Of all of the five senses, science knows least about how we smell. It is known that our olfactory sense is closely linked to memory. Just a whiff of a certain aroma can send a person back in time to distant and near-forgotten memories. All of know what it is like to associate a particular aroma with a particular place, person, or time. Those links are very powerful.
A woman of a certain age has probably had lots of different favorite perfumes over the course of her life. Fragrance is a lot like fashion in that, on the surface, both seem to be dominated by fads, but, in fact, some enduring classics emerge.
Despite the faddishness of the perfume world, there are still some scents that seem almost timeless. I like to put Chanel No. 5 in that category. First introduced in 1923, this venerable perfume is still well liked even by modern celebrities. The newest celebrity spokesperson for the line is Nicole Kidman.
Youth Dew, which came out in the 1950s, is still a classic but it tends to be regarded as more "dated." It's a rich, powerful, Oriental scent that is-as an overall style-a bit heavy for today's tastes which favor light, fruity, on-the-go kind of fragrances.
In the world of perfume, even surviving a decade can put you in the near-classic category like Tresor by Lancome (1990), Obsession and Eternity by Calvin Klein, and Happy by Clinique.
If you want to give your mother perfume this Mother's Day you have two main strategies. You can select one of many new fragrances on the market (which is a good idea if your mom likes to try new things or if you happen to know she likes a particular new perfume) or you can go with the classics.
From time to time, a beloved fragrance is discontinued. A good case study for this phenomenon involves a perfume called Evening in Paris. Created by Ernst Breaux (the "nose" behind Chanel No. 5), this perfume was phenomenally popular and came in a very distinctive deep blue bottle in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s. Its fragrance resembles Chanel No. 5: it's a sparkling adelhyde type floral. But anyone shopping the perfume counters in the U.S. after 1990 could not have found a trace of Evening in Paris. Even if you asked for it, most sales people would not have even heard of it.
Then it came back. It's available in the most unusual of locations: The Vermont Country Store (http://www.vermontcountrystore.com). This catalog typically features country and New England items, not fine fragrance. But this particular retro-scent had a large and vocal fan base and enough requests came in that the company started to track it down. It turns out Evening in Paris is still manufactured, but in France. They imported it and it's back.
The Vermont Country Store also offers other nostalgic fragrances including Tigress and Tweed and some Yardley products.
It gets more difficult when a retro-scent is no longer manufactured. In those cases, you can't even turn to hoarders because perfume (unlike wine) tends to decay with age.
So how do you find a retro-scent that your mom liked way-back-when? When searching for anything nowadays, your first step is the obvious one: Google the perfume name (and possibly some variations) to see if anyone has it. There are many large warehouse type perfume sites that have a little bit of everything. More obscure fragrances may be available on their own site.
Not every story has a happy ending. Some fragrances truly are gone forever. If that's the case, you can go to a perfume website or blog (check out the links at www.theperfume-reporter.com) and ask other perfume lovers.
If a scent is no longer available but people know about it, you can get a description. From that description, a knowledgeable sales clerk or perfume friend (go to the websites) can recommend similar type scents. For instance, if you know your mom's favorite scent was what they call a woody floral, you can get an updated version (Safari by Ralph Lauren comes to mind).
Remember, perfume is much more than perfume today. You can buy a wide range of scent products today including body creams, lotions, shower gels, soaps, and other products for the bath. If your mom has always worn spray-on fragrance, stick to an eau-de-parfum or cologne (the eau-de-parfum is stronger and will cost more). If your mom is getting more streamlined these days, a shower gel and fragrant lotion may fit the bill better. Dry skin does better with rich creams and lotions. In fact, spray-on fragrance doesn't last long at all on dry skin so a cream plus a spray-on is a good deal.
Copyright (c) 2007 Joanna McLaughlin
Later still Mother's Day began as a celebration for Christians and slowly over time it was adopted as a day of recognition for mothers and became know as Mothering Sunday.
In the U.K Mothering Sunday is referred to as Mother's Day and is celebrated on the forth Sunday of Lent. It can be traced back to the tradition in the U.K of returning back to your mother's church once a year. It is thought that during this occasion families would meet up and see their mothers.
Some churches still regard this as a special day as they regarded it as a day of giving thanks to Mary the mother of Jesus. Employers began to give their young workers the day off to go home and see their families on that date and it has now firmly established itself as Mothers Day.
Not all countries celebrate Mother's Day on the same day. The United States of America mark the event on the second Sunday in May. It is thought that it is based upon the British tradition and that the idea of celebrating the day was inspired by Julia Ward Howe.
The idea was taken further forward by Ann Jarvis, who strove hard to improve sanitation during the Civil War. When she died her daughter Anna started a petition to found a memorial day for women.
The first memorial day was held in Grafton on the 10th May 1908 and was referred to as Mother's Day. It was held in the church that Ann Jarvis taught and then spread out across the rest of America to become known as what we now celebrate as Mother's Day.
People would celebrate Mother's Day by going to church and sending letters to their mothers. It then progressed to sending cards, gifts and flowers. As it became more commercialized, Anna Jarvis filed a lawsuit in 1923 to try to stop a festival as she felt the occasion was being trivialized. It is said that before she died, Anna admitted regret at having started the Mother's Day tradition. She felt that people no longer understood its meaning or significance.
In the following years Mother's Day has grown rapidly with millions of Mother's Day cards and gifts exchanged on this day each year. It is now the most popular day of the year to eat out and there are a record number of phone calls made as children phone home to thank their mothers.
Both Joanna Mclaughlin & Andrew Gibson are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Joanna Mclaughlin has sinced written about articles on various topics from Mothers Day, Perfumes and Social Issues. Joanna McLaughlin is a freelance writer who writes about fragrance and perfume. She frequently appears on the site and has c. Joanna Mclaughlin's top article generates over 14800 views. to your Favourites.
Andrew Gibson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Culture and Society, Golf Guide and Travel and Leisure. Andrew Gibson is MD of The Card and Gift Company. It is one of the fastest growing online greetings cards websites.To see an example of why The Card and Gift Company is growing so rapidly have a look at. Andrew Gibson's top article generates over 550000 views. to your Favourites.