4ajbukoshka

When love makes you addicted, destroys you - or at least your wallet - and you just don’t care.
I need more of this heroin!

Fraport 2017:
As always, just before departure, I’m browsing the shops, much to my boyfriend's dismay, and especially through row after row of perfumes. It’s one of my first flights abroad and we don’t have much time.
Unmistakably, on the other side of the room, brightly shining - or brightly illuminated - is a row of perfumes.
From x meters away, I can tell: something special is standing there.
These things that you crush with your fingers, which then make a “pfft pfft” sound and where the perfume comes out, I had only seen in movies and otherwise only in a display case.

My boyfriend: Can we please go? I don’t want to miss the flight!
Me: (sweetest pout ever) BUT! It won’t take long. I promise! (hurry over to this setup where they have all sorts of boxes with fun contents: white leather that you can stroke and feels incredibly soft and much more)
I blindly grab one of the bottles, which all look the same anyway, and just spray away. Over my head, onto my scarf, and on my wrist. Quite impractical, this pfft-pfft thing.
My boyfriend, who had come over to urge me to leave: Oh crap, what is THAT?!
Me, already regretting not having looked for a test strip: Sorry? But it smells soooo delicious in here :((. I love vanilla!
He: No, it smells great! But come on, let’s go, you’ve dawdled too long again! (pulls me by the arm through the store)
I try to spot a name or a price tag while walking, but it’s in vain.
We didn’t miss the flight.
On the way back, however, we can’t go back to THAT store. I sulk a little, my boyfriend sulking with me.
He: Well, you already have enough perfumes, but... if I had to name ONE perfume that smells like YOU and HOW you smell, it would be the one you wore on the outbound flight. This unbelievably sweet stuff that you can’t hate because it’s so cute and sweet.
Yes. I am a little sweet tooth. But I was a bit offended by his comment. After all, I’m more than cute and sweet. Whatever.
I try to forget it.
I don’t even know its name.

A few weeks later...
One of my perfumes (Prada “Candy”, the EDT) is empty. After Lacoste “Pour Femme”, finally the second one, so according to my own rule, a new perfume can finally be bought.
So I buy a dupe of Lacoste “Pour Femme” because I haven’t found one for the other and after the vacation, my account is yawningly empty.
It doesn’t make me happy. I can’t forget that one perfume. I don’t want to live without it, I have to at least test it one more time! Maybe I won’t like the smell anymore?
Three weeks later, I stand there and make the decision. This one decision that should change everything forever: I’m now going to search for that perfume, that dream of vanilla with that “pfft-pfft thing”.
I spend six hours on it and I’m already losing interest, plus I’m hungry and my feet hurt.
I’ve been to all the drugstores and perfumeries here and have only seen one perfume with “pfft-pfft thing” and that was nowhere near comparable to the sweet lightness that had accompanied me during my flight from Frankfurt (and lingered on my scarf for a few days longer, I literally inhaled the scent with my nose until it was gone).
Meh ://.
I, shy in front of strangers, gather my courage and ask the very competent and friendly-looking perfume saleswoman.
She can’t make anything of my description but gives me a tip.
She: If you think it’s something special, why don’t you try Mrs. [Name]! She has very exquisite and niche fragrances. If you don’t find anything with her, then nowhere.
So I set off on the search.
I step into this store, hidden in an old building, and feel intimidated. It looks expensive here.
An elegantly dressed and beautifully made-up woman in her 30s greets me and wants to help me.
I gesture “the pfft-pfft thing” and tell her I’m looking for a sweet vanilla scent.
She, smiling: Oh, you mean the boutique scents from Guerlain with the pump sprayers?
I, inwardly: That sounds expensive. Oh oh.
She leads me into a room and there they are, those beautiful bottles.
That’s them! Yay!
The lady starts to talk and talk, pulls out violet test strips with golden letters, and with the first spray, I realize: “THAT’S IT! Yes!”
She explains the components to me, shows me other scents from this edition, Tonka Impériale for example, which goes in a similar direction, but “it” is not...
I’m mentally elsewhere.
The price of €220 brings me back to reality.
No, unfortunately, it doesn’t come in a smaller size.
I need to think about it.
I don’t have €220 left in my account.
I’m dejected, drive home. There stands my piggy bank, counting the money. €186 and a few cents.
Actually, I’m currently saving for a bike.
I transfer the money from the piggy bank into a clutch, pack it up. No, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to rethink this right away. I can’t do this!
The next day, I go to the bank and want to exchange the money. That costs fees. Nope. I stop by work, ask the boss if he needs small change in the cash register. He exchanges €60 for me.
I go to dm, buy something, and ask if it’s okay if I give her more money in coins and she gives me back big money. I’m lucky.
I go to the perfumery and head straight for the boutique scents.
The saleswoman: Blablabla.
Me: Thanks, but I already know I want to buy this one.
At the cash register, I pull out about €100 in bills and the rest in €1 and €2 coins. The saleswoman has to first get the key for the cash register. Normally, people pay with credit cards.
While I sort the coins into stacks of €10 and €20, I consider running away and not buying the perfume. I find it all quite embarrassing and think about my account balance. Ouch!

