I’ve been good so far this year… if “good” means not buying any more perfumes when one already has so many, as alluded to by Undina’s recent Saturday Question. This includes (particularly) samples for me, because I usually end up feeling indifferent at best about most samples I try, while my lovely bottles sit neglected. So, I’ve been wearing perfume from my bottles.

Even in this disciplined scenario, ulterior motives lurk… while I wish I could say that each day’s mood and agenda directed my selections, the decision would often be driven by wanting to use something up, and I’d rotate between about three bottles that had reached roughly half fullness for a week before breaking the cycle and starting it again.

My relationship with “stuff” remains complicated, with strong leanings toward minimalism. I can’t stand clutter. I like to know what items I own and where they are. The philosophy of removing the junk, and elevating the things that are more special in some way, is one I find appealing.

In my personal experience, things are best preserved when they are either actively well maintained or kept close, even with daily use. The preciousss things that get stored away risk getting forgotten or damaged by any number of factors—humidity, dryness, heat, cold, UV rays, pests, oxidation, … if you love it, take it with you, I say.

Back in 2020, when I was attempting to create a library of perfumes I’d worn throughout my life, I bought a sealed bottle of the long-discontinued mainstream darling Emporio Armani White for Her, authored by perfumers Alberto Morillas and Annie Buzantian, on eBay for a price that would be considered reasonable for a niche fragrance. The desire to keep the packaging pristine outweighed the wish to smell it again, so it sat on a shelf… and sat… and sat.

Recently, I rearranged the shelf, and moved White. The package felt suspiciously light for a 50-mL bottle. Had it evaporated? Was this confirming my bias that trying to keep things in “mint” condition passively was a vain effort?

I finally tore open the plastic wrapper. White was launched in 2001, well before the days of mass conscientiousness about plastic and waste. The cardboard box within turned out to be slightly damaged. At least there was no worry of sun exposure, with these two containers protecting the opaque bottle that looked like a discreet air freshening device, with a silicone rubber covering sealed over the spray pump. A vaguely musky floral wafted to my nose upon opening the box, followed by a citrusy note. I gave the bottle a little shake and it sounded reasonably full.

It was probably around 2006 that I wore White daily until my bottle ran out. At the time, I was living in a studio apartment in Philadelphia. My most vivid memory of this perfume is picking it up from the mantel and spraying it on just before heading out the door, basking momentarily in its freshness—it would be gone and forgotten by the time I got back in the door later.

With some trepidation (or hope?) of what scent memories might be revived, I repeated the action. No flashbacks rushed forward. The top notes seemed to have gone slightly off, landing on a hairspray effect a bit reminiscent of Calvin Klein Contradiction. Fortunately, this artifact goes away, leaving a warm, sweet, woody floral musk.

Being out of practice parsing notes by scent, I looked them up, and the first top note was bergamot. Of course! This is perhaps the most prominent presence of bergamot I’ve experienced in any perfume, with a few exceptions from 4160Tuesdays (eg, The Sexiest Scent on the Planet Ever (IMHO)). This citrus is flanked by “orange” and “mandarin orange,” as well as cassia and black currant. Middle notes are ginger, iris, fig leaf, mint, and cloves; base notes are simplified to “white musk” and “white wood.” Iris! Fig leaf! My perfume note friends! As for cloves, I am happy that I did not detect them.

Surprisingly, I’ve worn White two days in a row now and have not rediscovered any memories from the time period in which I first wore it. Perhaps, in this case, that era is linked to stronger associations with other senses, particularly visual. The lack of longevity probably didn’t help this fragrance become a memory trigger, either.

White becomes even creamier as it warms up on skin, so I imagine it employs certain lactones along with the synthetic musks. To my nose, this fragrance is straightforward in retrospect, though not overly simplistic—an apt metaphor for how the aughts/noughties were for me. Yet, it does not smell dated today. It’s a welcome reprieve from the cold streak of ambroxan that seems so ubiquitous in modern fragrances, so I can mostly ignore the sense that it’s borderline too sweet for my current drier tastes (something I never noticed back then).

In other news, I recently bought a Rubik’s cube and memorized the beginner’s algorithm for solving it! The muscle memory took about four days of practice to build. It’s a great fidget tool.

Did you ever come across Emporio Armani White for Her?