I was listening to a piece on the wireless the other day about the sense of smell and how it’s being used in the therapy for those with Alzheimer’s. It would seem a scent can access memories in a way simply nothing else can. And this didn’t surprise me in the slightest.
For example when Oscar was a baby (and still today when he’ll let us near his head!) we washed his hair with Burts Bees Shampoo. When the tiny trial bottle we started with was finished I kept the bottle in his special box, in the hope that should/when he stops using it and grows up I can go back to that tiny bottle, for a quick sniff and a remember.
Then I was talking to a friend this morning about her teenage son using Lynx body spray and it got me thinking about the iconic fragrance and what it means to me.
Firstly I still can’t believe it’s going! When I was a teen (and sob sob, we’re talking the mid 1990’s here) every boy I knew left a trail of unmistakable scent in their wake. It was sort of cheap talcy aftershave mixed with body odour. It’s teen boy to me. And here we are 20 years on and teen boys (or so I’m told) have yet to move on.
Which in one respect is great. It makes me giggle to think of teen boys smelling like their dads and uncles used to. It’s like some scented heirloom, a fragranced ancestory. Lynx, making teen girls cough since 1985 🙂
But in another respect it’s a little bit worrying. For me anyway. Lynx holds such a special place in my memory. Yes all the boys wore it but no one wore it like my biggest secondary (High) school crush. He was dashing even then, and always smelt of just Lynx (without the BO – maybe that’s what I liked?). I get one whiff of Lynx Africa and boom, I’m 16 and weak at the knees again. Not appropriate for a 36 year old married woman with a child! I was rather disturbed to hear the boys are still coating themselves in the cheap body spray before leaving the house. But then my friend told me the Africa scent has gone out of favour, well at least with her son’s friend group. Phew! I’m going to hope that this is the case the country over. In fact I’m hoping it’ll become so passe that Unilever will discontinue it altogether, if only for the benefit of 30 something women who can’t smell it without getting a completely involuntary reaction up their spine. I mean, there’s no way my own son can ever wear it. It has to go!
Although, I may go and buy some, to keep next to the bottle of CK One, in my memory box.
Just in case.
