'There was a little girl
And she had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead,
When she was good,
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.'
Every time i've done something even remotely bad I was wearing Opium by Yves Saint Laurent. It's something about that heady, musky oriental smell that dries down into a potent mix of jasmine and cloying tobacco that makes me want to do bad things. Well, bad for me anyway.
Opium is the kind of perfume that defines an era. For me it will always be the perfume of choice for my mother, the archetypal late 80s early 90s super-woman with big shoulder pads and even bigger hair, juggling career with baby. She could do it all, and she would do it all wearing that distinctive scent of bergamot, cardamon, jasmine and amber. Hundreds of other women just like her sprayed Opium onto their wrists and behind their ears and set off into the world to be the fiery temptress and do the strong, powerful things that opium made them do. I remember ads for Opium always featured nakedness in some way, as if the perfume was so powerful, and so bare (despite all the different scents vying for attention, from top note to base, i always, always smell jasmine, raw and fecund), it just made women shed their clothes left right and centre.
But, here's the catch, is it the perfume that drives me to temporary bad-ness or is it the image that the perfume conjures. They're not irrevocably linked, as one might suppose. In fact if you detach yourself emotionally from the perfume you see that the marketing of Opium contributes greatly to its power. One might go so far as to say that the perfume itself could not succeed without the publicity behind it. How many women, myself included, first picked up Opium because of something they had heard about it. How many women first tried the perfume because they were curious, and liked it because of the overwhelming sense that you should. I remember spraying it, gingerly, because I had seen the Sophie Dahl ad where she stretched out in ecstasy - wearing no clothes. I was fascinated, if a little embarassed. And when I first sprayed that Opium in stolen minutes whilst my mother played with my brother in the garden, I smelt something exotic and mysterious, adulthood, lies... It wasn't a particular beautiful smell, not like the perfect balance between wood, musk and floral in Chanel number 5.
So why do i keep wearing it? Because in more ways than one, it is the most powerful scent I've ever worn. It is a strong smell - 'heady' and 'cloying' are the two most apt descriptions of the first hit of Opium, and it inspires as much instant hatred as it does instant love. It's powerful metaphorically, considering the oriental allure of Opium to British colonialist, and the significant impact the drug had on Europe. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the perfume is akin to the drug, but it's definitely no coincidence that Yves Saint Laurent chose the dangerously addictive and overwhelming narcotic to front his latest perfume.
Though I may wax lyrical about the transformative power of perfume one need only glance at the selling statistics of the great perfumes to note its significance for women. An instantaneous, relatively inexpensive metamorphosis is the greatest attribute of perfume today. With just a spritz of, say, Opium, a girl becomes a wily woman. She becomes that woman who says so much with just one casual, supremely graceful, hand movement. The girl who exudes sexiness and mystery - that much desired combination - from every pore.
My question is, how much of this idea of Opium - of any perfume - is informed by the advertising campaigns that saturate our society? And, then, how much is informed by our own olfactory experience of the scent? Undoubtedly the exotic orientalism is present within Opium in the patchouli, the bergamot, the amber, the myrhh, but it begs the question whether the advertising images constantly reinforcing it through headscarves, reclining day beds, expensive silks and oriental patterns emphasised what was really just present. Similarly, do we identify Opium with sex because of the musk, the wood, the tobacco (favoured post-coital vice, one hears) and the earthy undertones, or because we've seen that Sophie Dahl ad, or the Kate Moss one, or the Maria-Carla Boscono one, where flesh is the currency and you're getting your money's worth.
With Opium, the kind of perfume where everyone has a story and just the merest whiff can take you reeling back to another time, I suppose the real question is why. It has been written that the reason Opium has such a potent effect is because when it was first released women wore far too much of it, soaking themselves in it and striding forth to conquer the world. The effect was nothing short of horrible, as Opium is worn by far too many people who really shouldn't wear it. And in large amounts you can only imagine the impact it would make. It's the kind of perfume that anecdotes surrounding entering lifts and being hit in the face with a huge wall of sticky scent are referring to.
I do bad things whilst wearing Opium. I sneak out of my house, I dance on tables, I flirt incessantly (which i never, never do), I fight with my friends. It's like the alpha female within me comes out to play, and I can't ward her off until the base notes, with their tobacco-y pungent-ness, die off. But do I do it because my brain is addled by the amber and I'm driven to all sorts of lip-biting insanity. Or do i do it because I've seen the advertisements, they've been absorbed into my subcobscious, and I'm forever trying to recreate that image (just as how Chanel number 5 drives me to a search for chic, and Stella by Stella McCartney inspires me to wear flirty little dresses and flash knowing little smiles). Or do I do it because I just want to, dammit?
Who knows. That's the mystery of Opium. I've written this whole blog post, and if you go home and spritz a little on you you're going to have a completely different experience to me. You'll smell things like Taragon and cloves, minty lily notes, and sticky honey. And then it begins. Well, enjoy the ride. Opium takes no prisoners.
