I’ve been nuts about perfume & fragrance since I was a little girl. It all started with Hello Kitty.

Yep, that’s right. Hello Kitty – the white cat with a red bow. As a little girl of 5 or 6, I was obsessed with anything Hello Kitty (I’m not anymore) and I had a HUGE collection of Hello Kitty T-shirts, watch, camera, purse, hair pins… whatever you name it. One day, my mum came home with yet another HK item for me. It was a Hello Kitty perfume for kids.

The tiny milk bottle shaped flacon contained water like clear liquid inside. The thought of having my own perfume, my first perfume, seemed even bigger event than just adding another Hello Kitty to my collection. I’d been already fascinated by perfumes by this time and often dabbed my mum’s or aunt’s perfume in secret. Those small pretty bottles with amber coloured liquid lining up on the dressing table… When you lift the top, some divine scents whiff up in the air like a genie coming out of Aladdin’s lamp. It seemed so magical. And now I got my own!

When the dazzle of owning my first perfume settled a bit, I started noticing something slightly disappointing about my Hello Kitty scent. It was nothing like the grown-ups’ perfume.  It was harsh like a rubbing alcohol and it didn’t smell like one of my mum’s flowery perfumes…  I wanted mine to be sweet like real flowers.

Then I got a genius idea! Osmanthus! In our garden, there was an Osmanthus tree and the sweet scent from the blossoms was filling the autumn air. What if I put some blossoms in my perfume bottle? My perfume might smell like those sweet orange coloured blossoms! I gathered some fallen blossoms carpeting the ground and put them carefully into my Hello Kitty perfume…

Here I wanted to tell you that it smelt like heaven. You know what? Actually, I don’t remember it at all! I don’t remember if my little experiment was successful or not. All I remember was that eventually the bottle got empty and felt so sad about not having my perfume any more… but I have no recollection of the actual smell!!

Every time when I see Osmanthus in fragrances, I can’t help wondering about my long lost scents. 🙂

Some fragrances with Osmanthus note:

Evening Edged in Gold – Ineke
Hermessence Osmanthus Yunnan – Hermes
Osmanthus – Ormonde Jayne
Osmanthus – The Different Company
Fleur d`Osmanthus – Roger & Gallet
Osmanthus – Keiko Mecheri
Osmanthus Interdite – Parfum d’Empire
Powder Flowers – Montale
Osmanthus (Nara 1869) – Parfums 137
Parfum Prive – Aftelier
Happy Baby – House of Matriarch
Les Nombres d’Or Oud – Mona di Orio
1000 Kisses Deep – B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful
Au Lac – Eau D’Italie
Flora by Gucci – Gucci
Light Blue Dreaming in Portofino – Dolce&Gabbana
Osmanthus Blossom – Jo Malone
Narciso Rodriguez For Her EDT – Narciso Rodriguez
Fig Tea – Parfums de Nicolaï
1000 – Jean Patou
Nuit de Cellophane – Serge Lutens
Vince Camuto – Vince Camuto
Lale – Ys Uzac
Histoire D`Amour – Aubusson
Beautiful Love – Estée Lauder
Kinmokusei – Ayala Moriel