One of the neat things that the guys from ScentBar do is have themed events every couple of months. This past weekend was an especially fun one focusing on scents from the 80’s; you could call it “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”
The staff reached out to customers to bring some of their stash as well as their own, and making a couple purchases downtown. I had forgotten a lot of these scents, still have some of them and still live in fear of a few. While the decade was mostly known for powerhouse scents like Opium, Poison, and Giorgio, it also premiered scents like Eau de Hadrien, Barneys Route de Thé and Baie de Genièvre. I still wear some of those 80’s scents and it was kind of a trip to smell some of the others: smelling Giorgio again took me right back to the corner of Rodeo and Dayton back in ’84 when it would be occasionally pumped out of the store of the same name. Smelling the mens version of Lagerfeld reminded me of how ubiquitous it was amongst the boys. West Hollywood and West Village bars reeked of it: most of the guys at Dynasty Wednesdays at Uncle Charlie’s smelled of it (a friend of mine gave a bottle; I never told her that I absolutely hated it and sold it to a coworker.)
But the biggest treat was getting to smell one of my holy grails: the original (and sadly reformulated/reissued) Patou Pour Homme. I had a bottle back in the 80’s and loved it. I was so sad it was discontinued. Someone who has a small amount brought some in and let us smell it on the blotter. Notes (from the indispensable basenotes🙂
- Top Notes
- Hot pepper, Lavender, Tarragon, Black pepper, Bergamot, Galbanum
- Middle Notes
- Bourbon vetiver, Cedar, Patchouli, Clary sage
- Base Notes
- Oakmoss, Sandalwood, Mysore, Cistus labdanum
Obviously, with ingredients like that the chance that it will ever come around again and that is really too bad. I only wish I had known beforehand that I would never be able to get more: I’d have gotten a couple of bottles when I could. Of course, you can get it on eBay, if you’re willing to pay what you would to lease a Mercedes for a month. I just can’t..
So what are your favorite 80’s scents? Let us know in the comments.
Oh, one funny thing happened- a very nice lady I’d met at the perfume event last year asked me very nicely if I had dressed especially for the event or done my hair. She said my hair was very big and the “preppie” look was very big in the 80’s. I had to explain that my hair is naturally big and I just haven’t changed the style (or for that matter brands) of clothing I wear since I was old enough to find read L. L. Bean catalogue. You can take the boy out of New England but you can never quite take the New England out of the boy..
Images: My iPhone
In the late ’80’s I worked at a comedy theater and there was a regular patron who manufactured perfume. He would bring me a box of perfume (without the fancy bottles) in return for my reserving him good seats. I knew nothing about perfume at the time (other than that my roommate wore Poison). The perfumes in the box were Bijan, Ysatis, Jessica McLintock, and one other that I can’t recall at the moment (it started with an A?).
Just remembered the 4th – it was Sung by Alfred Sung (there’s the A).
Wow. That’s great. How about a scent that reminds you of all that hairspray? Or the metal snap bracelets?
I was born in the early 80’s and was a little kid throughout. Perfume wasn’t exactly on my radar but I remember all the big hair and neon clothes though.
The Scent Bar sounds like such a great store – I like it how they seem to have a bit of fun. If I ever get to LA it’s definitely on my visit list. My 80’s scent memories are of my mother’s Poison – which I used to spray occasionally when she was out. I actually have really fond memories of this one and am frequently tempted to buy a small bottle. Apparently it smells really different now – so they say. My other 80’s memory is Opium – my first boyfriend gave this to me as a birthday present and at the time I remember that it seemed to old for a 16 year old but it did make me feel quite glamorous (although I definitely wasn’t at all)! I really wish I’d kept my bottle of this now that I’ve gone down the perfume tunnel of love.
i do believe the eighties, outside my own simple essential oil blends and the aforementioned Aveda Purefumes, the rest of the high school hallway went something like: PoloPoloPoloDrakkarNoirPoloPoloDrakkarNoirPoloPoloBennettonPoloPoloDrakkarNoir
I wish I could be there! I used to love Eternity by CK and Beautiful by EL… Goodness, has it been such a long time ago?
Ha Ha ha! Hilarious. You are a big haired beauty, and those perfect teeth must have you RADIATING movie star Tom.
Portia xx
What a great place Scent Bar must be!
My favourite 80s perfume was – and still is – Eternity. I know this divides opinion, but I loved its spicey carnation softened with white florals and it was so very different from that other massive 80s fragrance, Poison, which used to make me feel really sick (although I think I might like it now!). My boss was so proud of giving me a bottle of Poison that first Christmas it came out, and even now I get pangs of guilt for getting it swapped at the department store for something else.
Sadly, like your Patou, Eternity has been reformulated and the current version is like bug spray (I’m glad I’ve still got some older bottles). Eternity didn’t last for ever ………