The plan was perfume. My very own. It should be easy, totally simple. Perfume, in my experience, was a magical watery concoction that represented what beautiful smelled like, plus flowers. My very own grandma had confirmed the flower bit, that indeed flowers provided the prettiness my nose was detecting. And I HAD those things. Water. Flowers. All the necessary ingredients. I mean, it wasnt rocket science.
So it was with great confidence and exuberant, naive expectation that I plucked the ivory blossoms of honeysuckle from the vine that tangled itself around our backyard's chain-link fence. The splashes of velvety red bumping up against the bottom of the fence caught my eye.Geraniums, I'd been informed. Their scent was subtle. Should I add? Well, they're flowers. They're red. Yes. Yes, more flowers couldn't possibly hurt. And by this time a container was in order.
I had the sort of grandma that saved more than she disposed of. Later on in life I'd overhear the word "pack rat" being used in reference to that very quality. I figure, now that I'm old enough to put it together, that the person sharing the living quarters with a woman who saved the plastic packages her bread came in might well have reason to use a generally negative word to describe her habit... but at the time, the only word I had for it was "handy". It sure came in handy, like when I had a wad of sweet-smelling petals just dying to be transformed into something fancy...and for that one needs a container of some sort. An empty, light brown Country Crock margarine tub was available, and just the thing for fancy-makin'.
There was a moment of befuddlement. Five minutes I'd diligently stirred, with a branch from our plum tree, the required ingredients of flowers and water. It smelled like....water. Like water that had recently had a fleeting thought or two of blossoms before losing it's train of thought. Hmmm. I was a smart kid, though, right? I could figure this out. Encyclopedias. They held the answers to everything, the veritable keys to the universe.A quick trek down to the basement would clear this up.
Indeed! I'd been concocting perfume totally ignorant of a major component. Alcohol! It stated right there on the page.... alcohol was a factor of major proportions in modern perfumes. Poor grandma, she meant well, but just didn't know a lot about fragrance, I supposed. No problem, I'd correct her ingredient list, politely so as not to offend, when I brought her what would soon be an exquisite scent of my own making. To the medicine cabinet!
OK, so surely there must be some mistake. Was it possible the Encyclopedia Britannica was as ignorant of perfume-making as my grandma? SOMETHING was up, something was very wrong. My perfume now smelled like the inside of our mercury thermometer case. My determination was unflagging, however. I would figure this out, then crown my success by writing a sternly worded reprimand to the Encyclopedia people. If they weren't sure of something, they should either conduct more research or admit their ignorance in an honest and dignified manner. There's just no excuse for covering up a lack of knowledge with nonsense, misleading trusting children and budding perfumers in the process.
Finally I hit upon the solution. One bit of information I'd read stuck with me, and seemed to make more sense than the rest. Something about flower extracts and essences. Where else had I come upon that word before... extract .... OH! Yes! The spice cabinet!
We possessed several, as it turned out, of these mysterious "extracts". Specifically vanilla, peppermint, lemon, and almond. Now the vanilla was a winner, right out of the gate. Who doesn't want to smell like a cake right out of the oven? Half the bottle should do. Stirred into the mess of honeysuckle and geranium petals, it nearly covered that horrible rubbing-alcohol smell. The peppermint and lemon were a bit too...well, medicinal, and I already had medicine in there, so...Almond. I was pleasantly surprised that an almond extract would smell like sticking your face into a big wet bowl of maraschino cherries. Jackpot! I had been conservative with the amount of vanilla, so I might as well go all-out with extract number two. Good thing we had two bottles.
Oh, the overflowing abundance of happy when I ended up with a tub of "perfume" that smelled just like a bakery on a Saturday morning!! The look on my grandma's face upon receiving a token sample of my homemade fragrance... priceless. I knew it was good, but I was overjoyed that the smell would render her speechless. I figured, from here on out, I'd better be careful with the formulas of my future works of art. I may be just a kid, but hey... that might give the folks at Avon or Estee Lauder the idea that it'd be easy to steal their next big fragrance from right under my gifted little nose.
