Dr. Ally/Allie Louks

Now, I could be wrong about this, but the 1980s were really the time when a lot of kind of ordinary middle class people

decided to buy fragrances to use.

So obviously women have always worked.

They've always performed labor in various ways, but the 1980s saw women going into professions and jobs that they hadn't been able to before.

And there were certain perfumes that were very much kind of marketed towards those particular groups, these kind of new professional women at relatively affordable prices.

So I'm thinking of like Reeve Ghosh and Charlie, and they kind of became almost synonymous with that new style of femininity, which was like, take me seriously, but also I still want to smell like a woman.

there's only one fragrance to wear when you're living in a fast lane and that's charlie and so you got those kind of fragrances were pretty overpowering in general they're still pretty much on the market but they've all been reformulated since their initial conception but if you smell kind of the original decants they're they're quite strong as with everything you know in fashion music smells and our smell preferences are

change over time.

And so we now don't have quite so many floral notes in the average perfume than we would back then.

We're now kind of in the era of the gourmand in general.

Yeah.

The thing that is interesting, I think, about fiction is that it's quite rare to come across references to specific perfumes.

But there are examples.

I mean, Toni Morrison in her novel Tar Baby references Chloe, like the brand Chloe and that very, very famous original perfume brand.

What I would say about perfume and exclusivity and classism is that obviously these kind of luxury brands...

are making you pay much more than you need to but there are alternatives there are affordable alternatives and there are so many more brands who are doing things affordably now you know you can buy a sample for like one or two pounds and it will last you a week's worth of wear and

That's so interesting.

Yeah.

That's so special.

I'm so glad that you shared that.