Fantasy by Christy
Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 8:56 amWhile I was at home (I’ve been back in BKK a couple of days) my parents took me to a little shop in their town, a wonderful den selling vintage buttons, braid, beads, hatpins and other goodies from times past.
A little box on a shelf caught my eye. Dark blue, with dancing fairy silhouettes on the cover, I thought it was a whimsically-decorated matchbox until belatedly I read “perfume”. Feeling the weight of the bottle inside I opened it and to my surprise found that although all the alcohol had long evaporated away, there was a little residue of brown viscous oil left.
The box and the bottle:
I opened the lid and took a sniff and oh, my, it was gorgeous. Old-fashioned and incensey, with one slippered foot in the boudoir and one in the joss house. Ten bucks later the little treasure was in my purse.
My nose only knows what it likes, and I can’t pick out the smells in a perfume unless it’s something blindingly obvious like tuberose. This does remind me of aloeswood oil, but I’m probably wrong. Besides, it has an odd habit of smelling a bit different whenever I open the bottle. I looked for it online, hoping to get a description, but no luck. I don’t even know how old it is. The design of the box looks 1920s-30s to me, but it could be a retro design from a later decade, or just an old one that was never changed. And the manufacturer is, or was, Australian. Now that’s something to be nostalgic about.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Ooh, fun find.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Did I ever tell you I actually had I job mixing essential oils together for all kinds of weird products? It was a high-end, faggoty shop for rich trophy wives, wealthy earth-mamas, and sissy men with sculpted facial hair. But I couldn’t really help you with your perfume, I just did everything straight from recipes and tried not to thing too much about what I was doing.
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
try and taste the oil at the bottom
It will help tell you the flavours. Like if it has a rubbery feel in your mouth you have power steering fluid. leaves a nasty burning chalk flavour DOT3 brake fluid.
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:11 pm
I looked up your perfume and couldn’t find it. That means I can’t date it. Drabbit. The name rings a bell, though. If I ever actually work out where that bell is ringing, I’ll let you know.
Gillian (who got some 1940s male cologne a couple of weeks ago and thinks that old scents are in the air)
May 27th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Clint – This is the place I mentioned with the weird oils.
Colin – I’m afraid my palate isn’t sophisticated enough to distingish brake fluid from bong water.
Gillian – Do tell me if you ever find info on it! Otherwise this mystery is going to haunt me.