No madeleines for me, thanks

[kate_schaefer]

I'm doing a lot of cleaning in preparation for an allergy treatment in a bit more than a week. The treatment requires me to spend a few days before and after in allergy purdah, as completely segregated from everything to which I'm allergic as possible. The vigorous house-cleaning now is to get the level of dust down to as low a level as I can.

Going through the linen closet and getting rid of old stuff in the back of the cupboard is not really a necessary part of this process, but it's very satisfying to throw out old crap (vitamins that expired a decade ago? Trash! Trash! Trash!).

Tucked in a box of old stuff was a sample size bottle of Clairol Herbal Essence shampoo. I don't use it any more because it's scented, but when I was in my teens and twenties, it was my shampoo. It was what I smelled like. It was my youth.

Herbal Essence was a youthful shampoo in the sixties and seventies. It was a new shampoo then, marketed to appeal to the flowers and herbs and back-to-nature vibes of mass-market youth culture, right there next to the hippies making their own lavender-scented soap but without all that hard work. Now it's an old product; I have no idea if it's sold to young women still, or if its demographic has just aged along with it and the only people who still buy it are women my age. Estee Lauder has an old scent called "Beautiful" that has always been marketed with images of brides, but now it mostly appeals to very old women, or so the cosmetic counter clerk told me some years back when I bought some for my grandmother. It must appeal to somebody else as well, or they'd have to stop making it as that age group dies off.

I don't use anything scented any more, because I'm allergic to most of it. I was about to throw the bottle out, when suddenly I wanted to know: what did I smell like in my youth? Just one sniff, to find out.

One sniff and one benadryl later, I can report that whatever I smelled like in my youth, I'm allergic to it now. Nostalgia: not just sloppy thinking, but bad for your health as well.

Comments

[eleanor.livejournal.com]

I can still remember what it smells like.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

I think I could have remembered what it smelled like if I hadn't gone and smelled it, ya know? Now the remembered smell is overladen with the experience of being chemically whacked-out for a while.

Fortunately, my brain is still furnished with plenty of memories of my youth, many of them associated with harmless smells.

[eleanor.livejournal.com]

I think my teenager years were like riding the bus all the time -- I can remember the shampoo, strawberry perfume oil, and lemon body lotion. I don't know how anyone could tolerate being near me!

[vorona.livejournal.com]

I remember a collection of fruit shampoos called Earthborn, in strawberry, green apple, apricot, and avocado. Avocado was the freakiest concept (it didn't really smell much like avocados) but the apricot was wonderful. I immersed myself in it frequently, using it as a soap. Nothing like a little overkill.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Oh, lordy. I went on a high school Latin club trip to Italy when I was 17, taking my normal American wardrobe: mostly mini-skirts, a raincoat, one calf-length dress (a midi-skirt; are you too young to remember that non-trend?). I took the longer dress for those days when we were going into cathedrals, since I knew I couldn't wear the mini-skirts there. Slacks weren't an option; we'd been told upfront not to bother packing any, since women in Italy in 1972 just didn't wear slacks.

It only took a day of touring to make me realize that I needed the longer dress outside cathedrals, too, to convince Italian men that I wasn't a prostitute. You would think that an entire busload of American high school students would look like a busload of American high school students, rather than a busload of American high school students with an inexplicable scattering of prostitutes along for the ride, but apparently we looked like B rather than A to the men who saw us, and skirt-length really was the determinant.

So I wore the long dress every other day, airing it out as best I could, alternating with keeping my raincoat buttoned over my mini-skirt even though it was a little too hot for that, and dousing the whole lot in way, way too much cologne, since I couldn't do laundry during the tour. Most of the other girls on the trip adjusted similarly, and the unwanted attention level went way, way down. The smell on the bus went way, way up.

I threw the dress out when I got home. Nothing on earth could get the smell of stale cologne out of it.

[eleanor.livejournal.com]

I traveled through Europe when I was 16 (it was after 1972) and I seem to remember that I had mostly jeans and had trouble in some ocuntries, and that I had two long skirts "just in case," which I needed. This was after the midi era, and I think they were nearly ankle legnth in some sort of post-hippie, pre-punk way.

Herbal Essence(s)

[anitar.livejournal.com]

The Herbal Essence for sale now is not the same as the one we had back then. I loved that scent and even talked about it in my journal on the day I got laid off (because I found a bottle at Bartells that day).

Because I talked about it on the web, I've gotten a few emails from other folks who liked that original scent, too. I don't think you could find any now except some store like the one in Port Townsend that had every product they had ever stocked.

