Sam Scriven in Harlech… Her first Fragrant Awakening was Tauer Noontide Petals

My first olfactory memory is of wet cliffs after rain, with wet hydrangeas at the foot of them, looking as if they were covered in diamonds, at least they did if you saw sparkle in everything and were four years old, as I was then. We lived in a tiny cottage at the foot of a cliff in Harlech, North Wales. On top of the cliff was a mighty eleventh century castle, and at the foot of the cliff, a small white cottage with five of us living in it.  As a family, it was to be the happiest we ever were. In later years, my parents split acrimoniously, my siblings and I never lived together again and my Dad is no longer with us. The smell of wet stone conjures that elusive, fragile contentment. Damp, chalky cliffs, wet leaves and moss: I seek it everywhere like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

1970s Avon catalog

After we left the cottage with a cliff in its garden, the scents of my childhood were mostly created by Avon. We had different Avon ladies throughout the seventies and I thought they were glamorous enough to be on Charlie’s Angels with their silvery eye shadow and pencil thin brows. An Avon style Christmas consisted of trios of novelty soap, Pretty Peach talc and perfume, and Soft Pink bubble bath in its bumpy bottle. Avon recently discontinued their Soft Pink bubble bath and it was like a door slamming shut on my past. My early Avon obsession may explain my penchant for scents that are soapy and powdery, like a Seventies bathroom.

As a teen, with a proclivity for French, Art and berets, (Pretentious? Moi?) I was instantly drawn to 1987’s Cacharel Lou Lou and its enigmatic TV ad based around Louise Brooks. I wore it with a heavy hand throughout university: at breakfast, at lunch, on trains and in bed.  I was both guilty and ignorant of over spraying. All my daydreams smelled like this. I went through bottles of it the way people buy shampoo.

In 1991 I met Chanel Cristalle and all bets were off. We were together exclusively for twenty years. I often wonder how many people out there smell Cristalle and think of that ginger Welsh woman they used to work with/lost touch with/ got drunk with. I wore it throughout my London years: failed courtships, heartbreak, new jobs, old jobs, parties, house moves, Christmases and funerals. I can’t go near it now. It doesn’t relate to today’s life and my new start after so many false ones.

What stopped me wearing it? Children and money. It’s no coincidence that having children will eat up your fragrance budget. In fact, as soon as I had my first son, Freddie in 2006, I went perfume free until my new born was used to my unwashed bed smell.  A small baby meant my social life was cancelled for a few years so I didn’t bother much with perfume until we moved back to Wales.  The babies, (there were now two of them), were finally able to be away from me for short periods, leaving me alone to try and remember who I was. t was around this time that my writing fingers began to itch, desperate for a keyboard. I’d started to feel less invisible now the children were upright, walking and sleeping through. I attempted to get back into feeling like a woman again instead of a dairy maid and housekeeper. I wanted this chapter of my life to smell different, which is just as well, because any hope of owning Chanel had disappeared with the bills.

At the same time, I’d started purchasing small inexpensive fragrances and as if shot by Cupid’s arrow, everything came together and an idea began to form. I would write a daily perfume blog, detailing my journey into scent, sharing my impressions as I tried a scent a day, hence the blog name: iscentyouaday.

My long-time friend Lisa came over with three huge boxes of exotically named samples made by people I’d never heard of: 4160 Tuesdays by Sarah McCartney with their quirky names, a man called Tauer and someone Lisa referred to as “Uncle Serge”. It was as exciting as fresh snow without footprints and once I disappeared into these boxes, I never really came back out again. Falling down the perfume rabbit hole led me into a parallel universe I hadn’t seen before, yet it had been there all the time, like Muggles and magical folk.

One of the first niche fragrances I tried was a cult classic that Lisa loved: Tauer L’Air du Désert Marocain. My review caught the attention of Andy Tauer himself, who took a gamble on this newbie and sent me a tin of Tauer samples. I was beyond thrilled and fell in love with all of them. One of them, however, had an especially profound effect on me:  Tauer Noontide Petals. What was it about Tauer Noontide Petals that made me feel as it if it had been created just for me?  It was a hint of chalky wet cliffs, coupled with bright citrus and florals that brought home that garden in that tiny cottage in Harlech at the foot of a cliff, where I had been happy. It came rushing back to me as if a genie had taken me back in time. Tauer Noontide Petals and I were united at last. It was meant to be.

Sam Scriven of I Scent You A Day

My eyes had been truly opened to niche perfume. They made pictures appear in my head, they made me feel understood, or sometimes even repelled and sometimes as if I’d met an old friend. In fact, several niche perfumers have since become old friends, although there is one I have yet to meet. When I do, the dear Swiss chemist from Zurich can expect a proper Welsh hug from me for being the genie that took me back to where I was happiest.

–Sam Scriven, Guest Contributor writer and author of I Scent you a Day

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Editor’s Note: Our very first Fragrant Awakening was by former Deputy Editor Tama Blough  in 2014, and who passed away January 9, 2015. Her first niche perfume, Tauer L’Air du Désert Marocain was also by Andy Tauer, who seems to have created fragrances that have helped many enter the realm of niche perfumery. It was also Sarah McCartney’s suggestion that I reach out to Sam, and this eloquent article on Sam’s scented life and Tauer Noontide Petals. –Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief