eglantine

[maribou]

There is a picture of me taken shortly after I learned to walk wherein I am bent more or less in half, deliberately faceplanted into a fulsomely petaled yellow-pink rose. That's the earliest evidence on record of my rose-sniffing habit ...

I still poke my face into every rosebush I walk past along our street (and the whispered rumors that the amazing mostly-rose garden on the corner of our block was a major reason why I picked our house - knowing I would get to walk past it twice a day - may in fact be substantiated), but I developed an allergy to all rose-smelly things that aren't actually roses about 5 years ago, and I was very sad that I couldn't have rose soap or rose perfume or rose bubbles or rose candles anymore. Plus I seem to lose at least one floral scent to the land of instant headache every few years, and that was one of the last ones I really loved.

Except tonight I opened up a rose jar candle on a borrowed desk, because I'd been looking at pictures of sweetbriar and I really wanted to smell me some roses and sometimes the sense memories are worth the headache ... and it was unexpectedly oily, and I got it on my hands, and I've been surreptiously sniffing my fingertips for at least twenty minutes ... and I don't seem to be allergic one bit. One has high hopes, and is glad the vendor is still in business.

Comments

[jodawi.livejournal.com]

A rose I smelled once was the most perfect thing ever to sniff. Until then I disliked roses because everyone was too gaga about roses.

Nose more dead now. Most roses I can't smell at all. I get allegedly heavily scented ones to plant in the yard and can kind of detect something nice.

[maribou]

I've found that cut roses are frequently bred for form over function (in some giant flower warehouse somewhere) and don't smell at all, even to someone like me who can always smell normal ones...

I'm sorry your nose doesn't work as well as it used to:(. That would make me very sad.

[dianthus.livejournal.com]

As I understand, it's usually "vase life" vs. scent.

[maribou]

That makes sense.