years, I received many compliments for the fragrance and often heard that it was like an invisible trace of me for others. I loved the pear, the apples, the grass, the fresh and only subtly sweet. And the latter I heard more and more towards the end of thirty "oppressively sweet", "unpleasant".... and increasingly felt that way myself. Now, in my early forties, I can hardly wear it anymore and it is as if I look at my aging husband or an ex-partner with loving but disillusioned sentimentality and wish that he could inspire me one more time as he did in our best days together. But it just isn't possible anymore. The two remaining flacons have a place of honour, we didn't part on bad terms and I revel from time to time in memories of the decade we spent together. But it's over. That decade and our love and passion. On the contrary, today I still let him get close to me from time to time, I feel quickly crushed and realize, no, forget it - over. And yet I very seldom have "sex with the ex" again - only to know again afterwards exactly why our paths have parted.
I ask myself how my perception of this scent could change in such a way and whether this might also have something to do with my own hormone balance, i.e. whether the same scent on the same person 5 years later might really develop differently than 5 years before. Fresh, flowery, pear, mown grass and apples are sticky, sweetish, heavily soaked. And yet somehow, I still love him and probably forever...

Well, now I have a problem. After the bottling of "Lost Cherry" by Tom Ford a few days ago, I was firmly convinced that I had found my new favourite. I had no idea that he would have to fight for the place on the podium with another scent of Tom Ford so quickly. I had actually already regretted having ordered another bottle of "Jasmine Rouge" and am now torn. Ordering two bottles of Tom Ford at once is beyond even the Christmas bonus budget :)
I first came into contact with the scent of jasmine during two Tunisian holidays about 20 years ago and was immediately fascinated. Even today, the scent of jasmine immediately evokes associations of bright, clear summer colors, lightness and freshness. I also used a body care series from Korres for several years, in which Jasmine was the "main actor" (I don't think it exists anymore today). I wasn't looking for a jasmine scent at all, but came across it through my new Tom Ford enthusiasm and ordered it more or less on good luck and purely for interest. I did not expect that Jasmine still flashes me like that. In my opinion the scent is quite pure and authentic jasmine, at least I don't smell much other notes and even now, after several hours of wearing it, I don't. For me it could also be white jasmine, it's just a pretty clear, unadulterated and naturally scented jasmine wave for me. You should definitely like the scent of jasmine (and I know some people who don't do that at all), which it "pops". For jasmine haters this must be an absolute nightmare. I could bathe in it. I think it's absolutely suitable for everyday use, neither too heavy nor too powdery nor too sweet (I find all that rather unpleasant), has a harsh note in my perception and awakens inner images of whitewashed walls, jasmine bushes swaying in the wind, blue sea and sun. At least with me. Durability, at least as far as I can judge so far this afternoon, rather good, I have already sprayed once, but less because it was urgently needed than because I wanted "more of the same". Well, I should probably flip a coin... Cherry or jasmine, that's the question :)

In order to really get to what this fragrance reminds me of, I would have had to wear it longer. But I couldn't, because it aroused incredibly unpleasant associations in me and I was glad when the last whiff of it had disappeared from my wrist after showering the next morning. After all the previous evaluations, I had not at all expected that he would catch me so emotionally cold. I had expected him to give me a happy squeaky iced tea-bubblegum feeling that would be sweet, pushy and with images like sunglasses, palm trees and so on. But it was not like that at all. I had clearly underestimated the "bitter". I did not think of a sweet, juicy peach for a single moment. In fact, I have to make a real effort and concentrate in order to perceive the peach with various other scents and a great strictness and in my perception somehow also "sharpness" at all. As strange as it sounds, somehow this scent smells to me like an older man from a criminal or at least shady or slightly neglected milieu. I definitely associate it with "older age", maybe there was such a related scent in some form (detergent or similar) in the retirement home where I visited my grandmother regularly. There must have been some synapses that jumped up in me and produced associations that I didn't know existed in my brain. It was probably the fascination about it that made me keep sniffing my wrist, even though I didn't like the smell at all. For me it was already too good, I really only sprayed one or two puffs from a bottling on my wrist at lunchtime and felt surrounded, if not "followed", by this scent all day long until I went to bed. I will probably be fascinated and repulsed by the bottling every now and then to try to find out where these associations come from. I will most likely not wear it myself anymore.