Welcome to another edition of Mood Scent 4, where the fragrant team of Megan In Sainte Maxime, Australian Perfume Junkies, L’Esperessence and I Scent You A Day are your selectors for perfumes for various occasions. Today we are all about our INNER TEEN perfumes. Firstly I will say that this topic has made me take a small trip down memory lane and think about the perfumes worn as a teenager. The teenage years are such a hotbed of growth from 13 – 19, that there is a huge variation in the types of scents you’re attracted to in this timeframe.

For this piece, what I’ve done is to note some of the perfumes that I did actually wear as a teenager alongside some that now bring out inner teen memories.

Please read my fellow Mood Scent 4 group writers : Samantha on I Scent You A Day, Esperanza on L’Esperessence and Portia at Australian Perfume Junkies for their take on today’s topic.

Opium :  Yves Saint Laurent: Jean Amic, Jean-Louis Sieuzac, Raymond Chaillan : 1977 

This was the first perfume gift I received from my boyfriend when I was 17 and even though it’s such a strong, sultry perfume (well it was back then anyway), this sure does bring back memories.

Opium has pedigree, there was the incredible bottle, advertising and the highly controversial name. It’s a tour de force spicy fragrance with panache and it made me feel more confident and womanly than what was the case.  Back then I had no clue about accords and notes in a perfume but this was a stiletto va va voom scent and liked how it made me feel. Designer perfume is rather tame these days in comparison. Recently I  I visited an Yves Saint Laurent exhibition in Nice that had an excellent section on Opium with sketches from the man himself of the bottle. Saint Laurent was totally hands on in the development of the fragrance. It has tempted me to buy a current version or at least to sniff it more frequently in-store.

Today the new Black Opium is heavily marketed to teens and 20 year olds and seems much more appropriate in this respect than the original.

PS Jerry Hall looks so young and gorgeous here in the advertisement. Who would have predicted back then that she’d end up with Rupert Murdoch …

Jasmin et Cigarette : Etat Libre d’Orange : Antone Maisondieu : 2006

Jasmin et Cigarette is a slightly uncomfortable, off kilter perfume. It seems to work, then it doesn’t. This is pretty much how you feel as a teenager, when you’re trying to find your way but often you’re not really sure exactly what or where that way is.

This scent takes me back to so many smoky student bars when you’d come home reeking of cigarettes even when you didn’t smoke yourself. It reminds me of university and all of the late nights studying and the boozy house parties in the weekend. I don’t love this perfume but it is very evocative and the smokiness is more reminiscent of an ashtray filled with cigarette butts than a classic tobacco scent. Jasmin et Cigarette definitely conjures the inner teen anguish I think most of us went through.

Y06-S : Blackbird perfume : Nicole Miller : 2017

YO6-S definitely brings out the inner teen in me. It’s like Bow Wow Wow‘s I Want Candy, except this time it’s banana radioactive candy with jasmine and a fuzzy edge that represents electronics. It’s sort of weird and wonderful and pretty much how you feel as a teenager when you’re thinking that life has so much in store and you can’t wait to be an adult.

 

Giorgio : Giorgio Beverly Hills : M.L. Quince, Francis Camail and Harry Cuttle : 1981

My mother had this on her dressing table when I was a teenager and it felt so grown up and decadent that it was stealthily sprayed when she was out. This is a powerful scent and made of strong stuff. Think of it as a full throttle tuberose on steroids. These days it’s the sort of scent that you can imagine they sprayed on the Dynasty set with Joan Collins vamping the hell out of it. Giorgio was so strong that it was apparently banned in restaurants in Los Angeles when it was at its peak. Anyway it seemed all so glamorous back in the day and definitely takes me back to the teenager years.

 White Musk (perfume oil)  : The Body Shop : 1981

It was a very happy day when The Body Shop was discovered as a teenager on a trip to London. White Musk was a true scent obsession as it was the only perfume I had at the time and was in a rather small size so it ran out rather quickly. It was an easy to wear musk that had a slight grit to it. I have no idea if it now smells the same but it was uber popular and cheap as chips too. Tea Rose and Dewberry were also in the rotation but I went through White Musk the most frequently. Ah teenage dreams!

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this month’s edition of Mood Scent 4 and let us know your favourite INNER TEEN scents too.

Remember to click through to I Scent You A Day, L’Esperessence and Australian Perfume Junkies.

Notes : Featured Image from Canva, Opium advertising from a book entitled Parfums Shop 8 L’Univers Beauté 1989