The Mother in law perfume, what is it and how do you respond

My mother in law wore Je Reviens and L'Air du Temps when I met her. She moved on to Anais Anais, Giorgio Bev Hills and White Diamonds. She also had a massive bottle of Infini that sat in her bathroom (I think it may have been a marketing tool in a store) and it was never used, so could have been coloured water. What are your responses to your Mother in law's fragrances?

Never had a chance to meet my mother-in-law who passed on before I married my guy, but I'm enjoying this topic vicariously. I know she loved to grow flowers, especially African Violets, so I can picture her wearing Je Reviens or something akin to SL's Bois de Violette, which had yet to be created. Since, like me, she enjoyed making things herself at times (I make soap now and then), she might have made her own violet water, too.

My mother-in-law has also passed away but during the years we spent together I don't ever recall her smelling perfumey, perhaps a little lipstick-and-powdery. Although she always presented herself impeccably, albeit in a blue rinse and perm kind of way, she never even used moisturiser, just soap and water. She had lovely skin, no doubt a testament to staying out of the sun rather than an advanced cosmetic routine.
I will have to ask my sisters-in-law if she ever wore a particular perfume. I can imagine it being something soft, powdery and feminine.
On the other hand, my sister's mother-in-law has been a longtime devotee of YSL Paris. Recently, however, she smelled Mark Jacob's Daisy on another woman and thought she might like a change. For her birthday, my sister gave her a carded Daisy sample and a perfume gift voucher. I actually love this idea of her going against type with something like Daisy, which is marketed for the young crowd. Good for her!

My own Mother liked Rochas Lumiere for a while. The perfume she likes most from those that I send her way is Patou's Enjoy. I think it's because it's quite strong and berryish.

Have daughters in law or son's girlfriends changed how you feel about fumes?

My sons are at uni and only one has a girlfriend. She is a stunner but if she wears fragrance, it must be subtle as I've never noticed it (unlike the Triffid sons who are..ahem...lavish with it).
However, a couple of years ago I was wearing Mon Jasmin Noir (a free GWP) and one son remarked that I smelled like his girlfriend (not the current one). His tone suggested this was not a good thing! Very important to separate the mother perfumes from the girlfriend ones and, fortunately, I don't encounter many younger women wearing, or probably even liking, the perfumes I usually wear.

My own mother wore Madame Rochas but later in life eschewed all perfumes, declaring she'd become sensitive to them and demonstrating her new found aversion by sneezing ostentatiously and opening windows whenever my sister or I invaded her space wearing them. I know I sound inconsiderate, but there was definitely a correlation between wearing perfume, good times and happy family relationships and I think the perfume rejection was directly linked to a deterioration in the latter two.The exception was the Body Shop White Musk Oil that she was able to tolerate. I really disliked the stuff but we went to the ends of the earth trying to find it for her when it was discontinued.

Not my mother in law, but my boyfriend's mom wears Amazing Grace. She isn't really into fragrances but got a 4 oz bottle from a friend for free.

I remember my mother wore Abano by Prince Matchabelli and yesterday when I smelled it realized she wore Blue Carnation by Roger and Gallet. She also used lavender toilet water and soaps. Lavender was her favorite note and daisy her favorite flower.

My mom wore "4711" and "Tosca". Everything was simple. She had no great knowledge but I heard her mention "Juchten" and "Chanel No. 5".

It was my sister and I (who banded together as teenagers) who ventured into the perfume world and never left it.

My mother-in-law who I met late in life, would just wear whichever gift was given to her, I don't remember her as a perfume person, but she was a great cook. "Mangea, mangea, look what I have prepared for you".

Pipette, I admire that your mother-in-law would be happy to wear whatever came her way; easy at gift giving time and you could give her scents that didn't work for you but which you enjoy sniffing on others.

I never knew my MIL, as she had passed on before I married. I don't think she ever had a chance to wear fragrances, as she lived in a time where they were very poor, and lived in a very primitive old village etc. I am a MIL myself now, and have no Daughters. So, I would like to think that my two DIL can enjoy my love of fragrances. I always purchase for birthdays etc., what they like, and enjoy sharing my samples and new additions to my collection, so they can experience what is new in the world of fragrances...They both love testing my niche choices, and i always like to have perfume discussions with them! As they are both different, I try to make individual testing times for them both.

I don't remember my MIL wearing any perfume, but she would wear make-up. My mother and aunts (two lived downstairs) always wore perfumes, Chanel No. 5, Shalimar and Estee Lauder's Youth Dew in the blue rubberized bottle are the three that I remember. That first sniff of Shalimar is what sucked me into this orgy of perfumes as a little girl and I've never looked back....

Going back to my Mother/Mother in law's younger days, in New Zealand imported goods required overseas funds. Unless you knew someone who travelled you likely looked at the magazine ads and just yearned. 'English' perfumes were available, such as Lentheric 'Tweed' and Yardley Apple Blossom. I picked up a re-make of Tweed some weeks ago and memories flooded in, the call of the paper boy, the ammonia of the hair salon, the smell of Nugget shoe polish, and Goddards floor wax. My Mother used to wax the floor tiles.

I loved Cachet by P Matchabelli. Carnation and Lavender were refined, ladylike scents. My Aunt always had scented gloves, cotton, pin tucked, that she put on to go to the shops, even in summer. The summer ones (white) had lace inserts

Some familiar olfactory memories there, Omni. In particular, the shoe polish and floor wax aromas resonate with me. Polishing our shoes was a ritual my sister and I shared with our father when we were of school age. Funnily enough, we preferred Kiwi polish to the Nugget, ox blood colour for my father's one pair of Julius Marlow work shoes and black for the Clark's school ones. We kept everything in an old Globite school case.
We also had an old oak dining table that had belonged to my father's parents and it was my job to periodically wax and polish it with the Johnsons paste wax in the round yellow tin.
I don't think it's nostalgia, but I do love certain perfumes that have those birch tar, turpenic and petrochemical aromas (e.g. Tauer's "No. 03 - Lonestar Memories", "Cuir de Russie" and even "Memoir Woman" seems to have this furniture polish opening).
As for Tweed and Cachet, I have no memory of how they smelled, just the corny ads. "Aren't you wearing Tweed?" he murmurs as he sleazily sidles up to smell a woman's neck. I always wondered about the authenticity of Prince Matchabelli but, even as a child, I suspected he was bogus royalty. The name evoked images of Barbara Eden in I Dream of Genie, wearing a costume of faux Arabian exotica and a perfume made by a prince to "match ya belly!". Now I think about it, the name actually sounds more Italian than Middle Eastern; perhaps he was the titled heir to a crumbling estate and to make ends meet turned to creating perfumes for the housewives of the early 70s?

My Cuir Amethyste opens with a tonne of birch tar, it settles so beautifully. I'm sure we are perfume twins, separated at birth Triff

Well now I have something else to try. The problem with scent twins is that they become enablers