Perfume can stir the soul and ignite the memory, and it’s this that companies often play on when it comes to new releases. The very mention of an ingredient will conjure an emotional response from the customer, and hopefully encourage them to make that all-important purchase. But perfume can also have another side when it comes to evoking the past, and it’s not always one that we want to revisit. Suppressed recollections and packed-up situations litter our brains, just waiting to be unlocked if the right scented key is used. This is something that I have learned from personal experience.
When I became a perfume writer in 2015 I would often find myself featuring historic fragrances, perfumes from the various decades, and obviously the latest releases to hit the high street. I always thought that I was being very thorough with my choices, and was offering readers a balanced selection with which they could form their own opinions. However, it was only this year that I finally realised that there was a decade that I had unknowingly avoided, bestsellers that I had pushed to one side, and all in a subconscious attempt to filter the memories that would otherwise be allowed to roam freely.
The 1990s was the decade that I moved to London to begin my career as an actor, and it was a time when the HIV crisis was still very much at the forefront of every gay man’s mind. Whilst advances had been made in the treatment, the long-term prognosis was still poor, and was mainly focused on end-of-life care. It would be 1996, 15 years after the first reported case, that it was no longer a death sentence. Against this background I was singing “Oom Pah Pah” in Oliver, and the ridiculousness of that contrast wasn’t lost on me even then.
Clubbing featured highly on my list of pastimes, and it was here that I first became aware of the power of scent. Okay, not all of the bottles that I smelled contained fragrance, but the scent of the perfumes released from excited bodies in the Vauxhall Tavern, 79 CXR, and of course Heaven, made a lasting impression on me; John wore Issy Miyake, David wore Fahrenheit, Mr P always dominated with Kouros. These laugh-in-the-face of adversity men became friends, I had thought they would be long-term friends, but all of them would be gone before the end of the decade.
Dying from HIV was not nice, and often all you could offer was a smile, a hand hold, and a cheeky wink. We were helpless to change the outcome, and many unfortunately just couldn’t hold on until that 1996 lifeline. This was the reason I had avoided certain fragrances. They brought with them emotions and memories, some of which had been boxed up in my mind for thirty years, and it also explained so much. It made me finally understand why I always smile when I smell Fahrenheit (David was wicked), and Kouros makes me look over my shoulder (Mr P was naughty).
The most important one though is the scent of Issy Miyake. When I smell this perfume I often have to physically stop myself following the person that is wearing it. The last time I ever saw John he said, covered in a cloud of fragrance outside 79 CXR, “I’m going now, and you won’t see me again. I won’t say goodbye, because then you’ll never forget me.” None of us ever did see him again, because he died the following year, but we’ve never forgotten him either. Without even knowing it, perhaps I always follow the scent hoping to have one last glimpse.
So, what do these ramblings from an ex-actor turned perfume writer come down to? Well I guess it shows that perfume is far more than a frippery. It’s the route to leaving an everlasting impression on the people around you. It’s a memory legacy that won’t be controlled, however much you try, and perhaps we shouldn’t. We box away our history, but all it takes is a small hole to start the contents flowing out. Realising this hasn’t changed me as a person, but it’s definitely made me conscious of how important fragrance has always been in my life.
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