The smells that remind us of our Mothers
A tribute and a remembering of the comfort (or discomfort) only our moms can deliver.
I know Mother’s Day can be hard for some and I generally hate these hallmark holidays. But our parents can also bring a lot of comfort and love in some cases, this post is celebrating that. I asked people what scents reminded them of their mothers and if they had any memories they wanted to share, thank you to all who responded! I love hearing about the memories that scents bring up for us and how much story telling is layered into fragrance. Here are some of your answers. Along with a personal essay I wrote inspired by my mom’s fragrance.
And some memories you shared:
“Giorgio Beverley hills. I remember us dashing around department halls with that scent. It was less the smell, which I didn't actually like as it was far too strong. But it was more the bottle and the yellow packaging and the fact it whispered about glamorous far-off lands that me and mum would probably never visit. It felt, in that way, like the smell of aspiration.” — Farrah @Substack
“My mom wore Jessica McClintock. I remember people always stopping her and asking her what she was wearing. It clearly worked well for her. I love the smell but it belongs to her I suppose, I wouldn’t wear it.” — Keelin
“Mom wore Calvin Klein Obsession, I think it’s why I have a soft spot for perfumes like Shalimar now. That kind of heavy amber and vanilla cloud feels so luxurious and brings me back to sniffing around my mother’s vanity. I don’t go for scents like that every day but sometimes I’ll wear them to bed and just drift away into nostalgia.” — Jennifer
“Mom smoked and would take 3 hours to get ready every day. If you had to talk to her before she “came down” you’d knock on her bathroom door and if the door opened, what looked like a smoke machine amount of smoke would billow out and you’d immediately get a mix of perfume, cigarettes, and trident gum. I must have gotten used to the smoke smell because she usually just smelled of perfume to me. Charlie is what I always remember seeing but I don’t know if that’s the smell I remember because there may have been other perfumes. She also wore a lot of jewelry so if I was close, helping her with any part of putting a necklace on, I remember the smell of jewelry metal as well.” — Jason
“Her perfume of course, but I can't describe that- ha, then hamburgers frying, and other food- like chicken divan and now her bread, that at 88 years old, she makes and bakes like twice a week and always slips a loaf into my luggage when I leave- it's a simple yeast and water bread, but she butters the pan, so the whole house smells like baked butter.” — Molly
“Really it was her skin products. Avon and olay and shiseido. She did have Chanel no 5 but I think it was so expensive that she rarely wore it!” — Jen
Youth Dew
I originally published this one on Fever Dream so some of you may have read it already.
We grew up in the suburbs where eating disorders were normal, where we were taught to fear our fathers but never really did. Mostly because they weren’t around all that much and our mothers were much scarier. They ran things, they garnered our respect immediately and all at once and we feared them and looked at them in awe.
Evenings out smelled like Estée Lauder’s Youth Dew. I can still smell that musky scent in my nostrils, the bottle shaped like a torso or an interpretation of a torso with a gold bow wrapped around its tiny waist. This smell meant mom had a date, this smell meant my older brother was stuck at home to babysit me. I didn’t sense his resentment then but his wife tells me now how much he hated that he had to be the father that wasn’t around. I was blissfully ignorant. Happy to have big brother pack my lunches, blow dry my hair, tuck me in, wrap me like a burrito in the blankets, and tell me I had nothing to be afraid of. Of course, he hated it —a young teen not being able to hang out with his friends on a Friday night. I wonder if he remembers Youth Dew, I wonder if that smell means something entirely different to him.
Mom with her beautiful dark black hair before she started dyeing it red, she was the thing I thought all women should be. I wanted her to have a good life, I knew if she was happy we would probably end up happy too. And I knew that not everyone has the same luck. Especially in the suburbs where some houses are right next to the highway and some are at the end of the cul-de-sac secluded from noise and nosey neighbors.
Mom did get happy and we moved into a new place, into a house that never stopped being built. We lived in a construction site for a lot of our years there in that big white rambling house that felt too big and too small and was always somehow expanding. I learned there that drugs were bad just like Nancy Regan said they were but they were also something you should try for yourself. So I did but had learned enough from my older siblings to be smart about it, to not do the hard stuff, to lie to mom when you came home about what you were doing, and not run right to your room which would always give you away.
Too many siblings can be a good thing but it can also be a bad thing. It’s easy to get lost when there are a lot of you, it’s easy to recede into the background and hide there. I learned that skinny was pretty and even as an adult the same holds true. You learn a million tiny things as you get older that break your heart. The adults never really knew what they were doing although I think I knew that even when I was younger. That things change, that not everyone has the same luck or the same stuff and sometimes you have to give up your favorite dog for a different life with a pool and more siblings and pigeons and a kind stepfather and sometimes that will make up for all of it but sometimes it won’t.
When you get older there isn’t a map you’re given that says this way to adulthood and even when you're 45 you will feel like you are 22 some days. And you will always feel bad about not calling your mom enough. And your dad will try to make you feel guilty but you will not feel guilty because you remember he was not there. You have a loyalty to your mother you never felt towards him. And she is older now and just as beautiful and you have looked past your differences and connected on the things you both have, the similarities you can not deny. We are witches she often says, every time you guess a thing before it happens, we dream dreams that come true, we can talk to the dead. And you believe her because she got you here even while she was batting away all the bad things, she got you here in one piece.
You remind her of Youth Dew as you buy her that new perfume she wants for Christmas— this one is called Alien and it’s not a scent you would pick out for yourself or even her but it immediately smells like her, like this all-knowing adult that’s lived a thousand lives and has a million secrets and somehow always manages to keep you all fed and full.
LOVE
Lovely memories! My Mother didn’t feel she had time for fragrances. However, once she did buy a Narciso For Her body cream. I was so surprised! She focused mainly on skincare and used La Mer. Before she passed, she was going to purchase Shiseido skincare next. One of my Aunts wore Youth Dew. Another aunt loved Oscar De La Renta. My Mom had a bottle of that.