But in the end, I buy it, this luxury in a bottle - and at the same time feel shabby and miserable and yet so incredibly intoxicated.
This powdery dream of vanilla is underlaid with floral impressions, but consists mainly for me of vanilla, vanilla, and the very best vanilla ever!
Cuir Beluga is a bit heavy (probably due to the patchouli), a little smoky(?), but not musty.
No, this sweetness needs something to stay grounded, so that no one, following a Russian proverb, gets their butt stuck while enjoying it.
Cuir Beluga doesn’t smell like leather to me; this is how angels should smell!
And me. Almost daily by now.
At first, I only wore Cuir Beluga on special occasions.
But now I wear it almost every day because every day can be a special day - and I celebrate love with it.
The love for life, for vanilla, and for myself!

...and I had one of those cheap little cherry lollipops in my mouth...
Then "Le Bain" would come alive just like my grandma.

Background:
My grandma passed away a few years ago. I can't ask her if she really wore this scent.
But I currently wear it on my wrist and can clearly see and smell her before me. Her, as she looked in my early childhood, in the late nineties and early 2000s.
Her, who always smelled like a flower meadow. Looked like a flower and whose hug made me happier than any sugary cherry lollipop ever could.
Her, whose smile was so sweet and pure and, in retrospect, always radiated a childlike innocence.

How I came to this scent:
My statement perfume, sinfully expensive vanilla from Guerlain (Cuir Beluga), was once again nearing its end. I, a student, notoriously broke. Something cheaper had to come in for the transition. I searched for samples in classifieds.
My nose is sensitive, which means for me: I can't smell many things.
Thus, I ended up with about 30 perfume samples, some spilled, some horrendous, some... surprisingly good.

What I can say about this scent:
At the first test on my skin, a powdery-sticky sweet hint greeted me.
“Oh dear, what will this be like when it’s finished? Smells pretty artificial.”
After a few seconds, I perceive an artificially, chemically?, floral hint. Violet?
A glance at the fragrance pyramid: “Oh, must be the aldehydes? And orange blossom, yes, that fits.”
I clear away the laundry mountain from yesterday. My room is, as often, chaotic.
I leave the room, come back. And suddenly this strange sadness hits me, I think I'm getting my (emotional) five minutes. I'm confused.
What is this?! I smell my “grandma”.
Every day I wear a golden bracelet on my wrist that she gave me when I was about 15. I don't take it off, even though it feels way too big for me now, just like it did back then. Not a day goes by that I don't think of my grandma.
But how does she come into my NOSE now, damn it?
Roses... I don't like the smell of roses in skincare products, and I'm not particularly convinced by it in perfume either. In Bulgaria, for example, you get overwhelmed by it, in every souvenir shop and twenty meters before that. But real roses smell so pleasant.
Even more flowers. Violets? Maybe. I smell many things but can't always name them.
However, I can definitely identify the scent of sandalwood, thanks to the incense sticks that “grandma's” daughter liked to use (way too) often.
Here are so many scents that I have become accustomed to, united, but in a dose that makes them not only bearable but wonderfully pleasant.
I, procrastinating as always, sit down, turn off the music, smell my wrist, in the air, let the scents wash over me.
And I see in my mind's eye how my grandma, who once again comes home with bloody knees, hands me one of those sticky little cherry lollipops and kisses me on the forehead.
(I smell cherry, even though it’s not mentioned anywhere, a lot of it!)
How she hugs me but doesn’t lift me up because I’m too heavy for her now. And she has “back problems”.
Grandma has bathed. Maybe in “Le Bain”.
Maybe my grandma really bathed and then rolled around in a flower meadow, with the cherry lollipops she bought for me somehow sticking to her.
That’s exactly how "Le Bain" smells to me.
Comforting, cozy, with a lot of security and a little bit of vanilla - or rather the vanillin in sugar. Very light, chemical, but not unpleasant, rather reminiscent of Christmas baking.
That’s good, because it keeps me from comparing this vanilla with Guerlain's and allows me to genuinely love it.
That’s why this scent will also be one for the cold days for me.
Maybe I'm too young for this scent; I need to hear my friends' opinions on it.
After all, I don’t want to smell like some grandma. If I do, I’ll stay home with this perfume and enjoy it for myself.
Whenever I miss my grandma - and want to at least smell the comfort of her hugs.