Tropical Tales No. 9 - Vol. 3 - Perfumed Petals

If I could have inserted perfumed strips of paper as they do in Vogue magazine to promote their perfumes, I would have done it next to each flower in my newest release: POETIC PETALS, for I am a perfume freak, and it would be a terrific venue for promotional purposes. Imagine opening up to page 8 of my roses and smelling them. I am sure this technology already exists.

With hundreds of expensive French perfumes to choose from it makes it a difficult task for me to pick just one. That is why I have dozens of bottles of different shapes and colors, not to mention prices, sitting on my dressing table. One for every mood! So I thought I would have some fun writing this article on perfume, drinking champagne and smelling the scent of all the sample perfume strips from the magazine, since taste and smell are two interconnected senses. How delightfully sensual!

I prefer a blend of scents rather than a single note of one flower, as I find that I am not one-dimensional at all. You might classify me as a schizophrenic perfume wearer. I like the sensory shock I get when I open a bottle of a new perfume. I find Prada with its powdery scent to be one of my favorites, but I always go back to the House of Guerlain. They tend to have strong, nothing subtle perfumes, with perhaps the exception of their Jicky, a Jacqueline Kennedy favorite. Their perfumes seem to go with my intrepid character! No shyness blended into their notes. We tend to choose a scent that expresses our personality while having sniffing sessions at the perfume counter. As I confuse my nose with hints of lilac or bergamot in eau de parfum, while a very patient sales lady hands me different delicious strips of paper I stuff in my handbag, I remain clearly undecided. "I'll take these three because I can't make an intelligent decision while rushed." I rushed into marriage faster than I can decide on which perfume is more appealing to my senses. I can be very impulsive on occasion, but I like to slowly deliberate important matters like what perfume will be me! At least for a while, until I can change scents and be another persona when switching scents.

While you are not supposed to wear a perfume that rocks the room when you enter it, nowadays anything goes as class is quickly disappearing with the old antiquated Chanel No. 5, sprayed on the little black dress, carefully avoiding the pearls. Lavender and violet scents vanished with my granny's hairpin. The long lethal one she used to jab a man who exposed himself to her. Those were the days when we could defend ourselves without getting sued. Excitement generated by Tom Ford's Black Orchid, and a barely there little red dress, sans underwear, seems to be more in vogue these days with the likes of Britney Spears.

I have heard men say they loved the smell of White Shoulders, a perfume I considered too vulgar for my tanned shoulders. But I switch fragrances depending on the climate and country I am in. I can't resist buying perfume on airplanes and visiting airport duty free shops. I usually arrive home with 3 small bottles of perfume feeling extravagant when I wear it with shorts and a tee-shirt riding my bike around town, leaving a trail of expensive scent behind me as I negotiate the bumps in our Lighthouse Point sidewalks that the City can't or won't fix, despite the fact (meaning legal fact) that my Mom tripped and fell twice this year, breaking bones.

Different people react differently to my perfumes. I try not to wear any when going to the dentist or doctor's office out of respect for their noses. Some offices display signs: "If you wear perfume you will not be attended." I like people who are straightforward - you always know where you stand with them. I can't say I blame the physicians, they have enough problems to deal with these days in Florida. Some women tend to overspray. I can't imagine sitting next to one in closed quarters wearing a scent that was too heady. On an airplane it becomes unbearable and almost a reason for requesting the oxygen bottle. I labored for several years fighting the tobacco industry trying to stop smoking on airplanes, and proudly announce we were successful. Fighting the parfumeurs to stop putting scented strips in magazines would be a hopeless cause when you think of the mega money they pay for advertising. But the high I got from sniffing Black Orchid's wet sponge on the last page should last me for several issues of curiosity.

So if you can tell who I am by the perfume I wear, then I must be having an identity crisis because I wear six different ones a year, then buy the new ones as soon as they appear on a strip in a magazine. The same goes for wine tasting and traveling. Don't think of me as a stereotyped romance writer from Texas, a one-dimensional writer sticking to the editors' blueprints for writing romance, because I enjoy the ironic twist in life. We can't all be a Paris Hilton - I have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe that is why I live vicariously through the lives of my protagonists I write about in my novels. Some have a slightly dark undertone. No sense being too sweet and boring.

I noticed (not smelled) author Danielle Steel's new fragrance: "Danielle," and immediately thought of a signature perfume for myself. It would have to be romantic because I write romance novels, and it would have to be a zesty Florida citrus, like the orange trees the State of Florida stole from our garden, then I could call it: Alinka Stinka and charge an outrageous price like everyone else.

Alinka Zyrmont