My Grandpa would never have worn fragrance or aftershave, but I will never forget the smell of his shaving soap. He used to use one of those old-fashioned shaving knives, and he often used to have bits of tissue stuck to nicks, which was fascinating. The smell was slightly fresh, but also sweet, and with the benefit of hindsight predominantly lavender. The memory of it makes me feel nostalgic, and a bit sad. We left for the States when I was four, leaving my grandparents behind.
My mother adored perfume, and her favourite was Youth Dew by Estée Lauder. I wonder if it epitomised the liberation she must have felt, leaving England and everything she had ever known? Just a whiff of it, even now, transports me back to visions of her wardrobe of 1950s-style party dresses, full skirts of taffeta with velvet bodices. My mother would also have her hair done once a week, so the scent of Elnett hairspray also featured large.
What was the perfume of your twenties?
In my early twenties I was a sales manager in the perfumery department of Selfridges. Can you imagine how many perfumes there were to tempt me? I had already discovered Guerlain's Mitsouko as a teenager, with its promise of experiences like those of the chic women who had worn it, and a tiny dab would surely make me a woman of the world! For everyday, I wore the carefree, just-minted Charlie by Revlon. So seventies, so hip!
I started training as a perfumer at Naarden International in Northampton and in January 1979 set off for Holland to continue my studies. My Northampton colleagues asked me which perfume I would like to take with me. Rochas had just launched Mystere, and at first I liked it a lot, but in time I began to find its sweetness too cloying. It didn't have clean enough lines for me. I wish I had chosen a better fragrance to remember my early perfumery years and my colleagues by.
You can only choose one perfume?
My Signature fragrance is the essence of me, in its creation as well as in its execution. Since falling in love as a teenager with Guerlain's Mitsouko, I knew I wanted to translate it for myself into my own perfume. I could wear this fragrance day or night, it is such a happy fragrance. It lifts my spirits and makes me feel like a whole woman - it's indispensable!
I created Oxford to appeal to both men and women. It starts out with top notes of basil and galbanum, then mellows under the influence of clary sage, before softening as the vanilla warms. Oxford started out as a homage to my University days, when I first noticed the piquant notes of Gitanes wafting from some subversive undergraduate's room. It could express and enhance any woman or man's desire to be subtly different.
Ruth's fragrances Signature, Amorosa and Oxford are available at Fenwicks of Bond Street and Les Senteurs, amongst others. For a full list of stockists, and for more details on Ruth Mastenbroek, visit www.ruthmastenbroek.com
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