X
And she had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead,
When she was good,
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.'
Every time i've done something even remotely bad I was wearing Opium by Yves Saint Laurent. It's something about that heady, musky oriental smell that dries down into a potent mix of jasmine and cloying tobacco that makes me want to do bad things. Well, bad for me anyway.
Opium is the kind of perfume that defines an era. For me it will always be the perfume of choice for my mother, the archetypal late 80s early 90s super-woman with big shoulder pads and even bigger hair, juggling career with baby. She could do it all, and she would do it all wearing that distinctive scent of bergamot, cardamon, jasmine and amber. Hundreds of other women just like her sprayed Opium onto their wrists and behind their ears and set off into the world to be the fiery temptress and do the strong, powerful things that opium made them do. I remember ads for Opium always featured nakedness in some way, as if the perfume was so powerful, and so bare (despite all the different scents vying for attention, from top note to base, i always, always smell jasmine, raw and fecund), it just made women shed their clothes left right and centre.
But, here's the catch, is it the perfume that drives me to temporary bad-ness or is it the image that the perfume conjures. They're not irrevocably linked, as one might suppose. In fact if you detach yourself emotionally from the perfume you see that the marketing of Opium contributes greatly to its power. One might go so far as to say that the perfume itself could not succeed without the publicity behind it. How many women, myself included, first picked up Opium because of something they had heard about it. How many women first tried the perfume because they were curious, and liked it because of the overwhelming sense that you should. I remember spraying it, gingerly, because I had seen the Sophie Dahl ad where she stretched out in ecstasy - wearing no clothes. I was fascinated, if a little embarassed. And when I first sprayed that Opium in stolen minutes whilst my mother played with my brother in the garden, I smelt something exotic and mysterious, adulthood, lies... It wasn't a particular beautiful smell, not like the perfect balance between wood, musk and floral in Chanel number 5.
So why do i keep wearing it? Because in more ways than one, it is the most powerful scent I've ever worn. It is a strong smell - 'heady' and 'cloying' are the two most apt descriptions of the first hit of Opium, and it inspires as much instant hatred as it does instant love. It's powerful metaphorically, considering the oriental allure of Opium to British colonialist, and the significant impact the drug had on Europe. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the perfume is akin to the drug, but it's definitely no coincidence that Yves Saint Laurent chose the dangerously addictive and overwhelming narcotic to front his latest perfume.
Though I may wax lyrical about the transformative power of perfume one need only glance at the selling statistics of the great perfumes to note its significance for women. An instantaneous, relatively inexpensive metamorphosis is the greatest attribute of perfume today. With just a spritz of, say, Opium, a girl becomes a wily woman. She becomes that woman who says so much with just one casual, supremely graceful, hand movement. The girl who exudes sexiness and mystery - that much desired combination - from every pore.
My question is, how much of this idea of Opium - of any perfume - is informed by the advertising campaigns that saturate our society? And, then, how much is informed by our own olfactory experience of the scent? Undoubtedly the exotic orientalism is present within Opium in the patchouli, the bergamot, the amber, the myrhh, but it begs the question whether the advertising images constantly reinforcing it through headscarves, reclining day beds, expensive silks and oriental patterns emphasised what was really just present. Similarly, do we identify Opium with sex because of the musk, the wood, the tobacco (favoured post-coital vice, one hears) and the earthy undertones, or because we've seen that Sophie Dahl ad, or the Kate Moss one, or the Maria-Carla Boscono one, where flesh is the currency and you're getting your money's worth.
With Opium, the kind of perfume where everyone has a story and just the merest whiff can take you reeling back to another time, I suppose the real question is why. It has been written that the reason Opium has such a potent effect is because when it was first released women wore far too much of it, soaking themselves in it and striding forth to conquer the world. The effect was nothing short of horrible, as Opium is worn by far too many people who really shouldn't wear it. And in large amounts you can only imagine the impact it would make. It's the kind of perfume that anecdotes surrounding entering lifts and being hit in the face with a huge wall of sticky scent are referring to.
I do bad things whilst wearing Opium. I sneak out of my house, I dance on tables, I flirt incessantly (which i never, never do), I fight with my friends. It's like the alpha female within me comes out to play, and I can't ward her off until the base notes, with their tobacco-y pungent-ness, die off. But do I do it because my brain is addled by the amber and I'm driven to all sorts of lip-biting insanity. Or do i do it because I've seen the advertisements, they've been absorbed into my subcobscious, and I'm forever trying to recreate that image (just as how Chanel number 5 drives me to a search for chic, and Stella by Stella McCartney inspires me to wear flirty little dresses and flash knowing little smiles). Or do I do it because I just want to, dammit?
Who knows. That's the mystery of Opium. I've written this whole blog post, and if you go home and spritz a little on you you're going to have a completely different experience to me. You'll smell things like Taragon and cloves, minty lily notes, and sticky honey. And then it begins. Well, enjoy the ride. Opium takes no prisoners.
X
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