It’s truly incredible how fashion fades, yet I feel like it was just yesterday.
Mid-eighties, the gloomy communism rages.
In my school, a new biology teacher. White large collar, shoulder pads, and a hairstyle reminiscent of Alf (a stiff little fringe over the forehead).
She sits at a long desk, I hate biology, but the new young and attractive teacher smells heavenly. The scent is so white, clean, soft, creamy, feminine, and strong! Somehow I find out (maybe from the teacher) that the fragrance is called Smitty! From then on, I dream of Smitty!
A few years later, as a student in the early nineties, I receive the fragrance from my mom for Christmas.
Smitty is already packaged differently, communism is over, I can travel anywhere, and my country is finally free. I start discovering new perfumes, and they are now available not only in PeWeX, the special stores where you can only pay with dollars, but also in newly emerging perfumeries with Western fragrances! Smitty is no longer such a dream... there are now many others.
Yet after so many years, the memory of this wonderful scent remains strong.
Today I have the sample on my wrist. I didn’t expect so much oakmoss, and the woody nuances; the scent is strong, I also sense the soft creamy note, only... you can also feel the years, that the fragrance springs from the chypre family, the same family, Smitty is almost masculine, quite old-fashioned, and not so white, rather gray-green. The warm soft note I still find today - aldehydes, it is very pleasant, not too strong, but the perfume feels too vintage, too old-fashioned, a tad too masculine even.
Smitty matched the white large collars, the padded jackets, U2, Madonna, and George Michael, pink lipstick, blue eyeshadow, plastic jewelry, and definitely a large earring in the ear.
Today Smitty doesn’t suit me, fashion changes, times do too...
I met the teacher some time ago in a store: still an attractive, well-groomed woman in her mid-fifties; in Poland, there are Sephoras, Douglas, and countless other stores everywhere, I can still travel, only now I have a bit of fear about traveling...
Smitty is no longer available and... my mom isn’t either.
But the memory of this scent, of those times, and those people remains.
Sillage and longevity are very, very good!
I will keep the sample; it belongs in the box with my little treasures of memories :)
Ah - that's where your nickname comes from, :-)! I hadn't heard of Smitty until now, but I hope to come across it someday, just to take a mental trip back to the eighties!
A sentimental comment that I really enjoyed reading. I didn't know anything about "Smitty" until now. I have a thick COTY book, so I'll check it out right away.
Thank you for this lovely, nostalgic comment. I also have a few memory fragrances, and on some days I even wear them, even if they seem loud, outdated, or just out of place for me now. I always wonder how little my surroundings, which I pay so much attention to on those days, seem to register scents. They always find my smell completely normal, even when asked.
Nice description!