I think I might have had a bottle of fragrance spray that was that scent, back in high school or college.

Now they have shampoos and conditioners with that name, but scented specifically -- lavender, or orange blossom, or fruity. Not much herbal about it!

Re: Herbal Essence(s)

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

If it's a different smell, then it must still be aimed at the youth market and not at us middle-aged women who remember it from our youth.

[vorona.livejournal.com]

I remember it from when I was about 13. It was heavily advertised as being the essence of organic young womanhood... flowing hair and jeans. I liked the scent quite a bit, and also got the matching powder. It seemed very fresh. I hated my mom's Chanel #5, but I loved a friend's more old-fashioned White Shoulders, so I adopted that as my own, along with a violet scent I've never been able to track down, and an amazing scent from that time called simply Green Apple. But yes, I remember vividly what Herbal Essence smelled like, back then. I think the new version of it is a collection of different fruit combinations for different types of hair. I don't think they make the scent we remember from the 70s.

I would love to find Green Apple again - nothing comes close to that clear note.

This is surprising to hear this about Beautiful, because I see it advertised frequently in Vogue and most of the leading women's magazines, and to me it seems aimed at 20-40 year old women, from my impression of the layout.

The way my taste in fragrances has developed, I would rather wear something aimed at very old, preferably French, women, because I really enjoy old, classic, feminine scents. What I'm wearing most these days is a pure linden spray from France; my own blend of neroli, frankincense, rose, and amber; jojoba oil with a vanilla bean soaking in it (even the allergic can probably use this, it's just vanilla!) and an Israeli perfume called Selah, which is pretty heavy on the frankincense, so it blends well with the other stuff. I have a few things by Mandy Aftel around here, a moody scent called Cepes and Aftel's version of linden, which is darker than the pure essential note I prefer.

Oh, yeah, and I've soaked cocoa in vodka, and made a chocolate scent which I can also drink.

O.K., I need to get off the computer and get the dust out of my apartment now!

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Beautiful may well have been re-positioned in response to dropping sales. I avoid looking at perfume advertising these days, because so often it comes with scented cards, but when I did look at it, Beautiful was always, always advertised with a picture of a bride preparing for her wedding. Sometimes she'd be alone in a room, looking at herself in a mirror; sometimes there would be a flower girl or ringbearer with her, looking at the bride or handing her a bouqet, and sometimes there would be a mother or bridesmaid in the picture, but it was always about the bride preparing for the wedding, in the purest of white, imagery emphasizing virginity without even a hint that weddings are all about sex.

At whom are those images aimed? Maybe when they started, they were aimed at innocent young women about to get married, and maybe they worked for that audience then. Now -- where now means any time in my adult life, the past thirty-some years -- those images are utterly nostalgic and much more likely to appeal to an older woman looking back on the (mostly fictional) innocence of youth.

I like reading about your adventures in scent. It's the only way I can enjoy perfumery these days, in prose. You're right that vanilla would probably work even for me, though. The only completely natural scent I'm for sure allergic to is lavender, which is mildly tragic given how much I like the smell of lavender and how many lavender plants I had to rip out, and ironic given that lavender is frequently used by naturopaths to treat allergies.

[vorona.livejournal.com]

To make the vanilla-infused jojoba oil, just toss a vanilla bean into a bottle of jojoba. The Herbalist on 65th and 22nd is my favorite place to get jojoba oil - it's fresh, well-packaged, and less expensive than it is at other places. I use this vanilla jojoba oil for all kinds of skin care, even on my face. It has a mellow, comforting scent, and it's never irritating.

I avoid artificial scents and extra chemicals. 100 proof VERY cheap vodka in a spray bottle, by itself, makes an amazing cleaner for many surfaces - porcelain, tile, fabric, glass, wood. I'm using it all over for everyday cleaning and dusting now. No chemical residue or fumes, and no scent at all unless you add it. (I add vanilla and lemon extract to mine, for a cake scent, but it works fine without these.)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I am ineluctably reminded of the stories of when my aunt Saga cleaned out my great-granparents' house after my great-grandfather died. Saga found bars of still-wrapped bars of Lux soap between layers in the linen cupboards and tucked away in all the drawers and closets of the house. The idea seems to have been to let the scent of the soaps combat the smell of must and mold -- the house had a pretty bad case, until Saga went in and tore out a bunch of walls and so on.

My grandparents and aunt ended up using Lux soap for months if not years afterward, to use it all up. In fact, it was on a visit to my grandparents' house that I got addicted to the stuff -- it had a crisp, light, herbs-and-flowers scent that was much nicer than anything I could get in the States -- but eventually even Lux-of-Sweden changed the scent and now it is forever lost.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

My grandmother did that: wrapped bars of soap between towells in the linen closet, perfume ad cards from magazines in the clothing drawers.


