102.

Does anyone remember, back in the sixth grade, when Bath & Body Works had just opened? And the idea of putting a scent - cucumber, melon, cucumber & melon - into everything from soap to candles was revolutionary and new?

Now, the homeless guy on the street outside my window wears chocolate pomade.

I, for one, hate the smell of these cheap perfumes. Making a good perfume is an art, and with the success of B&BW, all kinds of charlatans got in on the act. The result was the cheap over-odorification of all forms of public space. These scents were poorly conceived, poorly executed and - surprise, surprise - poorly received.

People hate , schmaltz-y sweet scents. I hate them. I hate walking past a girl who smells like a Starbucks Latte, one of those tweed-y haired teens who thinks her milkshake smell brings all the boys to the yard.

But unlike an (apparently) growing number of women, I don't think the answer is to step away from the spritzer altogether. After all, when worn properly, a good perfume can be lingering, beguiling, and - yes - seductive. It's the difference between smelling a Cinnabon from across the street and remembering, vaguely, a garden you passed years ago when you were walking from one place to another.

If sight is the sense that begets attraction, then smell is the sense that creates memory. I still remember when Scarlett's mother died, in Gone With the Wind, and for months afterward Scarlett couldn't shake the smell of "lemon verbena satchet" from her mind. I remember when I was little, my sister and I would remember the smell of some of my mother's silk saris - the smell of India is what we called it. A mix of spices and the strong starch that the tailors of her youth used to press in by hand.

Even now, the smell of a strong perfume I wore in Italy reminds me of that trip. And the smell of a particular hand sanitizer I took to Costa Rica reminds me of that trip. It's a subtle, beneath-the-skin reminder. It takes me a moment to remember what, exactly, I'm remembering.

And that's what a good perfume should be like. A memory before it even fades.
Something that works with and enhances someone's natural skin. Theirs, but also different. An olfactory signature.