The Scent Of An Almost Woman

I don't like to smell like me and in turn I like to smell of whatever beautiful creations fashion houses and brands come out with year after year. The perfume market is saturated and there are so many scents I dislike or don't mind but not very many that I love. There is a small, rather unfortunate problem - I don't like spending money on perfume. I was brought up in a family where all of the women wore Chanel No.5 and while it is truly my favourite scent both for it's actual perfume and for it's nostalgic properties I feel like I am still too young to wear it. I keep telling myself that at thirty I will become a woman and at thirty I will buy a bottle of Chanel No.5.

But now I'm stuck. I'm mid-twenties with a pinched purse and no real desire to find 'the scent' as I've found it. No matter what scents I love I'll never stick with it for more than a few years and while I have people around me telling me 'that's okay', I can't bring myself to pay £40 for it. In the past I've flirted with many scents, my latest flirtations excluding Lady Gaga's fragrance which I won't own until Christmas displayed in the first photo. In order they are NEXT's Cashmere EDP, Paco Rabanne Black XS and Sarah Jessica Parker's NYC.

I adore NEXT's Cashmere and was encouraged to buy it a few months ago while shopping with a friend who swears by all of NEXT's EDP's. It reminds me of cosy jumpers - quite a grown up scent but one for daytime, no doubt. Black XS was something I once sniffed in The Perfume Shop two years ago and liked but only ever brought myself to the brink of spending when it was on a £25 gift set deal with a big bottle. I wear this mostly every day for both day and evening but I don't want to finish the bottle too soon as I doubt I'll be able to throw myself into buying another. The SJP NYC smells childlike, of strawberries and general youth. It's sickly, not terribly unpleasant but one I've grown to dislike more and more. I keep a bottle around because it reminds me of my best friend but do I wear it often? No.

That random tiny Vanilla perfume from The Body Shop? That's been 'my fragrance' since I was fifteen so, a decade. They've discontinued it and this is what is left of my final bottle. It's here because it's the only scent I can attribute to 'feeling like me' with nostalgia over Chanel No.5 and while it may be gone, it certainly won't be forgotten. That scent reminds me of road trips, broken hearts, lost viriginity, death and life and everything in between so if anyone comes across a bottle feel free to tweet me and I'll send you the money including P&P because if anything is going to see me through these next five years until thirty, it had better be this.