My father used to hang bars of soap from the branches of trees to discourage deer.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, I'm allergic to shampoo.

Pretty much all shampoo.

Around about the Herbal Essence days, I got a sample of some shampoo or another, and washed my hair before going to a movie. I sneezed all the way through the movie.

Ever since then, I have vile reactions to most of the stuff in shampoo. I have to use laurel- and laureth-sulfate free shampoos, because nowadays doing otherwise requires albuterol.

Honestly, given the number of people with skin conditions, I'm amazed there aren't more shampoos without said sulfates, especially dandruff shampoos. Gah.

My solution is to use only the sulfate-free shampoos and have six or seven different options. Each hair washing comes from a different bottle than the last. If I sneeze afterward, into the trash it goes.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

You have six or seven options? Names, please!

I use Magick Botanicals oil-free, fragrance-free shampoo. Ingredients: water, alpha olefin sulfonate (would that be one of the sulfates that bother you?), cocomidopropyl betaine, cocomide MEA, methylparaben, and propylparaben. I used to use Granny's until they went out of business a few years back. I'm annoyed at having to use something called "Magick" anything; I'm not at all a woo-woo person, and the extra K pushes all my spelling buttons, but it's a set of products that I don't react to at all. So far.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

I'm not as fragrance-sensitive as you are, so some of these may not work for you.

Pravana (I buy this at the local beauty supply)
Jason (I buy this at my local health food/supplement purveyor)

Vitamin Shoppe carries several brands that work for me. They have two stores in WA, see if you can check them out.

I know what you mean about "Magick," but hey, good shampoo is good shampoo, especially if you're shampoo-limited like we are.

Pity Clinique isn't currently making shampoo; that's what I used for years.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

I may check these out. I'm not sensitive to shampoos per se, but I react badly to some deoderants and to certain combinations of soap/hair care products/deoderants. It's maddening to sort out. If only I knew which chemicals I was reacting to, I'd know what to avoid. I was fine for a long time until Arm & Hammer changed their formula (removing, incidentally, the baking soda).

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

They took out the baking soda? You don't want irony in personal care products.

[timalyne.livejournal.com]

I use the Jason one. Anything else gives me sores on my head.

So, may I ask what kind of treatment you are going through? I have a lot of allergies, myself, and I'm always interested in ways people are dealing with theirs. I was seeing a woman in Deerfield, MA before I moved out here who was helping me considerably. I haven't figured out how to replace her, yet.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

It's called Low Dose Allergen Therapy; it's variation on Enzyme Potentiated Desensitization. There's a fair amount of info about it at the web site of the doctor who has developed it in the US (it was originally developed in England in the sixties): http://www.drshrader.com/lda_therapy.htm.

Glenn went through a partial series of EPD several years ago, but stopped when Ruth and Amber moved in with us. His allergies are considerably better than they were before he started the treatment.

Our allergist has been through this treatment himself, and he has something of the enthusiasm of the convert for it. I hope it pans out; in recent years, I've been losing foods at a scary pace.

[timalyne.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested to hear how it goes. And, I'll look it up.

[bedii.livejournal.com]

I am a redhead. In high school, somehow we ended up with a couple of bars of Irish Spring--they must have been a giveaway. They ended up in my shower. I proceeded to get what almost all male redheads get from that misbegotten soap: a horrible itchy rash in an area you will never have to worry about. I was never that hot on scented soaps anyway because perfume counters gave me head-splitting headaches, but the chemist that dreamed that stuff up should be brought up on charges somewhere...

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Oh, oog oog oog oog. Sounds appalling.

Redhead skin is all scarily sensitive to everything. Glenn's hair isn't so gingery any more, but he'll always have redhead's skin with accompanying freckles, moles, and occasional pre-cancerous spots.

[klages.livejournal.com]

I used to use Herbal Essence in my youth as well. (We may have been washing our hair at the same time, only a few miles apart, and never known...) And I want to smell the old kind -- really a lot -- because the new kind just doesn't smell the same at all.

So if you haven't thrown out the bottle that you (unwisely) sniffed, please save it for me -- sealed in many layers of baggies or something -- and I'll get it from you in Portland next month.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Sorry. The trash has left the building.

I think, as far as I could tell in my allergen haze, that this wasn't actually the old old kind. I think it was a trial size bottle that Ruth picked up five or six years ago, which is old in get this old thing out of my closet terms, but not old in carry me back to old Virginny terms.