Women love perfume. We love applying it to our wrists, behind our ears and to our credit card bill.
The perfume commercials that reel us in are about as grounded in reality as the name of Paris Hilton’s scent Tease.
The ads show such beautiful stars wearing such stunning clothes. And they’re always doing such everyday things — like walking through castles, relaxing in fields of wheat and riding bareback in lingerie.
Well, how do you spend your Saturdays?
And there’s usually some incredibly gorgeous man waiting for them at the end of the commercial. (Dear “Mad Men,” we actually know those men are gay models.)
If the ads haven’t worked, there’s the point-of-purchase attack: the spritzer folks just waiting to you get you when you walk into the department store. Personally, we wear hazmat suits to avoid the whole smelly mess.
But it got us to thinking about how these QuirkOut ideas can keep us fresh and fragrant.
On the Scent
As a girl, Phoebe watched with rapt attention when her mother got ready for “an evening out,” splashing herself with Chanel No. 5 in that beautiful square bottle. It all just seemed so elegant.
Her mom wore only one fragrance and only for special occasions.
Today, Phoebe is on the other end of the smell-good spectrum — a perfume addict.
She likes to spice things up, and just like her spice jars, she stores her vast collection of fancy bottles in alphabetical order. From Amarige by Givenchy to Victoria Secret Coconut Passion Body Mist, her QuirkOut ritual is to rotate the bottles so she never repeats a scent.
Imagine if she wore Happy two days in a row at the office, especially when she was miserable doing the company audit. Or smelled of Romance for the entire week after she broke up with her boyfriend?
The confusion might make her co-workers faint, requiring smelling salts — which, thankfully, Phoebe has filed under “S.”
Enjoy the Salad Days
Our friend Moonbeam was brought up in the ’60s in a commune where natural was the only way to live. Today she’s a massage therapist in the city but still keeps her tie (dyes) to childhood. Yes, it’s important that she smell fresh as a daisy (and we don’t mean Daisy by Marc Jacobs), but it has to be without chemicals.
Instead of deodorant, she has a few QuirkOut replacements.
She drinks a glass of wheat grass on an empty stomach so the chlorophyll reduces body odor.
Or, she takes the juice from two dozen radishes and adds glycerin (note: don’t confuse with nitroglycerine) and puts it in a spray bottle. One spritz a day, and she’s good to go.
We can’t imagine what her produce bill is every month. And we wonder if she cuts the radishes into little roses before pulverizing them.
A Rose By Any Other Name
We’d love to be at the Madison Avenue meetings when marketing folks are naming perfumes. It must be filled with gray-haired men who know nothing about women, yet are trying to give us romantic goose bumps.
How else can you explain Simply Belle or Exceptional — Because You Are (which therapists really should sell in their waiting rooms).
Thinking about this gave us a QuirkOut idea. What would happen if perfume names told the truth about our lives and our loves? Here are a few ideas to start, but feel free to send us your thoughts, and we’ll post them on our QuirkOut Facebook page. Funniest entry wins a prize.
My Sin = My Hookup
Obsession = Pass the Potato Chips
Fancy Love = Redbox Romance
Escape = Sandals at Sandals
Eternity = Serial Monogamy
DKNY Be Delicious = Eau de Krispy Kreme
