SHE was only an Australian sheep farmer's daughter but there was
something about her. Though she was pretty, petite, and would never have
said XXXX to a goose, I think it was the coat; yes, it was definitely
the coat.
She claimed it was kangaroo but I didn't believe her. They don't shoot
kangaroos for anything other than hamburgers, do they? So I was sure it
was sheep. It was cuddly-snug deep, white, tactile and impregnated with
something so enchanting that when it walked towards me, my nose twitched
and my heart jumped. In that order. I just wasn't sure if it was the
girl I fancied or her perfumed wrapping.
But I was hooked. What with Daddy having about 10,000 head and a
swimming pool, I deduced that his daughter's scent was more likely to be
something expensively Parisian than the aroma of NSW sheep dip; but
being young and awkward at the time, I never asked what it was before
she took the big silver bird back to Oz.
I was bereft. And I still don't know whether it was the absence of her
fragrance or of her loveliness that prompted such heartache. Perhaps I
would have suffered less if she had left me a bottle of Whatever It Was,
so I could sniff myself to sleep, as it were (the counting of sheep
being out).
And that, as I see it, is the essence of The Perfume Problem. When it
comes to sexual attraction, it seems to me that the olfactory senses are
stronger even than the optical ones; that you can fall in love not only
through your eyes or your heart but especially through your nose.
Animals do it all the time, but they don't cheat. What you smell is what
you get.
We can buy unfair advantage. If you're no oil painting and don't
basically smell like a rose, you can still, at a price, have the
opposite sex tearing off its collective shirt with desire; or at least
lapsing into temporary paralysis as you whiff past in the corridor.
And I suspect that perfume-making is no longer just a gentle, ancient
art; that in the backrooms of the perfume houses are rows of huddled,
messianic boffins dedicated to thrusting those who can afford it into an
orgy of smell-driven sexual lunacy. They've tried it on fly-paper,
attracting the sex-crazed little blighters to a sticky end. And they've
tried it in at least one male product which claims to so attract women
that you have to swat them off.
Why should the smell-makers do this? Because, above the boffins'
backroom, there are rows of human calculators who know there is untold
wealth in creating sex appeal in a buyable bottle. Not too buyable, of
course. Such an up-market industry couldn't possibly have the masses
inspired to greater amorous endeavours, could it? So . . . as with
cosmetic surgery, the more purchasing power you or your admirers have,
the more you can increase your sex appeal by buying, or being bought
for, at the top end of the market.
You can see why Britain's Superdrug stores are perceived, by their own
admission, to have ''created a stink'' in the perfume business by
selling ''a full range of fine fragrances at up to 30% off the prices
you normally pay in department stores and chemists''.
Sexual magic in a bottle must remain elusive and exclusive, argues the
industry. But what's the point, I would ask, when the opposite sex's
attraction is to the stuff rather than to its wearer?
To prove this theory, in the course of my researches I have been quite
prepared to fall in love with a perfume bottle, preferably Coca-Cola
shaped. To which end, I have been going around smelling. My wife says
this is nothing new, and she should know.
When it comes to nostrils, her elegant, equine nose knows no
comparison. Nothing escapes its deadly forensic accuracy. Should I
weaken and secretly indulge in a taste of paradise, she knows at once.
''You've had a Bounty Bar,'' she says triumphantly.
Coming home smelling of perfume at Christmas time is quite a different
matter, of course, and ''professional research'' has not been entirely
accepted as an explanation. ''Testing the market for your seasonal
gift'' has also been thrown out, especially as she knows my feelings
about perfume -- that, like the giving of soap, it seems to be saying
something less than fragrant about the recipient.
We're still working things out; but in the meantime, you won't be
surprised to hear that I've taken to the bottle.
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