YOUR ALLURE – WHAT’S YOUR FRAGRANCE

My Smell Obsession
I have always been fascinated by smells and perfumes as far back as I can remember. Watching my beautiful mum as a young child, getting ready for the many dinners that we constantly had for my dad’s international colleagues, she seemed to have a different perfume for every occasion and the smell would transform the entire atmosphere and as she would greet the guests, the comments would be around how lovely she looked and how nice she smelt.

I also recollect experiences with smells that left me gasping for breath and almost passing out at different points in time, smells emanating from house helps, drivers, previous colleagues, journeys on the London underground in the peak of summer, trying desperately not to have my nose stuck near or under an armpit, holding on tightly to the rails for dear life so as not to fall down on the train floor, and at the same time holding my breath for the fear of the waft that can only be described as pervasive and sweaty.

I also recall the smells from the laundry, clean and fresh. I love baking and my son always looks forward to the aroma that fills the whole house when mum is making her special “mamas homemade cakes”.

Smells Matter
Smells either draw you in further or cause you to withdraw. In fact, they matter so much that the size of the perfume industry globally is $38.8 billion US dollars. Why do we spend so much of our hard-earned cash on perfumes that only have an external influence to create a positive impression, it is because smells matter. This is a good place to look at the definitions of fragrance, smell and aroma. Fragrance – a pleasant, sweet smell. Synonyms include scent, perfume, aroma, odour etc.

Smell – the faculty or power of perceiving odours or scents by means of the organs in the nose. Synonyms include stench, stink, reek, fetidness, whiff, pong etc.
Aroma – a distinctive, typically pleasant smell, a subtle, pervasive quality or atmosphere.
Synonyms include smell, odour, fragrance, scent, perfume, whiff redolence, tang, savour, bouquet, nose.

The definitions and experiences I have had left me with an indelible belief that smells matter and can lead to a positive or negative impact. Everyone has a smell or fragrance that they leave behind every time they encounter someone, and it is important that we are aware of the fragrance that we are leaving when people encounter us.

My Story
I always marvelled at how my mum seemed to be good at getting on with everyone from the lowly in society to the highly placed in society. Although I never really asked her any questions around it, I observed that she was always interested in people, whether it was the security guard at the gate or the doctor at the hospital, she seemed to have a way with them. I recall going to the marketplace with her, stopping off at stalls to have conversations with her “customers”, asking about their lives, and trips to the bank with me feeling totally embarrassed because of the attention she drew.

She would walk into the banking hall greeting the bank staff, addressing them by their names and nicknames she has given them. As a child watching her interactions with people and seeing how their faces lit up made me appreciate the importance of treating people as individuals. My mum’s visits to the UK were always memorable for various reasons, especially her return to Lagos via the airport, usually coloured with me getting angry with her as she would have bought gifts for all her “people” without any consideration for her allocated baggage allowance. My constant and repeated warnings about her increasing luggage fell on deaf ears, making the airport experience a stressful one as she sought to take all the gifts with her, not wanting to leave any gift behind for her many recipients.

For her noticing people, valuing people, buying a gift, being thoughtful and recalling names was her way of leaving her fragrance wherever she went and with whoever she interacted with, leaving her “special” in her world. Her fragrance through her actions was showing each person that by virtue of being in her world and knowing her, you matter.

I have found myself thinking deeply about my mum’s fragrance now that she is no longer here and what fragrance I leave in my interactions with people, whilst I am not an extrovert like my mum, I am sure that in my unique way I can leave a sweet fragrance. fragrance.