Storage, or, A Trip Down Memory Lane

Am scrapping other posts in the hopper, as I was visiting the Perfume Posse this morning, where March summarized her approach to storage.

The wise thing would have been for me to read and move on.  But, as often happens, I feel compelled to open my mouth.  And, as often happens, I attempted to find the balance between responding and oversharing.

Guess which direction I failed toward?

And guess what I am going to subject you to today?  Further meandering on the topic.  I'll start with my comment:

Erm…more than one storage system. Should I really tell?

Because…there’s the first “discovery sets” I picked up from Perfumed Court. Which I keep, still in their category grouping (“roses” “101″ etc) stuck into sea salt which is in odds and ends vintage stemware. Then there are the miniatures and precious morsels, a.k.a. put in the bottle by the maker items, which stay in the velvet lined drawer in my dresser. Then there are the Precious Decants and Smalls, Influenced by the Early Years which reside in a place of honor in my, erm, lingerie drawer. (LOL…lingerie in my mind conjures images of pegnoirs and camisoles and other dainties…suffice to say they are well cushioned, but not so much by silk and lace.) A few full bottles in the front of the other two drawers.

Decants in boxes, loosely grouped by house, unless they are workhorses grouped by season, in which case they are likely to be in a bigger bottle anyway. Back up bottles (yes, I have as many as five of those) with odd vintage things (Intoxication, Hay, etc) up on the high shelf in the clothes closet.

Sigh. I almost feel like this is a confessional. I can almost hear the perfume years zing past…I remember when I first fell, I had a bottle of Norell (picked up at an estate sale as a curiosity in memory of my grandmother), a few samples plus the discovery sets, and then a full bottle of Magie Noire, my first “real” perfume since I had KL in college and Carolina Herrera from my wedding day. (I didn’t wear perfume then, but felt like I should have something for a wedding.) Husband purchased that for me the summer I fell down the rabbit hole.

Smile. As long as I’m confessing…there’s one more box. Not full. But overflowing with memories. I keep the perfume I purchased in Paris in that one, along with a vintage bottle of Apres L’Ondee that I split with friends who came to me via perfume but have become very dear to me.

Which would probably summarize the storage system overall. There is logic and method to it, but all considerations are subject to and generally molded by sentiment and history.

I didn't even bother to mention the whimsy of how certain splits end up out and on display.  They are there to remind me to play with them.  Unless, of course, they are carefully packed away, a game of hide and seek I play with myself when I squirrel away treasures to be re-found at another time.  The display:

Antique lipstick holder, a recurring item.  

Broken pottery, repurposed. 

 One of the stemwares mentioned in my comment.

Vintage manufacturers samples, about to be gifted for the new year.  Samples somehow mixed with other ephemera in an eggcup.  Samples from long ago, still in the (intact) cup where I first put them.  Because when/how they came into my life is sometimes a better way to retrieve from storage than "A-Z" or "Manufacturer" or "author."

Mind you, I admire Bonkers' perfume refrigerator.

Hmm, this one must be a misfit.  

These photos are mostly pictures from a favorite spot to write. The perfumes are not those that I generally wear, or that are "in storage."  They are..."in process."  

Kind of like me, when I am here.

I tried to speak about storage before, in this post ("Door #1: Ways of Storing").  Go there for more pictures, if you like.  There will be madness.

What I did not try to address before is what I recognized in my comment to The Posse.  Which is...I treasure memories.  And this exploration into perfume is mapped by memories as much as it is by scent families or style or even type of bottle.  Memories of where I was in the journey, to a great extent.  Memories of how a certain perfume anchors outward, certainly -- usually broader questions like does it connect to a geography/vacation/season? does it remind me of a certain friend, because they introduced me to it/helped me learn to love that scent family? does it evoke a certain period in my life?  But sometimes simpler ones, like "did I panic houseclean when this one was out and it ended up in my son's closet?"

And, it turns out I not only treasure memories, I have allowed myself to allow them to trump any Dewey Decimal style of organization that I might try.  A fair number of what I have are entered onto a spreadsheet, separated into sections labelled "Sample" "Decant/Partial Bottle" and "Full Bottle."  But not all.  A number of my "regulars" are sorted into boxes by season (warm v cold, basically), but not all.  

A number of my treasures are cloistered in the dresser.  But not all.  

treasures, yes, but whimsically collected here, largely because size allows

It occurs to me that if I end up fully charting, with this combination of words and pictures, in serial post form, I might actually accumulate a functional mind map.  A portrait of How Things Work in there, as it were.

(That laughter you here might be yours, but it most certainly the author's own.)

Anyway, I offer you sincere happy wishes for warmth and good cheer as the holidays wind up and the year winds down.  I'd like to give you a hint of what else is coming this week.

But I know enough now to know that what I would offer is the muscle of plans hung upon the skeleton of intent.  All of which would be subject to that little box of whimsy.


all photos author's own